LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. FROM A .DAGTTKP-REOTJPE FN L TIIK LIFE OP JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY. BY HENKY T. TUCKEUMAN. NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM & SONS ASSOCIATION BUILDING. 1871. 5" Enk-red according to Act of Congress, in the j-oar 1871, by THE EXECUTORS O^ JOHN P, KENNEDY, in the OUico of the. Librarian of Congress at Washington. STEREOTYPED BY PRINTED BY WILLIAM McCREA & CO., JOSEl II J. LITTLE, NRWBUHOH, N . T . 108-114 WooskT Street, Now York. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. ,-. . ~ , Page 9 CHAPTER I. Parentage ; Birth ; Education. Autobiographical Sketch 23 CHAPTER II. Baltimore. Historical and social reminiscences; Local and Lit erary 81 CHAPTER III. Law Studies ; Social Life; Admitted to the Bar; Eminent Lawyers of Baltimore; Friendships; "The Red Book;" Death of Cruse; Public Life; Pinkney; Member of the House of Delegates; Ap pointed Minister to Chili ; Declines; Marriage; Death of his wife ; Fox-llunting 101 CHAPTER IV. Second marriage ; Law Business ; Absences ; Letters to Mrs. Kennedy ; Home Life; Journeys; Residences in the City and Country house at Patapsco 122 CHAPTER V. " Swallow Barn ;" Its Publication ; The Class of Writings to which it Belongs ; Its Plan, Style and Significance ; State of American Literature at the Time of its Appearance ; Discouragement Thereto; Its Reception; Success; Subject; Republicatioii and Illustration.. . 146 865891 CQKJTENT8. CHAPTER VI. Novels ; " Horse-Shoe Robinson ;" Its Scope and Aim ; Its Hero ; Moral ; Criticism ; Its Success Page 161 CHAPTER VII. Political Life; The Protective System; Clay; Elected to Congress ; Social Privileges ; " Defence of the Whigs ;" Reports ; Proposal of Webster; Complimentary Dinner ; Aids Morse s Telegraphic Ex periment; Again elected to the Maryland House of Delegates; Speech at Hagerstowii ; Political work and distaste therefor. 172 CHAPTER VIII. Publication of " Rob of the Bowl ;" " Annals of Quodlibet" and the "Life of Wirt;" Elected Provost of the University of Mary- laud .188 CHAPTER IX. His Interest in the Young ; Anecdotes ; His Godson 203 CHAPTER X. Appointed Secretary of the Navy ; Enters upon his duties ; Naval Expeditions; Dr. Kane s search for Sir John Franklin; Ericsson s trial trip; Irving s Visit; Departure from Washington; Death of Mrs. Fillmore ; Visit to Greenway Court ; Journey to the Southwest 217 CHAPTER XI. His Father-in-law; Life and Character of Edward Gray; Visit to Europe 246 CHAPTER XII. Ill-health ; Lameness ; Cheerful endurance thereof ; Literary Pro jects ; Notes for Essays ; Miscellaneous Writings ; Autograph Leaves ; Occasional Addresses ; Taste in Literature ; Advice to a Young Author ; Adieu to his Library ; Social honors 264 CONTKNTS. I CHAPTER XIIT. Second visit to Europe ; Extracts from Journal; Letters to Hon. R. 0. \Viuthrop and Judge Bryan Page 278 CHAPTER XIV. During the Rebellion 306 CHAPTER XV. His Journals; His Social Life and Influence; Public Spirit; Various Speeches; Occupations; Slavery in Maryland; Manumission of Two Slaves; His Forbearance ; Record of his Feelings and Daily Experience 343 CHAPTER XVI. Intercourse with Authors ; Thackeray ; Cooper ; Willis ; Prcscott and others : Poe ; Cruse ; Irving 363 CHAPTER XVII. The IVabody Institute 390 CHAPTER XVIII. Correspondence 401 CHAPTER XIX. Visit to Cuba Tin. New Orleans 435 CHAPTER XX Last Visit to Europe ; Last Public Appearance ; Failing Health ; Last Illness; Death ; Burial at Green Mount ; Tributes 456 AITENDIX 477 INTRODUCTION. THE great need of our country is Social Education, in the best sense of the term. We have a system of free pub lic tuition that secures a certain amount and degree of mental culture j which, however, instead of equalizing social privi leges, is apt to produce ambition and discontent as well as to diffuse useful knowledge ; for it is a discipline which deals al most exclusively with intelligence, leaving the affections and sympathies crudely or casually developed. We have a grega rious habit of intercourse subject to no laws of rank or eti quette and dependent on the individual sense of propriety and personal affinities, for all of order or amenity it calls forth. We have political institutions which give free scope to all, ir respective of endowment, birth, vocation and character. The extent and enterprise of our country afford exceptional op portunities to the shrewd and industrious, to acquire for tunes. But with all these signal advantages, there is no pro vision either in our civic, educational or economical arrange ments, for social discipline or refinement as such ; and, therefore, we find men eminent in certain departments of life, destitute of that sense of the appropriate, that insight and tact, and above all, that disinterested sympathy which, in the last anal ysis, is the safeguard and, distinction of Christian civilization. 10 INTRODUCTION. Academic culture, official station, material success, are con stantly in violent contrast with the manners and motives, the consideration and the character that should accompany and emphasize these personal distinctions. Incongruity, antag onism, inaptitude the absence of the generous and the ge nial, the refined and the elevated in tone, bearing, and the conduct of life, thus disintegrate and deform our social experi ence. The old deference to character, the primitive rever ence for superior wisdom and natural dignity, which, in the first years of the republic, harmonized, by an instinctive law, the defects of our social life, have passed away. Hence the value of a true and pure example and the moral refreshment we derive from the character and career of an educated citi zen, who, while true to private duty, equally obeyed the in spiration of public spirit, and made both attractive by broad, alert, refined and unselfish social intercourse ; recognizing the law of usefulness, and at the same time, the daily beauty wherewith order, kindness, courtesy and the love of art, letters and nature, harmonize and humanize its performance. Modern life might be not inaptly symbolized by the libra ry and the newspaper ; that is, private resources and home culture, and the extrinsic demands of the " chart of busy life;" in our country the latter are too often so absorbing as to mar self-possession and overlay individuality ; the former are the conservative elements ; and only those who therein attain somewhat of wisdom and serenity, can master the encroach ments of the other. Mr. Kennedy was one of the few who knew how to reconcile what was due to himself and to the world ; he worked bravely while duty required, but he wel comed the freedom which gave scope to intellectual tastes and social interests, as the legitimate end and aim of conscientious INTKODHTIOX. 11 labor. Herein he resembled the subject of his popular biog raphy : " How can men toil," asks Wirt in one of his letters, " as they are doing here ; business in their heads, business in their hearts, business forever in their faces, without one pal pitation to tell them what love and friendship mean ?" There are two classes of men who engage in official life ; one to whom politics are a trade an exclusive means of dis tinction and livelihood, and cultivated accordingly for these ends ; the other actuated by patriotic motives, in some cases yielded to at great personal sacrifice, and, at others, harmon- \ izedby a taste and talent for public life; but, in both instances, accompanied by resources upon which they can fall back with out impairing either their contentment or usefulness. To the latter class Mr. Kennedy belonged ; his intelligence and sym pathies alike fitted him to occupy a representative position both civic and social ; but his culture and affections, at the same time, rendered him quite independent of such employment ; to him emphatically the private station was the post of honor, endear ed by literary aspirations, personal friendships and domestic love. Accordingly, he often wearied of the claims and clashings of political life, and was only reconciled thereto by the oppor tunities it yielded for honorable duty and congenial associations. As a natural consequence, his aims, scope and motives were disinterested, comprehensive, national. He was above intrigue and far beyond the limits of narrow prejudice and partisan self- seeking. He presented the rare example, in our day, of a con scientious citizen, prompt and faithful in the fulfilment of every duty incumbent upon a loyal son of the republic ; in each sta tion to which he was called, bringing an earnest and wise pa triotism, and, in private life, by pen and voice and vote, con tinually promoting the welfare of his country. 12 INTRODUCTION. Sir Walter Scott, writing of some cultivated young Ameri cans whose acquaintance he had just made, says : " I hope they will inoculate their country with a love of letters so nearly al lied to a love of peace and a sense of justice ;" and Lord Bacon observes of men of science and literature, that when devoted to public affairs, " they carry thereunto a spirit more lofty and com prehensive than that which animates the mere politician." Both convictions of these eminent individuals are signally illustrated in Mr. Kennedy s public life ; his culture widened and elevated his functions as a public man, and enlisted his effective co-op eration in behalf of the arts of peace, the progress of science, and the good of humanity. The harmonious development of Mr. Kennedy s character, and his auspicious and attractive personal influence, though derived from his endowments and temperament, were yet, in no small degree, owing to the gradual and healthy unfolding of his mind and his rational enjoyment of life. It is excep tional in our busy land, where eagerness of pursuit, in the race for renown or wealth, so often prematurely exhausts or selfish ly absorbs the mind and heart, to find a man of literary skill or political eminence, who consistently exercised the one in the calm maturity of his powers and attained the other without sacrificing either self-respect or peace of mind. Mr. Kenne dy s early youth was gay without dissipation, and his manhood was earnest and useful without being wasted by care or made restless through ambition. He did not freely and fairly in dulge his taste for literature until he had patiently labored in his profession to earn the "glorious privilege of being in dependent." He did not rush into the arena of politics, but gradually and gracefully took a part therein, until his obvious ability and patriotic motives were recognized and honored. INTRODUCTION. 13 Neither public life nor authorship pre-occupied him to the ex tent of causing the least neglect of private obligations or the sacrifice of those sympathies, domestic and personal, which were ever the essential interests of his life. He cherished no exaggerated idea of the desirableness of success, in the ordi nary meaning of the term, either as an author or a statesman. Hence the man was invariably superior to his vocation ; and illustrated and emphasized rather than succumbed to it. Somewhat of this happy blending of the elements of char acter and balance of faculty was due to circumstances. Plis physical constitution was so delicate that long-continued se dentary occupation was impossible without detriment to his health ; while his social instinct was so predominant that he could never have reconciled himself to the life of a bookworm. Happy as were the hours passed in his library, engrossing, for the time, as were his literary or political studies, he was impelled to seek companionship, to observe life and to enjoy the face and freedom of Nature. A profound and systematic student he never was ; but a lover of books, a man of society, and a cheerful traveller always : genuine public spirit continually won him from concentration on private ends ; keen relish of the fresh air, the free mountains, the picturesque and the peace ful in rural scenes and the " comedy of life," beguiled him con stantly from his desk, to which he returned with new zest and a more wholesome appreciation. While he enjoyed the oppor tunities for usefulness and the honorable triumphs of political life, he wearied of its monotonous exactions and disdained its unworthy expedients ; so that the self-congratulation with which he escaped was as sincere as the pleasure with which he accepted office. .It was this alternation of pursuit, this in terweaving of social and student life, this vibrating between 14: INTRODUCTION. official labor and pleasant journeys ; and, above all, the con verging of his sympathies upon home and friends, that kept the background of his existence rich and bright, and harmonized, with vivid and evenly-disposed tints, the entire picture thereof. Grateful recognition of our privileges and a moderate ideal of life, are too rare in this country, not to make their de liberate record salutary, as in the following extract from Mr. Kennedy s journal : "October 25:11,1854. My birthday; a clear, balmy Indian Summer day, mild and beautiful, in some features a type of my life sunshiny, peaceful, almost all I could wish. I say almost, it has had its drawbacks and its failures enough to teach me my humanity. I have been prosperous in my modest way, and moderation is the best form of prosperity. I have had no ex traordinary successes, no extravagant fortune, no pre-eminent good luck ; but a temperate, fair and reasonable experience from day to day. I have lost many golden moments ; I have com mitted many obvious errors ; my faults have been carelessly weeded ; these I confess with a penitent spirit. I am on the verge of old age with these convictions ; but I am sensible that I am withal a wiser and a better man in the course of each added year. Above all, I am content, patient, cheerful and re signed to all that is to come. The good and indulgent Fa ther of my being, I trust in most devoutly as my guide and pro tector to the last ; and I abide his providence with undoubted faith. I have outlived my love of show and luxury, and rest in perfect satisfaction with the comfort and leisure I have at tained to." Eminently valuable and interesting, as a precedent, is the example Mr. Kennedy s character and Career offer to Ameri cans, who have the resources to enjoy and the competence to INTRODUCTION. 