modern science, Lord Bacon, who would have had every thing
dedicated alike to " the relief of man s estate and to the glory
of the Creator."

There are but few passages more striking among the volumi
nous writings of Bacon which are left to us, than the little
" Student s Prayer," as he entitled it, which he seems to have
composed while he was engaged on his " Novum Organum"
and his " De Augmentis Scientiarum." After some formal
opening phrases, he proceeds : " This also we humbly and earn
estly beg, that human things may not prejudice such as are
Divine ; neither that from the unlocking of the gates of sense,
and the kindling of a greater natural light, any thing of incre
dulity or intellectual night may arise in our minds toward the
Divine Mysteries ; but rather that by our mind thoroughly
cleansed and purged from fancy and vanities, and yet subject
and perfectly given to the Divine Oracles, there may be given
unto Faith the things that are Faith s. Amen."

Such words these very words might well be inscribed on
the walls of every student s chamber, and of every hall of
Modern Science. They breathe a spirit worthy of being de
voutly cherished by all who deprecate any needless conflict, or
wanton contention, between Science and Religion.

It was in this spirit, as I well know, that our illustrious
Founder endowed this Institution. It was in this spirit, as I
remember well, that President Walker advised its acceptance,



506 THE PEABODY MUSEUM.

and urged upon me the appointment of Jeffries Wyman as its
Curator. It was in this spirit, as we can all bear witness, that
the lamented Wyman himself pursued his work and prosecuted
his investigations. And, certainly, it is in this spirit, that,
having counselled and co-operated with them all, I shall main
tain my relations to the Museum, agreeably to Mr. Peabody s
assignment, as long as life and health shall enable me to watch
over it. And may the blessing of God rest upon all our counsels
and labors !



GENERAL THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.

EEMAEKS AT THE ANNUAL MEETING, BOSTON, APRIL 15, 1878.



ON my return, Gentlemen, from a short journey last spring,
I found myself most unexpectedly announced as the President
of this institution. Had I been at home when the election oc
curred, I should have excused myself from the office. But I
have been unwilling to withdraw hastily from duties which have
been rendered so light and easy by the untiring devotion of your
Secretary and Librarian, Mr. Farnham. To him the institution
is indebted for its earliest suggestion, and for its successful man
agement during the whole period of its existence. Its broad,
catholic character opening its shelves to volumes on all relig
ious creeds, and its doors, at a very small assessment, to all who
desire to consult those volumes commends it to the favor of a
Christian community.

This is, I believe, its sixteenth annual meeting, and the Secre
tary, in his report, will sufficiently inform you of the progress
which has been made in accumulating a library, and in obtain
ing the means for its preservation and usefulness. He will not
fail to inform you of the liberal bequest which has recently come
to us by the will of a most estimable lady, the late Mrs. James
W. Sever.

We remember, also, with gratitude, the large contributions of
books and of money which we have received from the late Rev.
Dr. Charles Burroughs, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. He
is entitled to be recorded as the founder of the Library and
its largest benefactor. He was also its first President, and con-

[5071



508 GENERAL THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY.

tinned to preside over the institution for nearly six years, and
until his death in March, 1868.

For the nine following years, and until the last annual meet
ing, the office of president was held by the Hon. Edward Brooks,
who died on Thursday last, the llth instant, in the eighty-fifth
year of his age. We owe it to ourselves, no less than to his
memory, to make respectful and grateful mention this morning
of his valuable services ; more especially as we had no oppor
tunity of attending his funeral, which took place, without pub
lic notice, at Medford, the old home of his father, and of his
kinsman, -the late Governor John Brooks, on Saturday last.

Mr. Edward Brooks, our late President, was the eldest son
of the Hon. Peter C. Brooks, so well remembered in this com
munity as one of Boston s wealthiest and most eminent men of
business, and of whom an admirable memoir may be found
among the writings of his illustrious son-in-law, Edward Ever
ett. He was graduated at Harvard University in 1812, in the
class with those beloved pastors, Dr. Henry Ware, Jr., and
Bishop Wainwright, and with the venerable Peleg Sprague,
who so long adorned the bench of the United States District
Court, and who is now one of the few survivors of his associates
in college.

