needed to be looked at through the medium of ardent love of home, to be attractive or tolerable. It consisted of salt marsh, unreclaimed as yet, or made land, occupied by dwelling-houses, interspersed with several laboratories of the useful arts. Arthur's mother used laughingly to relate, that, on the day of removal, he gazed wistfully his farewell look at the loved scene, sighing, "O, I shall not see the soap 'urks any

In Margaret Fuller's Unpublished Works,* we find the following reference to the Cambridge Port residence. She had just returned, at the time of writing, from a tour among the mountains. She says: "I feel satisfied, as I thought I should, with reading these bolder lines in the manuscript of Nature. Merely gentle and winning scenes are not enough for me. I wish my lot had been cast amid the sources of the streams, where the voice of the hidden torrent is heard by night, where the eagle soars, and the thunder resounds in long peals from side to side, where the grasp of a more powerful emotion has rent asunder the rocks, and the long purple shadows fall, like a broad wing upon the valley. All places, I know, like all persons, have beauty, which may be discovered by a thoughtful and observing mind; but only in some scenes, and with some persons, can I expand and feel myself at home. I realize this all the more for having passed all my childhood in such a place as Cambridge Port. There I had nothing, except the little flower-garden behind the house, and the elms before the door. I used to long and pine

*MS. Vol. II. p. 711.

for beautiful places, such as I read of. There was not one walk for me, except over the bridge. I liked that very much; pleasing myself with the river, the lovely undulating line on every side, and the light smokes which were seen in certain states of the weather."

Dana Hill was altogether a different spot. In the rapid growth of Boston and its suburbs, a few years have made dwellings to cluster on the site. But then its fair area was almost unoccupied save by the central mansion, whose casements, like the eyes of Argus, looked upon the green, flowery hills of Brookline and Brighton, and the glimmer of the intervening Charles River, dyed with the crimson glories of the sunset, or bright, in turn, with the bending azure of day and the silver lamps of night. From the house, a long avenue conducted to the road, lined with the blooming borders, where the mother's flowery retainers arrayed themselves, paying their tribute of beauty and fragrance, in return for assiduous protection and culture. In the lawn, on either hand, were fruit and ornamental trees; while, more in the background, like a reserve, was another garden of fruit and flowers.

Here Arthur's family resided for six prosperous years; while the younger children attended several private schools. One of these has a conspicuous place in memory, owing to the régime of its lady teacher. The birch was her sceptre; and, lest one should be weakened in its sway, she kept a bundle of them on hand. These she required the boys to procure for her; and woe to them, if they brought her other than

B

long, straight, and vigorous twigs! She indulged in a feline diversion, when her quick eye could detect a boy engaged in the proscribed occupation known as "wool-gathering." Watching her occasion, and creeping noiselessly behind, she dispelled the daydream with a smart stroke from her birch wand. What an awakening was that! what a cruel return from illusion to reality! It may be adduced, as an instance of natural depravity, that the other urchins sympathized with the teacher in this pursuit, and eagerly watched her well-conceived project of surprise, wishing it success, though themselves liable to be made the next victims; and when the rod made its successful and sudden descent, the feat was greeted with a suppressed applause, which the exclamation of the culprit and the startled expression of his countenance by no means served to diminish.

On the elevation of John Quincy Adams to the White House, Arthur's father expected a mission to Europe, as a token of the appreciation of his influential labors on behalf of the successful candidate. But the President did not "remember Joseph." In this expectation, his daughter Margaret had been encouraged to look eagerly forward to visiting that Europe in whose literature she had become so well versed. Both were destined to disappointment. This check may have contributed to induce the father to seek a more retired sphere of life. But there were other motives. He had been long gathering materials for a history of his country, which he purposed as the crowning labor of his life. He had, besides, a view to the education of his children.

Attributing his own

success in a great measure to the endurance and industry acquired by an early experience in the toils of agriculture, he desired to subject his boys to the same hardening process. Not a little influence, too, may have been exerted upon him by the romantic retrospect of the afternoon of life upon boyhood's morning, in drawing his heart toward those New Hampshire hills, whose blue walls enclosed its horizon; feeling,

as in a pensive dream,

When all his active powers are still,

A distant dearness in the hill,

A secret sweetness in the stream."

Induced by such motives, Arthur's father sold his residence in Cambridge, and occupied the house of his brother Abraham, on Brattle Street, in Cambridge, for one year, while casting about him for a new location. While living here, an accident occurred to Arthur and his younger brother, in celebrating the glorious Fourth, after the manner of independent boys. Arthur early manifested an enthusiasm for the observance of this birthday of our liberty, with mimic artillery and banner, which is thus pleasantly alluded to by his sister Margaret: "I'm independent!' as Arthur shouted and waved his flag; when Eugene cruelly stopped him, and made him come in to learn his lesson.”* His enthusiasm was more seriously interrupted on the occasion of the accident referred to. The boys had several times discharged a little cannon, running with shouts into the cloud of smoke, when it was inadvertently aimed at the box of powder,

* Unpublished Works, Vol. II. p. 823.

which ignited with a fearful explosion, prostrating both children, and so burning them as to confine them for several days to their bed.

The new family residence was in Groton, Massachusetts, a prosperous town of Middlesex County, distant some thirty miles from Boston, and at that time principally devoted to agriculture.* The house and grounds had been fitted up with much care and expense by Samuel Dana, a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. The white mansion, situated upon a gradual eminence, looked complacently upon the blue Wachusett, Monadnock, and Peterborough Hills. It was quite attractive to childish eyes, its ample front bathed in the sunlight, seeming, on approach, to expand into a smile of welcome. Alas! we little anticipated, as we crossed its threshold, the bitter cup of family sorrows we were to drink there! Yet that discipline was not without a beneficent compensation for those who submissively acknowledged that God "in faithfulness afflicted them."

Here opened a new field of activity for all the family. The father applied himself to superintending the husbandry of fifty acres, and making alterations and additions to the buildings. Nor did he wholly decline the professional avocations which still sought him out in his retirement, and led him again occasionally into the forum. He also gave some hours to his projected history, and applied himself especially to the training of his children. In the last-named department he was careful to form the children to

* Caleb Butler, Esq. has composed and published a careful history of Groton, containing many interesting facts.