15 secure leisure ; as a class, such men are few and far between in our eager, over-occupied and aspiring country ; but the in crease of moderate fortunes, and the perpetual vicissitudes that warn prudent and patient men and women to be satisfied with little rather than risk all, will, in the future, add largely to the number of those who early turn from trade and profes sional life, to intellectual and social culture. How rich the latter sphere may be in usefulness, and what a resource the former may become when generously and wisely enjoyed, Mr. Kennedy nobly illustrated as a faithful and public-spirited citizen, as a consistent friend and as a genial man. In this last character he excelled not alone by virtue of a native kind liness of heart, but through that exquisite solvent and fusing element in social life we call Humor. Its lambent flame twin kled in his eyes before the piquant repartee or the amusing story were uttered ; it gave a singular sweetness to his smile and a contagious hilarity to his laugh ; it melted and mellowed the sympathies of his companions into harmonious merriment ; it sweetened the labor of his political allies and softened the acerbity of their opponents ; and it warmed and united the re cipients of his hospitality and the hearts of his household. In this regard as well as in the integrity of his nature, Mr. Ken nedy s tone and traits were thoroughly Anglo Saxon ; for the sturdy undemonstrative character of that honest and energetic race, in its finest exemplars, are rendered magnetic and win some by this gracious quality essentially northern which we call Humor. His felicity in repartee and witty rejoinders were memorable, but usually too dependent on the scene, the occasion and the company, to be quoted with effect. One occurs to me as illustrative of his readiness : ascending the Biddle staircase at Niagara with a lady, soon after the failure of 16 INTRODUCTION. the United States Bank, his companion inquired why the steps were so called ; " winding up the bank," he instantly replied. Companionable qualities are not rare, neither is it uncom mon to enjoy the talk of clever men ; but the charm of Mr. Kennedy s social character cannot be strictly defined as the offspring of ready intelligence on the one hand, urbanity on the other, or the fusion of both ; it sprang rather from the sim plicity and candor of his nature and the spontaneous sympathies of his heart ; men of wit are apt to be over-conscious and to make an effort to amuse or astonish ; men of fellowship are apt to be too familiar and commonplace ; the former exhaust themselves and often their hearers, while the latter weary them ; there is a third class who are self-seeking in their con versation, egotistic or eager for ideas, and so drain rather than enrich their colloquial victims. The process and the principle of Mr. Kennedy s intercourse was precisely the re verse ; as one of his most appreciative friends observed, he always gave and rarely took ; it was not display nor com placency that inspired his communion, but genuine social instinct, pure human sympathy, disinterested, candid, naive utterance, such as makes the whole world kin. It was favorable to this electic development that Mr. Kennedy did not live exclusively in a literary atmosphere ; he was thus saved from that encouragement in mediocrity which Lamb attributes to domestic isolation ; he escaped the self- complacency and intolerance born of a clique ; and the fear of the shadow of personal reputation which is said to have kept Campbell silent, as well as the effeminate self-estimation en gendered by mutual admiration. What his books may have lost in academic finish or local laudation, by the fact that they were written with scarcely any literary sympathy to sus- INTRODUCTION. 17 tain or immediate appreciation to encourage, they gained in manliness and freedom ; they were thereby more genuine, and rather exponents than absorbents of the man, whose nature was too expansive and heart too free and fresh to exhaust their spontaneous vitality in authorship. And is not the bane of modern civilization, as regards the in dividual, that vocation limits and dwarfs his nature by partial de velopment ? Elevated and beautiful as are the culture and the creations born of art and letters, how often character suffers while talent triumphs ! Egotism and selfishness are only the more conspicuous when they take the form of intellectual ambition. As the athlete of antiquity sacrificed brain to mus cle, the devotee of science, of literature and of art, in our day, is apt to gain success therein at the expense of more gener ous, sympathetic and humanizing qualities. The conserva tion of these depends mainly upon the social instincts, upon a disinterested habit of mind and action, which spontaneously seeks the happiness of others and the exercise of noble, kind ly and genial affections. Rarely do these bloom on the polit ical arena or in artistic and literary isolation and self-seeking ; and it is because the subject of this memoir, while he bravely and faithfully did his duty as a public man and gracefully and skilfully as a literateur, ever kept aglow the sentiment of hu manity, the warm and true social recognition, which brightens and purifies life, that his example is so worthy of record and his memory so widely endeared. To make an impression or achieve a success in war, states manship, art, letters, science or trade, is, after all, but a small part of the great end and function of civilized life ; the harmo nious development of the individual, the average happiness of existence, the content born of well-regulated desire and the 18 INTRODUCTION. consciousness of integrity, the reconciliation of private culture and public duty, the advancement of knowledge and the daily inspiration of benign, noble and wise sentiment and service this is what all are free to seek and sure to attain, if ambition and avarice, egotism and discontent are kept in abeyance, through a sympathetic, intellectual and honorable habit of mind and heart. And, in all this, we but invoke the gentle man, not in the conventional but essential meaning of the word. Hazlitt declares independence, the knightly code courtesy and heroism ; and Calvert, one of Mr. Kennedy s oldest friends, the aesthetic element, requisites of the character ; but after all, do we not find that the great moral distinction thereof is use fulness ? the power and the instinct to enter into and, therefore, consider or espouse the interests of others through the sym pathetic freedom and insight they engender ? It is the social as distinguished from the selfish character, that breeds the heart of courtesy, the love of the beautiful, the allegiance to the true, which make our ideal of manhood. And it is this rare harmony of nature and its practical satisfaction in life, and not spasmodic brilliancy of achievement, that render our friend s character precious and his memory beloved. The last time I had the pleasure of seeing and talking with the subject of this memoir, he took me aside at a musical fete, which he had keenly enjoyed, and proposed a visit to his hospitable home, partly with a view of arranging his writ ings for revision and publication, in which the state of his health made some friendly counsel and assistance requisite. He had the day before consulted an eminent European phy sician, who, while he gave no encouragement as to the abso lute cure of the infirmity which had attacked Mr. Kennedy, yet held out reasonable hopes that by pursuing a certain INTRODUCTION course, its fatal termination might be indefinitely postponed. Five days afterwards all was over; and it was found that, in anticipation of the event, he had requested, in his will, three of his friends to perform the work which he hoped to have accomplished himself; this duty a private note to his wife and the expressed wishes of the other literary executors, finally assigned to me. Sitting in his library an apartment more attractive from its comfortable and convenient than its luxu rious arrangements, with the effigies of his friends around, his books, journals and correspondence at hand, as the evidences of his useful, genial and honorable life are revealed, it is im possible not to feel that any record thereof must be inade quate ; that the personal qualities of the man gave peculiar sig nificance to what he did ; and that, in an exceptional degree, his presence is essential to the vital interest and attraction of his career and character. In other words, the writings, the pub lic services and the private worth of Mr. Kennedy, require for their due interpretation and just influence, a personal ac quaintance with him ; and, above all, a vivid memory of his social ministry. This is the key to every memorial he^has left. The silence and solitude of his library are in painful contrast to the life and light that so lately gladdened his home ; while every object reminds us of his tastes, his friend ships, his public spirit and his domestic affections ; those who have not the connecting link whereby the chain of asso ciation is attached to his personality, lack the means of fully comprehending the scope and value of his life and enjoying its record. Still, the number of those thus attached to his memory and desirous of preserving it, make such a selection as we propose from his letters and journals, of singular in terest, however they may fail to impress a stranger. He had 20 INTRODUCTION. survived the greater part of the friends of his youth. The photographs of Clay and Webster, Scott and Irving, Prescott and Cooper, and other literary and political allies and com panions, remind us of those whose departure preceded his own ; and two of his dearest family ties recalled by the be nign features of his father-in-law and favorite uncle, the ven erable Philip Pendleton were severed some years before his death. The first impression derived from what may be called the documentary evidence of his life, is the remarkable or der and system thereof. " It is order, pursuit, sequence and interchange of application which is mighty in nature, which, although they require more exact knowledge in pre scribing and more precise obedience in observing, yet are rec ompensed with magnitude of effects." In the most clear and neat chirography he kept his accounts, noted his work and pastime, his experience, his obligations, his plans and his doings. The union of probity and pleasantry thus chronicled, is refreshing to contemplate ; and were it not that Mr. Ken nedy had a public career and hosts of friends, both of which claim a more definite record, we might be content to leave his name and example to the custody of the many fond and faith ful hearts where they are held in love and honor. But when we reflect how quickly the vestiges of a good life disappear, and how desirable it is to cherish them, we feel it is well that some of the words and deeds that illustrate his character and hallow his example should be " set in a note book." In his own " Life of Wirt," Mr. Kennedy unconsciously gives us the rationale of the experiment. " Wirt," he says, " has now been dead twelve