Mr. Brooks was one of the Representatives of Boston in the
Legislature of Massachusetts forty years or more ago, where, as
a member of the same body, I was in the way of witnessing his
ability as a debater and his earnest interest in the affairs of our
Commonwealth. He was afterwards, I believe, a member of
our State Senate.

. But the health of his wife compelled him to break off from all
pursuits at home, and to spend many successive years in foreign
lands. It will not be forgotten that on his return he presented a
very striking original portrait of Franklin to our Public Library,
which is among the gems of that noble establishment.

He was a man of vigorous intellect, of great reading, and of
many varied accomplishments. He took a warm interest in this
Library, and made repeated contributions to it of books and of
money. There are those present who will bear witness with me
to his punctuality, fidelity, and courtesy in presiding over its



GENERAL THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY. 509

administration. The infirmities of advanced age constrained
him to resign his relations to us little more than a year ago, and
he has now followed to the grave, after an interval of only a few
weeks, his younger brother, the late amiable and excellent Mr.
Sidney Brooks.

The Secretary of our institution, or some one of our Directors,
who has been a sharer of his labors in our behalf for more years
than I have been, will present Resolutions for your adoption,
which I am sure will meet with your unanimous acceptance.



WILLIAM C. BRYANT.



REMARKS AT A MEETING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY",

JUNE 13, 1878.



THE death of the venerable WILLIAM C. BRYANT has been
announced in the public papers this morning, at too late a
moment before our meeting, to allow any of us to speak of it, or
to speak of him, as we should desire to speak. But as we are not
likely to hold another meeting for several months, I am unwill
ing to postpone all notice of so impressive an event.

A native of our own State, and long an honorary member of
our,own Society, his death may well find its earliest mention
here, even though our tribute be brief and inadequate.

As a poet, as a journalist, as a patriot, as a pure and upright
man, living to an almost patriarchal age, yet never losing his
interest, or relaxing his efforts, in whatever might advance the
honor or welfare of his fellow-men, he has won for himself an
imperishable remembrance on the page of history.

No one, certainly, as long as our language shall be read or
spoken, will forget the author of " Thanatopsis," " The Water
fowl," and " The Land of Dreams," to name no others of his
poems, or ever cease to be grateful for those inspiring and
exquisite strains.

His loss is, indeed, primarily and peculiarly that of our great
sister City and State, with whose interests and renown he has
been for so many years identified. But his name and fame have
long ceased to be local, and his death is nothing less than a
national bereavement.



WILLIAM C. BRYANT. 511

I forbear from attempting any sketch of his life or labors, lest
I should fail at such short notice to do justice to his memory.
But as there has been no opportunity for a meeting of the
Council, from whom such a notice should come, I venture, on
my own responsibility, to offer the following Resolutions :

Resolved, By the Massachusetts Historical Society, that, in
the death of our distinguished honorary member, William Cullen
Bryant, our country has lost a patriotic and noble citizen, the
press an accomplished and powerful journalist, and American
literature one of its earliest, purest, and most enduring orna
ments.

Resolved, That, while we remember with pride that he was
born in Massachusetts, and educated at one of our own Colleges,
our warmest sympathies in this bereavement are due, and are
hereby offered, to the scholars and to the whole people of New
York, with whom he has been so long and so eminently associ
ated, and to whom his genius and his fame have been ever so
justly dear.

Resolved, That these Resolutions be communicated to the
New York Historical Society, with the assurance that our hearts
are with them in lamenting the loss, and in doing honor to the
memory, of their illustrious associate and Vice-President.



SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE CLASS OF

1828.

ADDRESS AT THE DINNER OF *THE ALUMNI, JUNE 26, 1878.



