venerable old man.”
On the 4th of July, 1846, I visited Dr. Ezra Green, at his residence, in Dover, N. H. He showed me a couple of letters, which he had received, a short time before, from Daniel Webster and Thomas H. Benton, congratulating him, on having completed his one hundredth year, on the 17th of the preceding June, the anniversary of the battle of Bunker’s Hill, and remarked, that those gentlemen had not regarded the difference, between the old style and the new. He told me, that in 1777, he had been a surgeon, in the Ranger, with John Paul Jones. Upon my taking out my glasses, to read a passage in a pamphlet, to which he called my attention, he told me he had never used spectacles, nor felt the need of any such assistance, in reading. Dr. Green died, in 1847.
He graduated, at Harvard, in 1765. At the time of his death, every other member of his own class, numbering fifty-four, was dead.
Previously to 1765, two thousand and seventy-five individuals are named, upon the catalogue. They were all dead at the time of his decease, though he died so recently, as 1847. Yet, from the year, when he graduated, to 1786, a period of twenty years, of seven hundred and seventy-three graduates, fifteen only appear, upon the catalogue of 1848, without the fatal star. One of the fifteen, Harrison Gray Otis, has recently died, leaving three survivors only, in his class of 1783, Asa Andrews, J. S. Boies, and Jonathan Ewins. Another of the fifteen has also recently died, being the oldest graduate, Judge Timothy Farrar, of the class of 1767. The oldest living graduate of Harvard is James Lovell, of the class of 1776.
I send my communication to the press, as speedily as possible, lest he also should be off, before I can publish.
No. XLVI.
A few days ago, I saw, in the hands of the artist, Mr. Alvan Clarke, a sketch, nearly completed, from Stuart’s painting of John Adams, in his very old age. This sketch is to be engraved, as an accompaniment of the works of Mr. Adams, about to be published, by Little & Brown. I scarcely know what to say of this sketch of Mr. Adams. His fine old face, such as it was in the flesh, and at the very last of his long and illustrious career, is fixed in my memory—rivetted there—as firmly as his name is bolted, upon the loftiest column of our national history. Never have I seen a more perfect fac simile of man, without the aid of relief—it is the resurrection and the life. If I am at a loss what to say of the sketch, I am still farther at fault, what to say of the artist. Like some of those heavenly bodies, whose contemplation occupies no little portion of his time, it is not always the easiest thing in the world, to know in what part of his orbit he may be found; if I desire to obtain a portrait, or a miniature, or a sketch, he can scarcely devote his time to it, he is so very busy, in contriving some new improvement, for his already celebrated rifle; or if it is a patent muzzled rifle that I want, he is quite likely to be occupied, in the manufacture of a telescope. Be all these matters as they may, I can vouch for it, after years of experience, Alvan Clarke is a very clever fellow, Anglice et Americanice; and this sketch of Mr. Adams does him honor, as an artist.
It was in the year 1822, I believe, that a young lady sent me her album, with a request, that I, of all people in the world, would occupy one of its pages. Well, I felt, that after all, it was quite in my line, for I had always looked upon a young lady’s album, as a kind of cemetery, for the burial of anybody’s bantlings, and I began to read the inscriptions, upon such as reposed in this place, appointed for the still-born. I was a little startled, I confess, at my first glance, upon the autograph of the late Bishop Griswold, appended to some very respectable verses. My attention was next drawn to some lines, over the name of Daniel Webster, manu propria. I forget them now, but I remember, that the American Eagle was invoked for the occasion, and flapped its wings, through one or more of the stanzas. Next came an article in strong, sensible prose, from John Adams, written by an amanuensis, but signed with his own hand. Such a hand—the “manu deficiente” of Tibullus. The letters, formed by the failing, trembling fingers, resembled the forked lightning. A solemnizing and impressive autograph it was: and, under the impulse of the moment, I had the audacity to spoil three pages of this consecrated album, by appending to this venerable name the following lines:—
High over Alps, in Dauphine,
There lies a lonely spot,
So wild, that ages rolled away,
And man had claimed it not:
For ages there, the tiger’s yell
Bay’d the hoarse torrent as it fell.
Amid the dark, sequestered glade,
No more the brute shall roam;
For man, unsocial man, hath made
That wilderness his home:
And convent bell, with notes forlorn,
Is heard, at midnight, eve, and morn.
For now, amid the Grand Chartreuse,
Carthusian monks reside;
Whose lives are passed, from man recluse,
In scourging human pride;
In matins, vespers, aves, creeds,
With crosses, masses, prayers, and beads.
When hither men of curious mood,
Or pilgrims, bend their way,
To view this Alpine solitude,
Or, heav’nward bent, to pray,
Saint Bruno’s monks their album bring,
Inscrib’d by poet, priest, and king.
Since pilgrim first, with holy tears,
Inscrib’d the tablet fair,
On time’s dark flood, some thousand years,
Have pass’d like billows there.
What countless names its pages blot,
By country, kindred, long forgot!
Here chaste conceits and thoughts divine
Unclaim’d, and nameless, stand;
Which, like the Grecian’s waving line,
Betray some master’s hand.
And here Saint Bruno’s monks display,
With pride, the classic lines of Gray.
While pilgrim ponders o’er the name,
He feels his bosom glow;
And counts it nothing less than fame,
To write his own below.
So, in this Album, fain would I,
Beneath a name, that cannot die.
Thrice happy book! no tablet bears
A nobler name than thine;