years, and I know not twelve men who can speak of his history beyond that summary which has already been published. Wirt s character is so genial, so suggestive of INTRODUCTION, 21 pleasant thoughts and good fellowship, that even in the pos thumous exhibition of it, in a literary picture, it possesses some portions of that quality which eminently belonged to it in actual life." In accordance with the plan Mr. Kennedy adopted in this instance, as far as practicable, the story of his life will be told in his own words, by copious extracts from his letters and journals : to that life, his own remark in regard to Wirt is equally appropriate " a life confined to the pur suits indicated in this sketch, may not be expected to charm the reader by the significance of its events : it is much more a life of reflection than action ; of character than of incident. His social life was one of great delight to his friends. It was embellished with all the graces which a benevolent heart, a playful temper and a happy facility of discourse were able to impart." These, however, are, of all qualities, the most dif ficult to make apparent by description or comment. Their very delicacy and spontaneous attraction contribute to their evanescence ; they are like rare, remembered music, when " on the singer s lips expires the finished song ; " and plead for immortality. One of the oldest friends of Mr. Kennedy said of him : " all wholesome, glad influences flowed out from his daily life, strong as the strongest of men and sweet as the sweetest of women. Such men as he, at once so genial and so intellectual, with a fascination alike for young and old, ought never to die." The versatility of his usefulness and his sympathies may be inferred from the many and widely distant associations that endear his memory. His name gratefully designates a channel of the lonely Arctic sea, and is identified with the in itiative experiment which established the electric telegraph; with the opening of Japan to the commerce of the world; INTKODUCTION. with the exploration of the Amazon and the China Sea ; with the benefactions of Peabody and the loyalty of Maryland ; with the cause of education and the old genial life of Virginia ; with what is graceful and gracious in American letters and useful and honorable in American statesmanship; with the pleasures of society and the duties of patriotism ; with the fondest recollections of friendship and the tenderest memories of domestic love. CHAPTER I. Parentage ; Birtli ; Education. Autobiographical Sketch. SOME of the most successful merchants of Baltimore were of Scotch descent, although they came directly from the North of Ireland ; and by their exertions and wealth the city became originally famed as a commercial port. Among these, emi grants was the father of Mr. Kennedy, who, after some years of prosperous activity, was unfortunate, but being generously aid ed by his elder brother who resided in Philadelphia, was enabled to maintain his family in comfort and give his children a good education. He married a daughter of Philip Pendleton, of Berkeley County, Va. A miniature of this lady taken two years after the period of her marriage, which occurred at the age of sixteen, exhibits a face of singular beauty, wherein gentleness and dignity combine to give the impression of rare womanly charms with unusual intelligence and force of character. She was evidently one of the recognized beauties of her day ; and the announcement of her wedding, in the old county paper, is accompanied with a quaint but glowing tribute to her attractions, after the chivalric style of the times f family and social tradi- * Martinsburg, October 6th, 1794. Married, last Thursday even ing, by the Rev. Mr. Boyd, Mr. John Kennedy, of Baltimore, mer chant, to the elegant and equally accomplished Miss Nancy Pendle ton, of this town, a young lady 24 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. tions amply confirm the promise of her youth, and, even in ad vanced age, she exercised an influence and retained an affection among kindred and friends, which is the best evidence of woman ly traits and noble principles. Of four sons, John Pendleton was the first-born ; and throughout life he was a devoted son and the object of maternal pride and tenderness. He took the chief responsibility, for many years, in the care of his mother s property ; his letters indicate the most conscientious filial atten tion to every detail of her affairs, and the most affectionate in terest in her welfare ; while to him she manifests that entire confidence and assured love which, when it extends through a long life, is one of the most beautiful attributes of humanity. Mr. Kennedy s visits to his mother and other relatives in Vir ginia were the chosen recreation of his youth and manhood and the solace of his later years. Then and there he enjoyed the free and fond observation of nature, the delightful equestrian excursions, curious studies of character, and genial manorial life, the vivid memories of which inspired the domestic pictures in " Swallow Barn." He was the connecting link between the hospitable and pleasant, but limited and provincial life of Vir ginia and the great world ; his letters kept the quiet denizens of plantation and county town, au courant with the events of the time, and were often the mediums of elaborate political For whom art with nature kindly strove To form an object for the love Of a distinguished few. How blest to gain the sparkling prize Bask in the radiance of those eyes ! Thy sex s pride and envy too. May all the joys of disint 1 rested love, (And such alone the gods were wont V approve !) May all the honour, sense the bliss virtue can yield, Mark ev ry movement cv ry hour shield And when the mortal fleeting period s o er, O may this happy pair attain th Elysian shore Those regions fraught with ev ry joy supreme, Where gold s not bliss nor dignity a dream. From " The Potomac Guardian and Berkeley Advertiser" of Mon day, October G, 1794, " printed and published every Monday by N. Willis," at Martinsburg. PAKKNTAt.K. 25 discussions, as well as reports of domestic and local news ; while his coming was anticipated with zest, and any long absence made the subject of pleas and protests, which make apparent how essential was the occasional presence of " Cousin John " to the comfort and cheerfulness of his kindred at " The Bower," Martinsburg or Berkeley. In an autobiographical fragment written by Mr. Kennedy in 1825, and revised many years after, but never carried beyond the record of early youth, he gives his own impres sions of his parents as well as the recollections of his child hood. Therein his mother is delineated both as to her personal and moral traits, and described, at the age of fifty- eight, as a " majestic looking woman ;" more than twenty years after that date, she was vigorous and in the enjoyment of all her faculties, when her death occurred, after but a few hours illness, from cholera. The following mention of the news, when first received, is noted in her son s journal : "Patapsco, Sept. 12, 1854. My poor mother died Tuesday night, at eight o clock. I am deeply grieved at this melan choly message so sudden and unexpected is the event. My mother was so cheerful when I parted with her a few weeks ago ; she was quite well, but with a calm outlook towards her end ; resigned, contented and happy in the contemplation of it, but not dreaming of it so soon or by such a disease. Martinsburg was entirely free from all signs of cholera until Thursday ; and my mother, after she had gone to the Bower, was particularly well ; on Monday morning, when my brother Anthony s three children left her, she had been playing the piano for the family, and was in unusually good spirits." " I condole with you sincerely on the loss of your mother," writes Mr. Irving, " for, from my own experience, it is one of the losses which sink deepest in the heart. What a blessing it is to have this feeling for music which attended your mother to the last ! It is, indeed, a sweetener of life and a fountain of of youth for old age to bathe in and refresh itself." Mr. Kennedy had three brothers, one of whom only sur- ZO LIFE OF J01IX P. JvEXXKDY. vives him ; Penclleton Kennedy, the youngest, who died a few years since, was an erratic genius, and the author of a pleas ant record of woodland adventure, called the " Blackwatet Chronicle." He read law with his brother John, but became the victim of unfortunate habits. His letters to his brother indicate with what gentle forbearance and considerate affec tion the latter sought to correct and comfort, when less kindly counsellors lost their equanimity. His brother Anthony married his cousin, Miss Sarah Dand- ridge, when he was scarcely twenty-one, and remained on a small farm belonging to his wife ; she died in 1846, and five years after he married Miss Margaret Hughes. He was elected to the U. S. Senate on the Know Nothing ticket in 1854. He now resides near Ellicott s Mills, where, in sum mer, he enjoyed the society of his brother, living in the neigh borhood, to whom he was warmly attached; his wife is the only daughter of Christopher Hughes, formerly U. S. Minister to. Stockholm, and afterward to Brussels. Andrew Kennedy, the other brother, two years younger than himself, went to Vir ginia with his father and mother in 1819 and studied law ; he married, in 1822, Miss Law, of Charlestown, Va., had six children, lived comfortably, and left his family well provided for \vhen he died ; though the results of the late war have much impoverished them. To this brother Mr. Kennedy was peculiarly devoted, as they had been constant companions in childhood. He thus alludes to him on hearing, in a foreign land, the news of his death : " Florence, April 10, 1858. My letters bring me the unex pected and sad news of the death of my brother Andrew, who died on the 27th of February. Although he had long been in a feeble state of health, the opinion of his physicians led me to suppose he could gradually regain his strength and a fair share of health. He himself thought differently, and told me when we parted that he did not think we should meet again. I regarded this as the expression of a casual despondency,, which would be dissipated by returning health. He knew AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 2 better than his friends; and Pennington and my brother both write me that he died most peacefully, without pain and with perfect consciousness and resignation to his fate. I have lost in him the oldest and most constant of my companions, and one of the best of my friends. Society has lost a most up right and estimable man." Mr. Kennedy s father seems to have transmitted two qualities which eminently distinguished the son relish for humor and love of friends ; his disposition was confiding and his heart overflowed with kindness. Thus the son s in tellectual character, as is so often the case, bears the ma ternal stamp, while his moral traits were akin to those of his father. As to the latter s idea of parental duty, it is grate fully recorded of him by his first-born, that "he never, for one moment, allowed the straits in his circumstances to interfere with the progress of my education. He was very fond and proud of me. Heaven s blessings on his memory !" Thus favored in his filial relations, Mr. Kennedy began life under the best auspices for the development of his affec tions, if not for the training of his mind. In regard to the latter he laments the desultory nature of his education and the want of that early discipline, in special studies, which is deemed the best preparation for professional life. It may be doubted, however, if a more methodical system, and greater early means of culture, would have done as much for such a youth as the education of circumstances effected ; the picture he gives us of school and college life is a limited and incon gruous one compared to the academic privileges now open to the youth of the country ; but, after all, such a nature as his best thrives on the mental aliment it instinctively seeks, and seldom is much benefited by a prescribed and conventional course of study. The boyhood he sketches was certainly a happy one ; he had access to good books and was accustomed to healthful exercise and pleasant companionship ; by discus sion and reading his reasoning powers and his verbal memory were cultivated ; his literary tastes found scope j his home 28 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. was a genial shelter from the world, and high moral principles obtained a permanent hold on his motives of action. All thoughtful men find occasion for regret in the retrospect of their early training ; from Alfieri and Franklin to D Azeglio, the