I AM greatly honored, Fellow Students of Harvard, by this
kind reception. I thank you, Mr. President, for the compli
mentary words with which you have called upon me. I hardly
know how to make any adequate acknowledgment. But, in
deed, my friends, I cannot help feeling that I have already
contributed my full share to this entertainment in having
secured for it, by a most fortunate intervention, the presence
and assistance of our illustrious guest, the Governor-General of
Canada. 1 I must, certainly, be pardoned for indulging in all
the pride of the sexton in the old story, who, while his congre
gation were in raptures with an impressive and eloquent dis
course, was heard boasting that he had, at least, pulled the bell
for it. We all knew something about the felicity of the noble
Earl s speeches, in more languages than one, before to-day. We
were all familiar with his inimitable Latin speech at an Icelandic
dinner, as reported by himself in one of his charming " Letters
from High Latitudes." And many of us had not failed to
observe, very much more recently, that when he received a
degree at Montreal, like that which has been conferred on him
here this morning, he made his acknowledgments in the choicest
Greek. But now we have been privileged to hear him in that
dear mother tongue of New England as well as of Old England,
which is fast becoming the common speech of both hemispheres ;

1 The Earl of Dufferin.
[512]



SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE CLASS OF 1828. 513

which has just achieved a new triumph in being employed by
Bismarck, as well as Beaconsfield, at the Berlin Congress ; and
which, though it may not quite yet have reached the dignity of
being the court language of the world, must always be the lan
guage for those who would study, in the original, the great
principles of liberty and law, and the glorious history of free
institutions and free men, the language of Washington and
Franklin and Webster, as well as of Chatham and Burke and
Fox and Sheridan. God grant that it may ever be a bond of
love and a pledge of peace betweeji the nations which are alike
privileged to call it their own !

But I must not be betrayed into any random utterances or
miscellaneous discourse on this occasion, or into following any
train of thought which may have been suggested by those who
have preceded me. I am here in special trust, charged to rep
resent the class of 1828, and to say such few words as I may be
able to say at all, in strict reference to our Golden Wedding, on
this fiftieth anniversary of our marriage to the Muses, whom we*
had courted for four years previously in the shades of Harvard,
and from whom we won, after all, on that occasion, only a
Bachelor s Degree !

I am here to represent a class of fifty-two members, of whom
eighteen or nineteen only are still living. I may not forget that
I had no original claim to the distinction of being their spokes
man, as my rank was No. 3, not No. 1. But, of the two who
were above me, one has long been sleeping in his early grave,
the brilliant and excellent Charles Chauncy Emerson ; while
the other my accomplished friend, Mr. Hillard is, to the
regret of us all, too much of an invalid to venture here
to-day.

Let me recall that Commencement, on the 27th of August,
1828, in a few words, that you may be able to contrast it with
the one we are enjoying at this moment. It comes back to me
as vividly as if it had occurred but yesterday. There was no
President of the University on that occasion. What should we
have done without our young and vigorous President to-day!
The revered and beloved Kirkland had resigned a few months
before, and Josiah Quincy of whom, I rejoice to say, we are

33



514 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE CLASS OF 1828.

at last to have Story s charming statue to adorn these halls
had not yet been chosen to succeed him. The venerable Henry
Ware, the Hollis Professor of Divinity, sat in the antique
Holyoke chair, looking almost as old as the chair itself, and
with a shaking head and trembling hand delivered to us our
diplomas, which bore his signature as Vice-President of the
College. Around him were the veteran Professors, Hedge and
Popkin and FarraT and Channing and Willard and the rest, and
the old members of the Corporation, Dr. Porter and Judge Story
and Dr. Bowditch, with Levi Lincoln, as Governor of Massa
chusetts, and all the other notables of the Commonwealth and
the neighboring city.

But if we had no President of the University, we had a Presi
dent of the United States to grace our Commencement, our
own John Quincy Adams, then in the last year of his Presidential
term, though, as I rejoice to remember, with many grand years
of public service still opening before him. And with him on
The stage that day was the Hon. Andrew Stevenson, of Virginia,
then the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United
States. These were the two most distinguished guests at our
Commencement, the two principal figures which filled my eye
then, and which fill my eye again to-day, as I turn it back upon
that well-remembered scene. How little could either of them
have dreamed that, before twenty years had passed away, a
certain young man, who shall be nameless, whom they then
heard speaking somewhat disparagingly of " Public Station,"
should be occupying the same high chair which one of them
then held, while the other, full of years and of honors, should
fall in addressing him, and die in his official chamber at the
Capitol ! !

