sinunt enim suum judicium adhibere; id habent ratum, quod ab eo, quem probant, judicatum vident.' * I have endeavored to act on this principle as much as possible in my duties at Divinity Hall. I have always told the young men that I wished to be with them as an elder brother, to go along with them in their studies and inquiries, giving such help and guidance as I could, not as a dictator, or authoritative teacher, displacing the action of their own minds to make room for that of mine, or giving them results to be accepted, instead of means and aids for arriving at their own results. This I have thought the true way; but I believe the way of auctoritas would have made me more popular, both among the students and in the Unitarian denomination, strange as it may seem. Most people like better to be told what to accept, than to be put upon finding it out for themselves."

Still it worried him to be obliged to adapt the movements of his understanding to his own theory of teaching. "On Wednesday I began to lecture again. There is something

* De Nat. Deorum, Lib. I. 5. "For in discussing anything, the weight of reasoning, and not of authority, should be sought, since the authority of those who profess to teach is on the whole a hindrance to those who wish to learn. For the latter cease to depend upon their own judgment, and take for granted the conclusions of those in whom they confide."

in this using the mind wholly for others, and with reference to others, which I do not like. It seems to nudge one's faculties on the elbow, and tell them that they are not to move at their own sweet will, but to produce a certain tale of brick for an employer. What would be the effect if the mind of every one were set free from tasks, and could flower out in musing, in speech, in writing, like shrubs and trees? We should have more true men and women, and fewer repeating-machines."

The young men in Cambridge who had the good sense to seek his society were debtors to him for more genial expressions of his inner life than the lecture-room could furnish. For it was in conversation that Dr. Francis exercised a peculiar charm. His humor and learning flowed forth in animated and graceful speech. His memory delivered, rapidly and smoothly, at the call of the moment, curious or pertinent knowledge, brisk anecdotes, the oddities and rarities of books. He was very much like Theodore Parker in his knowledge of the contents of books and his capacity to report them in sparkling and easy talk. You only had to tap him with a question, and the wine you wanted ran to order, as from the magic table in Auerbach's cellar. He did not clap over you the

extinguisher of a monologue. On the contrary, he was so suggestive that you wanted to talk also, and he gave you the opportunity, with that rare courtesy of exuberant memories which shows the absence of vanity. He listened to you as if you were his equal in variety and grasp of knowledge; he never tried to impose laws on the conversation, but took delight in submitting to it, to be carried away to fresh surprises. A man shows his morality in conversation. And here, as everywhere else, Dr. Francis appeared devoid of arrogance, self-esteem, self-assertion, and all oppressiveness. His knowledge was for the time being your best friend. When you drew up for a supply, he had a hilarious way of decanting himself, which was half generosity and half pleasure at his own abundance.

He always wanted to impart this wealth, to do you good with it; his personal economy became prodigality when he had something which he could spend to advantage. Simple, careful, and restrained in all his private tastes and expenditures, but munificent with his hoard of a lifetime, plunging both hands into it, and scattering it with smiles.

Books were his only luxury. He laid in wait for them in catalogues and auction-rooms, and carried off many a

rarity whose titles betrayed no value to less instructed. purchasers. There are more curious books in his library of seven or eight thousand volumes, than in most other collections of twice or twenty times the size. But he carefully selected also the tools of his profession. Editions of the Greek and Roman authors, whom he knew lovingly and could quote with great felicity, stand by the side of theological and philosophical writers, selected on the principle of having the most and latest information. He sponged up the contents of a book at once. His favorite seal displayed a book underneath the motto, Qui studet orat, "He prays who studies."

If

you

met him in the cars, you met also a queer book in his pocket. He would take it out and tell you all about it with a sparkle of fondness, as if it was a favorite child he had in charge.

It was not well to come in his way when he was engaged in running a book to cover. Accidentally I once bought a book upon which he was suspending a negotiation; and the mortification which he felt made the book extravagantly dear to me.

Speaking once of the limits which his purse put to bookbuying, he quoted George Herbert's letter "To Sir J. D.":

"I protest and vow I ever study thrift, and yet I am scarce able with much ado to make one half-year's allowance shake hands with the other. And yet, if a book of four or five shillings come in my way, I buy it, though I fast for it; yea, sometimes of ten shillings. But alas, sir! what is that to these infinite volumes of divinity, which yet every day swell and grow bigger?"

November 22, 1851. "In the Elder Brother,' one of the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher, Charles the student thus describes the pleasures of his library:

'Give me leave

T' enjoy myself; that place that does contain

My books, the best companions, is to me

A glorious court, where hourly I converse

With the old sages and philosophers ;
And sometimes, for variety, I confer

With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels;
Calling their victories, if unjustly got,

Unto a strict account, and, in my fancy,

Deface their ill-placed statues. Can I, then,

Part with such constant pleasures, to embrace

Uncertain vanities? No; be it your care

T'augment your heap of wealth: it shall be mine
T' increase in knowledge.' — Act I. Sc. 2.

In this spirited and loving plea for the pleasures of the library I may be allowed to feel some sympathy; for books