same sense of error and deficiency in youthful culture, is con fessed ; but in their case, as in that of Mr. Kennedy, it is evi dent that natural endowment and a kind providence more than compensate for early disadvantages ; " it is a hard condition, 1 he writes, "that we do not come to the perception of what really constitutes a good education, until it has become almost impossible from the lapse of time, or by the impediment of what we have learned amiss." Objectively considered, his boyhood and early youth were singularly blessed ; he had at least one good and faithful teacher ; he was encompassed by family love ; his religious impressions were genuine ; his con science was alive ; to him " it was the perfection of enjoyment to wander through the mountains," and he early manifested and enjoyed the dramatic instinct; a man of learning and taste influenced his studies, and his imagination found free and in nocent exercise in juvenile literary experiments. A striking illustration of the two prevalent elements of his mind is evi dent in the subjects he selected for his graduation address ; they both harmonize with his subsequent development, wherein the critical and sympathetic alternate or are fused. " I wrote on Sympathy," he says, " and not being pleased with it, a few days before the Commencement, set about another on Criticism, 1 which, with great despatch, I completed and committed to memory in time for the occasion." For the details of his childhood and early youth, we must refer to the Autobiograph ical Sketch, with regret that time or inclination failed the author to continue the story of his life, ample materials for which are contained in his letters and journals, but in a form which ren ders them unavailable for the purpose, except in fragments, to any other hand but his own. Of this sketch he says in an en try of his note book, dated Patapsco, April 7, 1854: "I write some passages in an autobiography which I commenced AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 29 many years ago and laid aside. It is intended to be a sketch of what I can remember of my own life, and which I began merely for my own amusement." The growth of Mr. Kennedy s native city is strikingly in dicated by the fact that the modest country home called Shrub Hill, whence he rode daily into town to attend school, is now far within the limits of the city, the grounds covered with buildings and the old edifice in the midst of populous streets. AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. I. My father was a kind and excellent man. He came from Ireland, I think about the year 1*784, being then fourteen years old, was brought up to business as a merchant by my Uncle Andrew, in Philadelphia; had a good estate left him by that gentleman, succeeded well in trade in Baltimore, where he came about 1792, married in 179^. He was respect ed and loved by his townsmen and was an upright, liberal, true- hearted man, who always did his duty and stood by his friend. He was involved in some unlucky speculations in i8o4, by his partner, Mr. Benjamin Cox, which resulted in bankruptcy in 1809. He struggled after this with industry to retrieve his fortune ; tried business again, which, however, brought him nothing more then a meagre support for his family. My mother had a small landed estate in Virginia, which was, at last, our main reliance. My Uncle Anthony, an older brother of my father by some twenty years, paid off his debts. This uncle was a man of fortune, and resided in the neighborhood of Philadelphia. He enabled my father to retain our little country residence, known as Shrub Hill, where my father had built a small but comfortable house, and which now became our only dwelling-place. Anthony Kennedy was an old bachelor who had grown rusty from solitude. He lived near Frankford, in the neigh- 30 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. borhood of Philadelphia, in a large house ; had a great deal of property in the city and out of it ; collected his rents with all imaginable punctuality ; looked at a penny on both sides before he parted with it, and grew to be, in his old age, a silent, unsocial, and apparently unsympathizing man the natural effect of solitary life. But he loved my father and paid many thousands for him, and kjft about seventy thousand dol lars of his property to my father s children that is, to my three brothers and myself. When he died, in 1828, and left us these bequests, my father was in debt in his business about twenty thousand dollars sixteen thousand of it to John McKim ; so we paid the whole amount off and left our parents very comfortable. My father was an excellent horseman, a brave man, and somewhat distinguished as a dragoon in the Volunteers in the time of Ross s invasion of Washington and Baltimore. He was in both actions of that compaign, and did there, as he everywhere did, his duty. In 1820, he removed with my mother and my three broth ers for I staid in Baltimore to a farm of my mother s in Jef ferson County, near Charlestown, in Virginia. Jane McCay, a niece of my father s, lived with them. When she died, which occurred about 1825, and my younger brothers grew up and set off to take care of them selves, my father and mother being left alone, sold Clayton the farm they lived on to my brother Andrew, and remov ed to the Bower, the residence of my mother s sister, Mrs. Dandridge, a gay, lively establishment, where they made a portion of the family by an arrangement much desired by my aunt; and there my father died on the iyth of February, 1826, of a paralysis, being the third attack of this disease, originally produced some years before by a fatiguing journey on a hot summer s day, without protection from the sun. He was sixty-seven years old. He was a man of compact and vigorous frame, with great capability to endure fatigue. His nature was kind and sociable, and full of trust in every one. HIS KINDRED. 31 He had a relish for humor, loved his friends, and had, as far as I know, no enemies. He was careless and liberal in mon ey matters, and preserved that trait through all the period of his struggles to maintain his family. He was very fond of me, and prcrud of me for what little I had to make him proud, and never, for one moment, allowed the straitness of his cir cumstances to interfere with the due progress of my educa tion. Luckily he was able to sustain my brothers and myself in the destiny he had allotted to us, throughout. He was rich while I was a child, and when his affluence might have done me harm in the way of indulgence ; and he was poor just at that period of my life when his wealth might have given me many advantages. Heaven s blessing on his memory ! There was nothing which he had that was not at my disposal if I needed it. My mother was a Virginian I ought to say is, for she is now (April 18, 1847) living in Martinsburg in her father s house, in Berkeley County. Her father was Mr. Philip Pendleton, a lawyer, and something better, a most worthy and honorable gentleman. His brothers were Judge Henry Pendleton of South Carolina, who has given the name to one of the districts of that State ; Nathaniel Pendleton, the aid-de-camp of Greene in the war of the Revolution, and the second of Alexander Hamilton in that fatal duel with Burr also Hamilton s executor. William Pendleton was another brother. How many more there were of them I do not know. But the family was full of good men and distin guished men, of whom Mr. President Edmund Pendleton, of the Court of Appeals of Virginia, was chief. The connec tion is spread all over Virginia, reticulated, as Governor Bar bour, who was one of them, would say. When General Harrison was inaugurated, in 1841, every body was at Washington. There I met John S. Pendleton, Jack as we call him, the present member of Congress from Culpepper, and lately minister or charge, d affaires at Chili. He proposed to me that we should get up a dinner of the family then happening to be in Washington. So we set about it, and LIFE OF .JOHN T. KENNEDY. ordered a large table to be provided at Brown s. When we mustered our company, thirty-two gentlemen took their seats. Governor James Barbour presided. I remember among the company Edmund H. Pendleton, of New York, former mem ber of Congress from Duchess ; Greene Pendleton, his brother, member of Congress from Cincinnatti ; Jack, of Chili ; three sons of my uncle, Philip Pendleton, Ned Hunter and others. Mr. Clay came in after dinner, and made us a speech with some laudation of the old President Pendleton, whom he knew when he (Clay) was a boy. But the country is full of Pendletons and their descendants. Amongst them is General Zachary Taylor, the hero of Buena Vista, and next President, I hope, and General Gaines, a pret ty good specimen of the old stock. My mother^ Nancy Clayton Pendleton, was very beautiful when she was married. I have a miniature which proves this, independent of the tradition of the elders, which I often hear. She is an uncommonly good-looking woman now at seventy. She was married at seventeen, in Martinsburg, in the house which she now owns and dwells in. My father brought her to Baltimore, where she was greatly admired. The year of his marriage was that of the Whiskey Insurrection, and my father was the lieutenant in command of a company of volunteers, which marched, under General Washington, against the rebels. His company had reached Fredericktown, and were encamped there, when the quarrel was settled, and my father went from that encampment to Martinsburg, and took his wife as the Scripture has it. They were married on Thursday, the second of October, in the year 1794. II. I was born on the twenty-fifth of October, 1795, being the oldest of four children, all sons. My mother had another son after my brother Andrew, but he died when a few months of age. As every man has a pedigree, I state mine thus, being the PEDIGREE. exact truth established upon the most precise historical dates. Somebody begat the father of Kenneth, King of Scotland I do not wish to carry the roll of my lineage beyond the king and he, of course, begat his son : and Kenneth begat sons and daughters ; and one of the sons begat sons who begat others, and, in due time, one of them begat a gentleman who was killed on Flodden Field, having theretofore he or some of his fathers changed the spelling of the name to Kennedy. And he of Flodden Field, who had degenerated from a king into an earl, begat before he was killed, of course, a son, and in regular procession of begettings, a great clan of Ken nedys came to inhabit certain mountains of Scotland. And they got into feuds and rows and sprees ; and lifted black mail ; stole cattle and burnt barn-yards, whereby many got them selves hung. And some kept the border in hot water ; and some fought the Irvings ; by the bye, I brought this to Wash ington Irving s notice, and we have established upon it a trace between the clans, and have found out some honest relation ship. And whilst some got hung, and some staid to keep up the reputation of St. Kennedy, as Sir Walter calls him, one man went over to Ireland and fixed his tent at Newton Cun ningham, in Donegal, where he begat two sons and daughters all Presbyterians ; and the last of these begat Andrew, An thony and John which John was my father. Now, on my mother s side, certain Pendletons lived in England, in the time of the conqueror, whereby it happened that Philip Pendleton came to be a resident of Norwich ; and, somewhere about the close of the seventeenth century, he, with his household, mi grated to America, and settled in Caroline County in Virginia ; and there he begat Henry Pendleton, who married Mary Tay lor, and they had sons and daughters. One of the sons was the Edmund of celebrated memory, who was born in that same county of Caroline in 1721. And the brother of this Edmund, begat the father of Henry, Nathaniel, William and Philip, of whom I have spoken, which father, in like manner, begat his own sons. And Philip ran away with Miss Patterson of Berke- 3-4 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. ley, by whom he got a good landed estate near Martinsburg, which induced him to leave Culpepper and take up his resi dence at Martinsburg ; and hence my good mother, and all her. brothers and sisters ; and hence, again, the subject of this memoir. And so by clear, necessary, and proper consequence, I came to be born. Here I would beg leave to remark, that by due attention to all such causes and effects as I have brought into this sequence of events concerning myself, there is not a man in the world who cannot make out a pedigree : which is a matter very important to be known. Having been born into this world, of course I was baptized, and as it so happened, by Dr. Alison, a famous preacher of that day, in the First Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. If it be a circumstance of the least conceivable importance to any one, I will state, also, that my original appearance upon this orb took place in a very respectable three-story brick house, half way between St. Paul s Street, and Charles, on the north side of Market Street, which was burnt down one year ago (I write this in 1847), then belonging to Captain Sad tier, who has since built two very good warehouses qn the ground where the other stood. I was duly washed, petticoated and kissed every day through that interesting period which is so much exalted by the women, and so much neglected by the men ; and as soon as the time came for a summer journey, I was taken to Virginia, to my mother s family there, greatly carressed as one of the miracles of the time. I have not a recollection connected with the first four years of my life that I can distinctly assign to the period. In my fifth year, General Washington died ; and I have a faint, shadowy image upon my mind of the funeral pageant in Balti more, and my father riding past the window one of the light horsemen in the procession while I was recognized by him ; the funeral car, the horse, and especially the boots dangling by the saddle, heels formosf with spurs, that I remember. At five years I was taken to Mrs. Coffey to be taught my CHILDHOOD. 