That Commencement was a day of prolonged literary exer
cises, beginning at ten, and hardly ending before four o clock.
Here is the original printed order of performances, the same
which I held in my hand fifty years ago. There were no less
than thirty-two parts, only two of which were excused. We had
but nine speakers, in all, this morning. Good Dr. Pierce, so long

1 Winthrop s Addresses and Speeches, Vol. I. p. 614.



SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE CLASS OF 1828. 515

the secretary of the Overseers, and the liner of the psalm at the
dinner table, was at his post, with his note-book and pencil, to
jot down, according to his wont, the precise number of minutes
taken by each performer, and to record them all in his diary.
And I remember, with compunction and remorse, his telling me
at the time that I had delivered the longest oration of which he
had kept the reckoning, on that or any other Commencement
Day ! It might well become me to make all the amends in my
power by being brief, or even by saying nothing, on this occa
sion. The truth was, that I had been a little nettled at being
allowed only twelve minutes, while others were allowed fifteen;
and I here make humble confession that I wilfully disregarded
all limit, in defiance of the Faculty, and occupied more than
half an hour. "What was my astonishment, many years ago, at
finding this juvenile performance, with one other of the orations
of my class, printed in a volume among the selected models of
academic exercises ! 1

Pardon me, I pray you, Mr. President and Fellow Students,
for these personal allusions. It is the special privilege of us
fifty-years men to indulge to-day in reminiscence arid retro
spect ; and even egotisms like these may not be wholly unpala
table or unpardonable. Let me hasten towards a conclusion by
saying that our class has better things to boast of than any
thing of my own. We may not claim to have been one of the
great classes, like that of 1802, or that of 1811, or that of 1817,
or that of 1829. Early deaths took away from us not a few of
our most promising scholars. And then we had no poet, like
the class which succeeded us ; no Oliver I had almost said
Goldsmith, but you all know whom I mean to sing to us, and
sing of us, at our occasional meetings. Carent vate sacro must
be accepted as our legend ; and, if not unwept and unhonored,
we mast be content to pass away unsung. Our " Morituri
Salutamus" unlike that exquisite farewell at Bowdoin three
years ago, has already been uttered in stern prose. We had no
Holmes or Longfellow in our ranks, to give expression to our
emotions.

1 Parker s " Aids to English Composition," p. 354.



516 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE CLASS OF 1828.

Yet I may not forget that we have given a Hillard to litera
ture, a Bowditch to medicine, a Barnard to philanthropy, a
Gilchrist to the chief-justiceship of New Hampshire, a Babbidge
to be the first volunteer chaplain of the first volunteer regi
ment, and a Major-General James S. Wads worth to be one of
the last and most lamented victims of our late war for the
Union. If any public offices or honors have attached them
selves to any other names on our roll, they may all be thrown
into the scale for whatever they are worth, to swell the aggre
gate claims of the class of 1828 to the kind consideration and
remembrance of those who may take an interest in its record,
now or hereafter.

Let me not, however, wholly omit one other name. While,
as a class, we have only contributed our little accumulation of
twelve or fifteen hundred dollars to the grand fund of the
Alumni, it is not to be forgotten that a contingent bequest,
which has since been realized, and which has added a round
sum of fifty thousand dollars to the much needed resources of
the College library, is credited to Charles Minot, of the class
of 1828.

And now our half-century is closed. Its account is made up.
There is no re-opening it for amendment or alteration of any
sort. It must stand as it is, for better or for worse. We are
not ashamed of it. If, indeed, on that bright August day, in
1828, we could have looked forward to the present hour, and
been privileged to catch a glimpse of the triennial catalogue as
it is made up to-day, with a few names on our roll in italics, and
fewer still in capitals, and with the fatal asterisk against two-
thirds of our number, if we could have foreseen how many
of our brightest and best were to be starred within a few years
of their graduation, we might have pressed each other s hands
more closely as we parted, and might have had a deeper sense
of the great responsibilities of life and death. But, as the old
poet tells us, -

" Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescribed their present state.
Oh, blindness to the future, kindly given,
That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven !



SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE CLASS OP 1828. 517

It only remains for us who linger a little longer to remember
affectionately those who are gone before ; to thank God for
sparing our own lives ; and to resolve to continue doing what
ever it may still be in our power to do, for the honor of our
Class, for the good of our fellow-men, and for the prosperity
and welfare of our beloved Alma Mater. Let us hope that
we may never be counted among her unworthy or ungrateful
children !



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY
OF ENDICOTT S ARRIVAL AT NAUMKEAG.

SPEECH AT THE SALEM BANQUET, SEPTEMBER 18, 1878.



I THANK you, Dr. Wheatland, Ladies and Gentlemen, for so
friendly and flattering a reception. I was greatly honored and
obliged by the early summons which was served upon me by
the Essex Institute to be present here on this occasion. But
their Committee will bear me witness that in accepting it, as
I did at sight, I expressly declined to be responsible for any
formal address. I came to hear others ; and especially to
listen to the worthy and distinguished descendant of him
whose arrival here, two hundred and fifty years ago, you are
so fitly commemorating to-day.

But I cannot find it in my heart to be wholly silent. And let
me say at once, Mr. President, that this is not the first time I
have participated in celebrating the settlement of Salem under
the lead of John Endicott. I cannot forget that I was here
fifty years ago to-day. It was my well-remembered privilege to
accompany my honored father, who came, as Lieutenant Gover
nor of the State, to unite in representing Massachusetts on that
Two Hundredth Anniversary of its small beginnings. There
were no railroads in 1828, and we drove down together from
Boston that morning, and drove back again at night, having
retired early from the dinner table to allow time for getting home
before dark.

I was thus in the way of hearing the eloquent Oration of
Judge Story, in company with Webster and Everett and Quincy

[518]



ENDICOTT S ARRIVAL AT NAUMKEAG. 519

and the other illustrious guests of that occasion, and of being in
close proximity to the venerable Dr. Holyoke, who had already
completed the hundredth year of his age. I recall him at this
moment, as I saw him, coming out of his own door, with an un
faltering step, to join the procession on its march to the Hall.
And here, in his own handwriting, is the very Toast which he
gave at that Dinner, a precious autograph presented to our old
Historical Society by our associate Mr. Waterston, and which,
by the favor of Dr. Deane, I am able to exhibit at this festival.

Here it is, with the autograph verification of Judge Story
beneath it, and my distinguished friend next to me, the
Dean of Westminster, will bear witness, while I read it, to the
clearness and firmness of the writing : " The Memory of our
Pilgrim Forefathers, who first landed on this spot on the 6th of
September, 1628 (just two centuries ago this day), who forsook
their native country and all they held dear, that they might
enjoy the liberty of worshipping the God of their fathers, agree
ably to the dictates of their consciences."

The Dean, in his admirable " Historical Memorials " of the
world-renowned Abbey over which he presides, has made special
record of the " Monuments of Longevity," including, of course,
" the gravestone of the olde,olde, very olde man," Thomas Parr,
" the patriarch of the seventeenth century," who is said to have
lived to the age of 152. l But I doubt whether Thomas
Parr, or anybody else of later date, could have executed a piece
of penmanship as fair and steady as this, after the authenticated
completion of his hundredth year.

And now, Mr. President, I could hardly have excused my
self, had I failed to come here again to-day, not merely to
revive the pleasant associations of 1828, but to manifest in
maturer years my sense of the intrinsic interest of the occa
sion. My coming to your Two Hundredth Celebration was
only and altogether an act of filial duty. I was then a mere Law
Student, just out of College. I come now to your Two Hundred
and Fiftieth Anniversary, after a half century of observation
and experience, as a recognition, both official and personal, of

1 Memorials of Westminster Abbey, by Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D.
Fourth Edition, p. 327.



520 TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY

its significance and importance. I say official, for I certainly
could not have reconciled it with my duty, as President of that
old Massachusetts Historical Society of 1790, which you have
just toasted, to absent myself from an occasion which carries
us back so close to the very cradle of our Commonwealth. And
I say personal, because I should have felt myself disloyal to
the memory of my venerated New England progenitor, had I
not been here, as his representative, to bear testimony to one,
who hastened on board the " Arbella " to welcome him, on his
own arrival with the Charter, in this same " Haven of Comfort,"
less than two years afterwards, and who so kindly refreshed him