35 letters. The school-house in Fayette Street, then called Chat ham (immediately opposite the Union Bank at the west corner of the alley there), is quite fresh in my memory. The good old dame had me in charge a year or two. She was gentle, kind and good natured to us. I was frightened at the first accost, and was soothed by her into confidence. John Buckler, now a most distinguished physician, was my comrade there and has been my friend ever since. He was very handsome, light- haired and blue eyed, with the cheek of a girl. He slept sometimes in his seat, and looked so like a picture of inno cent childhood, with his rich, yellowish locks falling over his face, that it pleased the good preceptress to let him sleep, or by way of affectionate jest, to administer a pinch of her Scotch snuff, which woke him in a fit of sneezing. Buckler remem bers the old lady very well. Two years, I suppose, I was with Mrs. Coffey. There was Miss Bel, an assistant. She must have been the daugh ter of the old lady, herself somewhat old maidish, kind and rigid. I have no idea how I came on in this little training- school, but well remember when I was transferred to Mr. Priestly s Academy in St. Paul s Lane near St. Paul s Street, the large house at the corner of Bank Lane. Priestly had a boy s school, anti his wife a school for young ladies and children, all in the same building. It was rather famous in those days as a first-rate institution for both sexes. Mr. Priestly and my father were together in a parlor, or dering matters in reference to me. I had a primer, and was called upon to show Mr. Priestly what I could do. I read " Charles is a good boy, and shall have some bread and" butter it was in the text I said "mi/k." My father laughed, and so did Mr. Priestly. Up to this point I had been over awed by the majesty of my new master and the grand estab lishment around him ; it was a very solemn thing to me, a child of five or six years, to be introduced into the world through a gate so vast and imposing as I conceived this academy to be, and when Mr. Priestly, the great presiding 36 LIFE OF JOHN r. KENNEDY. genius, laughed, as I thought no such person ever could laugh, it gave me great comfort. It dispelled childish illusion, and thus made an impression on my mind which has never been lost. Light matters, as manhood reckons them, are often most significant in forming the character or guiding the per ceptions of childhood. I was put under the charge of Mrs. Priestly in her girls school, up stairs. A young lady there, I think her name was Sophia Schaeffer, in one of the upper classes, was appointed to be my mistress, and I remember her writing her name in pencil upon my ruffles. It strikes me she was pretty ; and as I devoutly believed I belonged to her, I conceived a great respect and affection for her. I have lost sight of her ever since that period, although I have heard that she married a Mr. Batturs and lived in Philadelphia. Mrs. Priestly was a large woman, of a masculine cast of character, a western woman, I believe, whom Mr. Priestly had married somewhere on the frontier. We had a story of her swimming the Ohio River with a child upon her back to escape the Indians. Perhaps there was some exaggeration in this. Priestly was a good scholar, and, it was said, educated his wife after their marriage. She was a stern woman, and severe in her punishments, as I had reason, in some three or four years acquaintance, to know. At one period, I lived in the family of Mr. Priestly, I con jecture that this was at the time of the death of my grandfather Pendleton about 1802 or 1803. It was in the autumn, and my father and mother being called away to Virginia on the oc casion, left me in the care of Mr. Priestly. The young Priest- lys two of them, if I remember right John and William, slept in the same chamber with me, a very large room, with but one bed for the three. It adjoined Mr. and Mrs. Priestly s cham ber. We used to undress by their fire, and then dart into our bed Mrs. P. often present to see that we kept good order. The old gentleman was kind and considerate, and often play ed at marbles with us on the carpet. As I grew apace, I was SCHOOL DAYS. 37 transferred to the school-room of the boys, and went through the regular preliminary studies necessary to a classical course. Of my friends of that day, I remember Jacob Hollingsworth, and his cousin Tom, who died many years ago, Rider Winder, the Lemmons, now in business here, Cecilius Jamison, cash ier of the Bank of Baltimore ; Jo and Edward Patterson, and almost all the sons of Alexander Brown William (I am not sure of him), John, James and George, now the principal bank ers of the United States and Liverpool ; Dan, and John Mc- Henry, the sons of the former Secretary of War, were there. They are both dead many years. In fact, Priestly s school was in the best repute in those days, and the sons of our best fam ilies were educated there. We had Mr. Fromentin as a preceptor in the school. This gentleman was a Frenchman : he went afterwards to New Orleans, and held a seat in the Senate of the United States. The second in authority to Mr. Priestly was William Sin clair, my kind old preceptor, friend and guide for many years. He was a native of Ireland, educated to the Presbyterian min istry, and had been private tutor and companion to Lord Cas- tlereagh, the Prime Minister, by whom in the time of the Irish rebellion, he was very badly treated, as he was often heard to complain. The Irish gentlemen of Baltimore, Mr. Oliver, Mr. Hugh Thompson, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Alexander Brown, Doc tor White and Colonel Moore and others, were very kind to him throughout the whole period of his life. He was a good scholar, with the kindest heart and the most attractive simplic ity of character. Somewhat jovial in his humor, and as he grew old, it was thought perhaps a little too free in his living. The boys all loved him, and that is a good test of the good ness of his heart. Such popularity is a genuine proof of mer it in the point of character, and is no bad index, either, of mer it, in point of mind. I have endeavored to give a sketch of Sinclair in Parson Chubb, in my " Swallow Barn," both as to his exterior and to the composition of his character. Priestly gave up his academy in Baltimore somewhere about LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. the year 1808. He and Sinclair had projected the establish ment of the Baltimore College, and, I think procured the char ter for that institution. When this was obtained, and before it was organized, Priestly removed to the West upon some ad vantageous offer of a college there, so Sinclair succeeded to the charge of the school. I remained with him ; and in fact con tinued with him until, as the phrase goes, I finished my ed ucation by taking a degree of Bachelor of Arts in the college which was established under the charter very soon after the departure of Mr. Priestly. In the way of education I had gone along in the regular order, first in the indoctrination of those elements which were taught by Mrs. Coffey, ending in words of four syllables, well defined in those rough old books, which, in my day, were got up on coarse paper between coarse covers, with a picture of the Rev. Mr. Dilworth in the frontispiece, a stern, rigid old gentleman with a pen in hand and rather a bleared visage. These books were marvellously in contrast with the lux urious libraries which modern art is every day producing in singular abundance to beguile the youth of this period into the first paths of philosophy. Whether these latter succeed better than the old, I cannot say, but there was an odor of leather and type about our spelling books of the old time, that both morally and physically, seem to be altogether different from that of the more recent creation. I rather suppose, how ever, that these externals have not much to do with the pro cess by which good sense and useful learning are infused into the mind. From the primer stage of my training, which ended with my transfer to the boys apartments in Mr. Priestly s school, I entered upon that second journey, which, as Sterne says, lies between " Criss Cross and Malachi, " the first attempt at writing and the last of the Old Testament, and thence into the realms of the Latins and the Greeks. Along with these I had as much as I could digest of figures, geometry, mathematics and algebra. At proper intervals came infusions of French and SCHOOL DAYS. 39 Spanish, and in short, my course ran through all the duly-es tablished highways by which it is supposed philosophy and letters were to be caught, appropriated and kept for a useful commerce with the world. My brother Andrew, at the measured distance of two years, followed me along the same paths ; but being destined to mercantile employment, did not look, as I did, to the college honors. III. In looking back to the companions of my youth whom I re member with most favor, I dwell on the names of Hugh and Peter Young. They were the sons of Mr. Hugh Young, an Irish gentleman resident in Union Street. Hugh was nearly two years my senior, Peter and I were of the same age. Hugh possessed a high order of talent was noted, as a boy, for his precocious acquirement. At fourteen, he was quite a good writer, and at sixteen, was a contributor to The Portfolio >, in Philadelphia. He was ambitious of fame, and took pride in seeing his name in print. His example and admonitions had a striking effect upon me. I ascribe to this my own early am bition to write and speak, and I know that it had a sensible ef fect upon the course of my studies. Hugh Young was handsome, and grew up tall. He painted and sketched tolerably well, and had quite a romantic turn of character. During the war he bore a musket in defence of Baltimore, afterwards attracted the notice of General Jackson, and became his aid-de-camp in the Seminole campaign, and died of fever taken in the South, somewhere, I think, about 1824. Peter Young was a kind, good-hearted fellow, of fair talents, who became a mer chant, went to the Havana, took the fever there and died. These two had younger brothers, who are yet alive. Mc- Clintock Young, the youngest but one of the family, is now (1848) and has been for ten or twelve years past, the chief clerk in the Treasury Department of the Government a 40 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. most estimable man, respected and beloved by all who know him. Hugh once got up a play at his father s house the trag edy of Douglas. He took young Norval. It was played be fore a select company of friends, and Hugh got great credit for his acting, as he did for all his enterprises of that time. I played the servant, and had to say, " My Lord, the carriage waits," which I did with many tremors. It was among my fancies, during my boyhood, to make a mimic stage. I procured an old tea chest of the largest size, and taking away the lid, converted the interior into a minia ture theatre. I painted scenes for it, sawed slits in the sides to let in fly-scenes, got a range of small wax candles for the footlights, painted a drop curtain, which was arranged behind a green one, and introduced puppet figures (which I drew my self, and cut out of pasteboard), through the floor, and made plays to suit all this apparatus, which I used to exhibit at home, very much to the gratification of my school-fellows and the servants of the family. My father lived at Shrub Hill at this time, and I had a chamber in the attic, where I pursued my studies, and dealt in a very miscellaneous career of authorship, writing essays on many subjects, embryo tragedies and abortive comedies ; tales, epitomies of almost every science, but especially of mil itary engineering, to which I had taken a violent attach ment. Then I had a diary, also, in which I kept an account of my readings, and made wise reflections upon the passing events. A grievous fault into which I fell at this period of my life, was the overloading my mind with a multiplicity of studies and pursuits, which hindered me from that systematic labor by which I might have digested and retained what I read. Continually changing my subject, my mind became confused with the variety of the demands upon it, and I therefore never arrived at any thing like accurate attainment of any branch of knowledge. I have felt this to be one of the most DESULTORY STUDIES. 41 unfortunate defects of my education ever since. One study fairly mastered, so far at least as to give the student a con nected view of the whole ground which the subject covers, even without attaining to much knowledge of details, and then another, taken up and pursued in the same way, a great deal may thus be preserved in the mind for practical use throughout life. But a subject only half developed and crowded into the mind with the fragments of a thousand others, leaves no better impression than one gets from a kaleidoscope, whose forms and colors amuse for the moment, but fade from the memory almost as soon as the instrument is taken from the eye. I worked hard during these years to accomplish myself in a whole circle of science and learning. I studied Greek a whole winter, by rising before daylight ; I read Locke, Hume, Robertson all the essayists and poets, and many of the metaphysicians ; studied Burke, Taylor, Barrow worked at chemistry, geometry, and the higher mathematics, although I never loved them ; made copious notes on all the subjects which came within my study ; sketched, painted (very badly), read French, Spanish, and began German ; copied large portions of Pope s translations of Homer, and wrote critical notes upon it as I went along ; in short, I thoroughly over worked myself through a number of years in these pursuits, gaining much less advantage by the labor than, I am confident, I could have secured with better guidance, in half the time. In this reference to my studies, I have run somewhat ahead of the due course of my narrative. What I have said applies rather to my college life than to that period when I was under the preparations of the academy. Among my associates of this early time was John Glenn, who has since made a fortune at the bar of Baltimore; William Fulton, who died, a few years ago, a senator in the U. S. Senate from Arkansas ; Levi Pierce, an eminent lawyer of the bar of New Orleans. There were others who came to nothing. LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. It was about the year 1809 when we made Shrub Hill our permanent residence ; before that we had a house in Balti more, and only went to the country in the summer. It was after our removal to the country that I gave myself so assiduously to study. Previous to that time, I am inclined to believe. I was very thoughtless, and took no great trouble upon myself for any good end. My mother was in delicate health for many years before this, and travelled a. great deal. My brother and myself were her constant companions on these rambles. Our circuit always ended at Martinsburg, where I passed a month or two always in the hot weather. My grandmother was then alive and took great delight in having my mother with her. The family in Martinsburg was large ; my mother s eldest sister, Mrs. Hunter, lived there with her husband, Colonel Hunter, and a house full of children. Philip C. Pendleton, and Edmund, James and Henry, all younger than my mother, were at home ; Sally and Maria, now Mrs. Dandridge and Mrs. Ccoke, were very young then. I remember my grandmother s sister, Mrs. Ferguson, an old lady who used to come in from the country, somewhere near Martinsburg, and stay a few days at a time with us. There was occasionally a sickly season in Berkeley, and several of us had agues. Mrs. Ferguson prescribed a cure which I shall not forget, as I often tried it in company with the other children. It was this : There was a large, cold, limestone spring, on the margin of a swamp (which I believe was the chief source of our maladies), about two hundred yards to the rear of my grandmother s garden. We were enjoined to get out of our beds at sunrise, throw a blanket around us, and go to the spring, and there dip up the water in the hollow of the hand nine times in succession, and drink it each time, then re turn to bed. This was to be done for nine mornings, which we, in full faith, executed. I don t remember how it proved, but I do remember that my grandmother used to make us drink tansy bitters, made, I think, by steeping tansy in whiskey, every morning in the sickly season before breakfast. What I VISITS TO VIRGINIA. 43 disliked a great deal more than this, she more than once, in my experience, put us through a course of Peruvian bark, which was prepared, when her patients were numerous, in a coffee-pot, and administered every two hours, sometimes for a week at a time. My recollections of it are that my reluctance was invincible to any thing but her threats. There was a kind old dame in Martinsburg who was one of our tutelary saints, old Mammy Phcebe ^what her other name was I have never heard. I think she had been General Stephens s house-keeper. She made apple-jack expressly for our gratification ; and I used to drive a team of four boys in twine harness, all of us barefooted, across the rough, sharp, stony hills of Martinsburg, over to her house several times a-day to get the apple-jack. The team which belonged to this line was different from other teams, in the essential point that the horses generally chose the driver by vote, and therefore frequently changed the executive, sometimes con verting the coachman into a wheeler, and sometimes promot ing the leader to the box. There was a family of Hannas who lived a few miles from Martinsburg, relatives, I think, of my grandmother. There were several brothers of them, and I believe not one who was not over six feet three or four inches in height. The father of these had a little farm on the Tuscarara, where he kept a school. To this school I used to go with some of my comrades, during my long summer visit to Virginia. One thing connected with this school going, I recall, is the extraordinary desire I had to go barefoot. My journey to the school was over the rough limestone, which is particularly severe u-pon the toes, and often across stubble fields in preference to a circuitous road. The whole travel was painful to me, and yet I practised many tricks to get rid of my shoes every day, against the watchful ness and prohibition of my mother. Why do boys dislike shoes ? 44 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. IT. My college life, I may say, began in 1808, when I was thir teen years old, and ended with a diploma in 1812. I entered the Baltimore College at its first establishment. Previous to this I had been a pupil in Sinclair s Academy, which had form ed a union with that of Samuel Knox, both in Baltimore. Sin clair held the charter for the college, and this union with Knox was made with a view to carrying the two academies into the college, which was accordingly organized under the direction of a board of trustees, with Knox as president, and Sinclair as vice-president. The college buildings were provided for by the grant of a lottery, and were erected nearly opposite the Cathedral. I think it was about 1810 when these buildings were finished for our reception. In the mean time, that is for two years, we assembled in Knox s Academy rooms, in what was then called Chatham Street, now Fayette Street, at the cor ner of McClellan s Alley. I have no pleasant recollections of Knox. He was an Irish Presbyterian clergyman, a large, coarse, austere man, with an offensive despotism in his character which not only repelled all love, but begat universal fear and dislike among the boys. He was not much of a scholar either, I should say, and was far from successful as a teacher. In fact, the boys under his charge made but little progress even in the rough work of study, and were left altogether uninstructed in those matters of taste and nice criticism which I hold to be indis- pensible to the object of creating a fondness for study in youth ful minds. There are few boys whose fancy may not be awa kened to the perception of something agreeable in scholastic study, by proper culture from their preceptor, and who will thus be led to take an interest in the routine of their college duties. But every thing with Knox seemed to be done in the most repulsive manner. We hurried through recitation before him at a gallop, saying what was set down for us, or seem ing to say it, when he ran on ahead of us, unconsciously read- COLLEGE LIFE. 4r<> ing out the whole lesson sometimes, as if in a hurry to be done with it. He had no pleasantries by the way, no explanations, no appeals to our own perceptions of an author s merits. Thus we measured off Virgil and Homer by the yard, as rapid ly and as recklessly as we should have measured so much tape. Sinclair s mode of teaching was different. He was kind, gentle, disposed sometimes to raillery and fun ; gave us little anecdotes, somewhat stereotyped, by the way, of the authors we were reading. But boys are good judges of a sympathizing, genial temper, and always appreciate it. We had a positive pleasure in deceiving Knox, by slighting a lesson and mum bling over any thing that might pass for a recitation before him ; whilst we never attempted such a thing with Sinclair. He used to make excuses for our failures or neglects, and say so many kind things to extenuate our faults, that we were actual ly ashamed to come to his recitation in an unprepared state. In the four years of my college career, I went through the usual course of Latin and Greek authors ; a short and imper fect system of mathematics, in which I took the smallest inter est ; some physical science done up in a very meagre volume ; and along with these a barren and absurd scheme of logic in Latin, and some incomprehensible metaphysics. French, I ac- quired with considerable accuracy, could speak and write it tolerably well. I got some little Spanish also, though not much; and as an embellishment to this fund of solid learning, I was taught to dance. Music I had none. My French teacher was Guerin, a thin, active, swarthy, bony, impulsive, voracious Frenchman, who had been a con script with Bonaparte, and had got his skull cracked by a sa bre at Hohenlinden with Moreau. I say voracious, with refer ence to his appetite, for he ate with a most abnormal fury, and never grew a pound fatter by it. But he was the most in dustrious and severe working man I ever saw, and took infi nite pains with his class. He was a familiar inmate in Mr. Pascault s family. This LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY . gentleman was a French merchant of Baltimore, wealthy and greatly esteemed, and kept a most agreeable household, where I used to go almost daily with Louis and Frank, his two sons, who were my school companions, and with whom Guerin was always a party when we had any amusement afoot. It was one of our common sports to catch bullfrogs in Mr. Pascault s fish-pond, and have them cooked by Mamma Kitty, Mr. P. s old house-keeper. The sisters of Louis and Frank were very beautiful. The oldest of them, Henrietta, who was an intimate friend of my mother s, had married General Rubell, when he and Jerome Bonaparte came to Baltimore in 1803. Miss Pascault and Miss Patterson were then distinguished belles in our society. Rubell and Jerome, then both very young, and fellow officers in the French navy, had come to Baltimore together. They both married at this time. Jerome s match with Miss Pat terson gave great offence to his brother, and the marriage was annulled in 1805 ; Rubell s, of course, was not assailed. At the time of my intimacy in Mr. Pascault s family, Rubell had fallen under the Emperor s displeasure, and was now here in exile, living in a small house belonging to his father-in-law, and on the same ground where the old gentleman lived. The other daughters of Mr. Pascault were near my own age, Eleo- nora and Josephine, with whom I was in daily intercourse. Eleonora married my schoolmate, Columbus O Donnell, and is now the mother of a large family. Josephine is the wife of Albert Gallatin, of New York, son of the famous Al bert, Mr. Madison s Secretary of the Treasury. Guerin was a favorite with this family, and still more a fa vorite with his class. In 1812 or 13 he went to the West; and the last I ever saw of him was in that year, 1813, in Baltimore, making arrangements to publish a Life of Col. Joseph Hamil ton Daviess of Kentucky, who had just been killed at the bat tle of Tippecanoe. It seems that Guerin had gone to Ken tucky at the breaking out of the war, and undertaken to teach a class the art of war, military discipline, fencing, etc., in view COLLEGE LIFE. 47 of the martial state of the times, and that Daviess had been one of his pupils. What became of Guerin after this I never heard. The college course of study was that usually adopted in other institutions of the same kind, a long probation of Latin and Greek, and a very superficial study of every thing else. It took four years to go through the course of study ne cessary for a diploma. Mine was the first class that graduated after the organization of the College, and, as it happened, was a very small one. The graduates were John Glenn, James Mosher, William Fulton, Robert Wilson and myself. Glenn and Fulton I have already spoken of. Mosher was wild and dissipated, went to Paris and ruined his health, came home, married and died a short career perhaps not over five-and-twenty. During my college career, and before that period from an early day in my youth, I was in the habit of appropriating a portion of every Sunday to religious .studies, which consisted, in part, in writing extracts from the Scriptures, and the finest passages I found in theological writers. I had note books for these purposes, and took great pleasure in this occupation. I think I may say my mind had a decided inclination towards theological study; and, with a good deal of thoughtlessness, and tendency towards more imaginative speculation, I had a devout spirit, and a profound reverence in the contemplation of the nature of God and the duties which belong to our relations to him. With the usual share, therefore, of the faults of boys, and more than a usual share, I fear, of their follies, I had a tender conscience against my transgressions, and abundance of good intentions to amend my life. Perhaps this may be regarded as among the hopeful qualities of youth, giving promise of better things when reflection ripens and the passions subside. I was always very humble in my estimate of my own moral qualities ; was shy and reserved in the little society I saw ; was addicted to study ; secretly proud of some little faculty I had for writing, and remembered well and long 48 LIFE OF JOHN r. KENNEDY. and gratefully the slightest praise I ever heard of myself, for this accomplishment With such a temper I was a castle- builder, and was constantly absorbed in some fancy of enter prise and ambition having it all pretty much to myself. I wrote a farce once, I forget its name, but it was played by my comrades in some of our holidays. I wrote, also, a little volume of travel, altogether a fiction, in Spitzbergen, and thought I had accomplished something very excellent. I wrote many letters in the way of friendly correspondence with my relatives in Virginia. With one, an aunt, the whole was in French. These letters were conceited enough in the way of advice and in the effort to be witty. I suspect this because I had such an admiration of " Tristram Shandy " and the " Senti mental Journey." But I know I wrote a great many things in what I thought the same vein the pages filled with dashes, and an imitation of that eccentric transition, and the paren theses, and the personal conjuration of the reader, which are to be found in all of Sterne s books. What a confused jumble of crude fancies, of imperfect acquisitions and fragmentary knowledge, of forces dissipated for want of order, of queer conceits, and with rhapsodies that I thought at the time were quite brilliant discoveries or inventions, of errors hard studied and deeply imbedded in the mind ! What formidable difficulties from these have I had to struggle against through all the rest of my life ; unravelling what I had knitted up with so much care ! It is a hard condition that we do not come to the perception of what really constitutes good education until it has been almost impossible by the lapse of time, or by the impediment of what we have learned amiss. Before I quit my school days, I must notice some of the pleasures which belonged to that period. I was, with the great majority of boys, addicted to the amusements which are to be found in the open air. I was taught to ride from the time when my legs could span a saddle. I do not remember when I could not ride on horseback. My father was fond of RECREATIONS. horses, and, in his lowest estate, -had his carriage. I believe I have never been without a horse in any single year from the time when I was five years old up to the present day. A boy acquires great confidence and indeed utter fearlessness in his saddle under such training. I can remember old Sam, our coachman, holding me by one hand, as he led a favorite horse of my father s while I was perched on his back. This often occurred when the horse was to be taken to the stable, upon my father s coming home from a ride. After my -father s misfortune in business, and when Shrub Hill became our permanent residence, my brother Andrew and I had a pony in common, which we used to ride in town in bad weather, often both together. Sometimes we had a gig to take us in to school, with a servant, but we preferred double riding on our pony. Mr. Pascault s family resided about half way between our house and town, and as we passed his door, Frank, his son, who was a school-mate of ours, used often to wait for us and insist upon making a third passenger on the pony s back, riding, as Frank called it, ship-shape. When the regular August holiday arrived, I used to take my horse, and, getting some thirty or forty dollars from my father, set out upon a journey to Virginia ; first to Martins- burg or The Bower, where my uncle Dandridge lived, and thence into the mountains, sometimes to Berkeley Springs, sometimes to other quarters. It was an expedition of unmixed delight to me, to get off on these excursions. My horse sure- ooted, my valise packed to plethora, strapped upon the pad, with thirty dollars an immense sum of money in my pocket. With such a light heart, such a confident hand, and such a head so stuffed with visions of pleasure, and, I may add, with such an appetite as utterly abrogated all fastidiousness of accommodation, it was the perfection of enjoyment to me, to ramble in this wise through the mountains. I have always had such a vivid relish for country scenery, such a keen perception of the beauty of landscape, that my 3 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. delight in these journeys was of the highest artistic character, and for years afterwards I could sketch pretty well, from memory alone, the scenes I had witnessed. This early habit of rambling, and the distinctness of the impressions made upon me by scenery, I am not wrong in be lieving, have given me a very decided skill in woodcraft. I am now, as I have always been, singularly accurate in my knowledge of localities. I never lose my road, however diffi cult it may be, when travelling through forest or over mount ains if, at starting, I know the point of the compass to which my journey leads. Among the thousand intricacies of a new country, I seldom fail, to thread my way with complete success. I never forget a spot I have once visited, and have often found myself picturing to my mind with remarkable cer tainty, scenes ahead of me in my journey, recalled to me by objects in view, when I could not at all recall to my recollec tions any trace of the time when I had before journeyed there. I mean that I have often found myself recognizing scenery, when I had no knowledge of ever having visited it at a for mer date. These were places, doub Jess, through which I had travelled in infancy, and their features were remembered after all other associations with them were forgotten. The same faculty or characteristic of mind which made me fond of travel, attached me, though in a less degree, to field sports. Having a gun always, with the proper equipments, I was a sportsman but never a good shot, and I think I may affirm that I found more pleasure in the ramble than in the pursuit of the game. All the boys among my family con nections in Virginia were, or affected to be, inveterate hunt ers ; and, in imitation of them, I hunted pheasants and tur keys and partridges not the most lucky of the parties with which I was associated. In the same spirit, and I think with more zest, I was a fisherman ; but still I confess that all these occupations were subordinate to the interest I took in the scenery, and the country life with which these amuse ments were connected. I was ever in the pursuit of the pict- RECREATIONS. 51 uresque, and found more enjoyment in sketching a party of gunners or fishermen than in aiding them to take their prey. I need hardly say that the stage was one of my great de lights. All boys love that magnificent tinsel illusion. I was greatly curbed by my father and mother, in my younger days, in this pleasure. I was allowed to go to the theatre not above twice a season. But there was the circus, and the rope- dancers, and the jugglers besides, to which I was also spar ingly admitted, the whole affording me in the year a rapture that made me many idle hours for a play once seen by a boy, has to be digested ; that is to say, it has to be talked over with his comrades in all and sundry of its scenes, dia logues, jokes and startling passages, about one thousand times before it is quietly stowed away in the memory. Old Jeffer son, old Blisset, old Warner, old Wood every player was old if he was a favorite with the boys. We remembered them in every wink, shrug, poke in the ribs, or caper of any kind whatever which they had ever made in a play we had seen ; and we, of course, acted all such gesticulations over again un til the fountain of our mirth had gone dry from the excessive draughts upon it. These were some of the chief actors in my earliest memory. They are all gone now but Wood, unless Blisset be alive, as I have heard he was not long ago, in the Isle of Man, where he retired many years since. Cooke, the great tragedian George Frederick came to Baltimore whilst I was at college, I think. I saw him several times, drunk and sober. He played Richard, and Pierre and lago, and Sir Giles Overreach, and some other parts in which I saw him. The crowd was so great at that time at the the atre door, and the interest to see his performance so intense, that the managers opened the pit at four o clock in the after noon to such as wished to get in, and there I have gone at that hour to get a good seat, and waited till seven for the per formance. Cooke, when I saw him, was an old man, and very intemperate, but a great actor. It was not long after Cooke had gone away that Incledon, 52 LIFE OF JOHN T. KENNEDY. the celebrated singer, made a visit to this country. I heard him in several of the old English operas. I particularly re member him singing " The Lads of the Village," and " Cease Rude Boreas." He appeared to me to be nearly seventy years old. After him we had Edmund Kean and Braham some years, perhaps, later. Kean must have been here in 1818 or 1819. I saw him in all his best characters. I remember two of my early school-time journeys with more distinctness than others. I suppose I must have been fourteen, when my father, having need of some official paper from Annapolis, sent me there to get it for him. It was about the end of May, and I was equipped with the proper furniture for a horseback ride. In those days there was no steamboat, and the stage had a bad road to travel which always took the whole day. Most people then travelled between Baltimore and Annapolis by private conveyance. I was well mounted, and set out after dinner to ride to the half-way house, a little cot tage-like inn, near the crossing of the Severn, kept by a widow, Mrs. Urquhart Mrs. Orchard, as she was commonly called. Here I spent the night and rode into Annapolis the next morning. I soon despatched my business there and again set out, after dinner, travelling to another house some two or three miles nearer to Baltimore than Mrs. Urquhart s. I think it was then kept by Walsh, a very mean place, better known afterwards as Plummer s. Here I found a party of travellers, young men, from different directions, accidentally met. The spot was a dreary one, and one of this party pro posed, as a pastime, that we should make a game of loo, to which we all agreed. The play was very small six and a quarter cents for the deal, and twenty-five for the loo. We had shelled corn for counters, and towards midnight I won a large pile, after which we broke up play. My winnings were nearly three dollars. I was horribly disturbed by it such a sum, such rank gambling ! I did not know whether I ought to keep it or not. Hadn t I better return the money ? What would my mother think of such enormous gambling ? Should YOUTHFUL JOURNEYS. 53 I tell her of it when I got home or keep it secret? What should I do with the money ? I had a thousand perplexities about this unhappy gain. I believe I made it a profound se cret. Never mentioned it to my father or mother, for fear it would shock them. Yet I was manifestly pleased with this piece of good fortune. Many a man has taken an evil ply to wards gaming upon as slight a provocation as this. I re solved, however, in consideration of this flagrant excess, never to think of cards, at least never to play as high as three dollars again. My other journey was later, perhaps in 1811. It was an August holiday, when I mounted my pony to make a visit to the Natural Bridge, and my father finding me set that way, gave me instructions to go to Lexington and Lynchburg to look after some debts that were due him in those places. For some reason, which ] forget, I did not go to the Bridge, but did travel to the two towns above mentioned. There was a gentleman named Moore in Lexington who owed my father money, and who made some settlement with me ; but I do not now remember what occasion took me to Lynchburg. But when I arrived there, there was an old gentleman whose name I have forgotten, living in the hotel at which I stopped, and who casually hearing my name, introduced himself to me, and soon satisfied himself that I was the son of an old acquaint ance of his. He was, I think, a bachelor, and was the cashier of a bank in Lynchburg. However, he told me that when he was a young man setting out in life my father had been very kind to him, and had lent him money when he was greatly in need of it ; that he had had bad fortune in the world, until he had got this post in the bank, which enabled him to save a little money ; that finding himself able to do this, he had never forgotten my father s debt, but had been making provis ion for it. The debt was so old, and, as my father supposed, so hopeless, that he had lost sight of it. I don t know how many years had passed over it, but the old gentleman took me to his room, where, with a great many kind and grateful rem- LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. iniscences of my father, he made a statement of his account, summing up a long arrear of interest, and paid me between six and seven hundred dollars, being every penny due unto that day. This incident gave a fine zest to my journey, and I travelled across the mountain on my homeward route with the lightest heart that ever a boy carried. I never cared to take the high roads, if I could find some rough mountain path to lead me to my journey s end. On my return from Lynchburg, taking the direction of Lexington, which required me to cross the Blue Ridge, I was directed to some mountain gap of a very wild and picturesque character. It happened, as I toiled over a broken road, scarcely practicable to my horse, that in descending the mountain about noon, I had halted at a fence before a rude log-cabin, which was in the midst of a corn-field, to inquire my way. My inquiry was answered by a very jo vial voice from within the cabin, and in a moment I saw in the door before me a pleasant, kindly-faced, middle-aged gentle man in a light sursuckcr coat, with very much the air of a bon- mvant. " You must get down," said he, " and get your dinner, and then I ll tell you the road. There is no house within eight or ten miles where you can find a mouthful. The day is hot, and I know you are hungry. Come ! get down, get down, no parleying about it." So, of course, I dismounted, and this good gentleman taking possession of my horse hand ed him over to a servant to be put in the stable and fed. When I came into the cabin, which in all externals was of the most ordinary character anywhere in Virginia, I found a little piece of carpet on the floor, a hanging book-shelf with a number of books on it, and among other evidences of a person of better condition than might be expected in such a habitation, there were to be seen a fine double-barrelled gun and the equipment belonging to it, and a pair of first-rate pointers, if I might judge from their appearance and behavior. My host introduced himself to me as Mr. Farrar, and find ing that I was from Baltimore, asked me a hundred questions about many friends there. How was Alick Boyd, Kit Hughes, MILITARY AS FIXATIONS. 55 Ned A - many others known to our gayest circles of so ciety. He told me he had studied law with General Harper, and had come to this mountain region to try his hand at a set tlement. He made some delicious toddy for me, and then went to work himself and cooked some partridges he had shot and gave me a delightful dinner, and afterwards set me on my way with a renewed joyousness. How captivating were such adventures to me then ! Sunshine and rain, night and day, time and tide were all alike. There was a radiance at the heart which gilded all without, and gave equal splendor to ev ery phase of the landscape. Before I graduated at college, which was in September 1812, the war with England broke out. It is called "the late war," by all the men of that time, though now a long way off, and there having been several Indian wars and our Mexican War since. The country had been gradually " preparing its heart for war " as General Cass s phrase in the Senate has it for some years previous, ever since the affair of "The Chesapeake." In this growth of martial ardor, I, of course had a fair share, and this will explain my devotion to the science of fortification and field engineering of which I have spoken. I had fully made up my mind, a year before the war was de clared, that I would endeavor to get into the army, and in this hope had applied myself to all kinds of military studies. I was sensible of one great disqualification, as I thought, for an officer, and that was a superstitious dread of darkness. I had been disturbed in my youth by ghost stories and the thou sand inveterate horrors with which they assail and weaken the mind of infancy. How admirably has Charles Lamb painted these " night fears" of children ! I had exemplified in my own experience and manifold sufferings, the truth of those pictures through all the early stages of my boyhood. How trembling ly did I cover up my head in the bedclothes when my candle was put out ! What faith I had in the supernatural interference of spirits with our worldly concerns ! I have heard their shrieks in the wind many a time in a winter night, and have shivered 50 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. in a cold sweat beneath all my blankets ; and I have often seen queer little old men, and fantastic women dancing in my chamber, and now, when I had grown old enough and wise enough to know that these were mere illusions, I could not divest myself of my childish fright, at the creations of my own imagination, when it painted these terrible images on the broad canvass of midnight. Sadly perplexed by this infirmity, and ashamed of it as a thing incompatible with my aspirations to wards a soldier s life, I resolutely determined to get rid of it. I never confessed my weakness to any one, but communed with myself so gravely upon it, that I account it a piece of brave self-discipline, which finally enabled me, alone, without counsel or support of friends, to reform so deeply-rooted an evil of my temperament. To accomplish this, my first point of regi men was to place myself in such conditions as would put my self-command to the severest defiance. I accordingly rose at midnight, and often rambled about till daylight. Shrub Hill lay then upon the border of a large tract of woodland, which, extending westward for two or three miles, was intersected by brooks, girt with rocks and briars, and occasionally marked by morasses. I wandered through this wood for hours, often when it was so dark that I could not see my hand before me. I had some startling accidents now and then in this career, and I can remember that I sometimes sang aloud, to assure myself that I was not greatly alarmed rather a doubtful proof I am aware. But in the end I triumphed, and I have often laughed since to think how certainly I would have been regarded as a crazy boy, if any one had detected me in these vagaries. I could have given no acceptable reason or plausible excuse for such strange ac tions, and must have been set down as one incurably weak of head. But I fortunately kept my secret, and escaped the mor tification I might have met. Brave as I was in this discipline, I have had my hair to stand on end, on stumbling over a cow in the darkness, and on finding a tall clump of white flowers and weeds passing over the range of my dim vision, when I had been struggling through a thicket. Odd enough to note what COLLEGE SOCIETY. 57 fancies may secretly possess a boy at that time of life, and how earnestly he will pursue them. I was very happy in it all, for I felt conscious I was achieving a valuable triumph over a defect in my early nurture. We had a debating society in Baltimore College, to which we attached great importance. I continued a member of it for some years after I graduated. Some of the members were promising young men, and all of them quite respectable. Grafton Dulany was an admirable debater. Richard Gill, Glenn, Fulton, Levi Pierce, Bailey, who lives, I think, at Lew- isburg in Virginia, Wiseman I don t know what has become of him : these were members, though not all of them scholars of the college. We had themes proposed to write upon, top ics assigned for debate all the usual exercises of such socie ties. I have great faith in such societies. They afford fine stimulus to young minds, and often develop a great deal of unsuspected talent. They promote careful study, good man ners, and generous emulation, and have singular efficiency in teaching oratory, which is so much improved by intellectual collisions. Finley was an active member, and was inclined to be political in his management. We broke into parties like parliamentary bodies, and sometimes grew excited and seyere, like our betters. The election of a president for the society awakened eager partisanship, and often gave rise to intrigues ; and in one case Glenn was challenged by a young man named Spaulding for blackballing him upon an allegation of a want of qualification. What a miniature theatre of pertur bation, and how like the larger one of political life ! The in stincts of the boy in such a field are just those of the man. But with all these drawbacks, the debating society is a most effective teacher of manliness, self-respect and independent opinion, not less than of a great deal of useful acquirement, which boys turn to good account in after life. I don t know how many addresses, speeches, constitutions, protests, remon strances and other productions of the state-paper kind, I wrote during my attachment to the society, but I know I had a port- 58 LIFE OF JOHN P. KEXNKDY. folio full of these which I treasured up for years with a pride of authorship I have never felt since. I am sure that my ca pability for the same kind of writing and speaking, when I found myself engaged in the business of life afterwards, was very sensibly improved by the discipline of my youth. Judge Hollingsworth Zebulon, or Zeb Hollingsworth as everybody called him ; had his family residence, at this time, on the high ground above Shrub Hill. He was a man of great and widespread reputation for his wit and scholarship. He took a strong fancy for me, and favored me with a very in timate acquaintance. I was almost every day at his house in close association with his two sons, Edward and Horatio. He was the associate judge of the Baltimore County Court, and, when I first knew him, was beginning to show some irregulari ty in his habits a misfortune that grew upon him towards the end of his life. But he was a ripe classical scholar, a man of fine taste and extensive reading, and of a most brilliant wit. The generation of that day were accustomed to repeat Zeb Hollingsworth s brilliant sayings in all companies, and I dare say, as is usual, to set down to him a great many clever things that he never uttered. I remember one, particularly, which I know was genuine. Hollingsworth very naturally prided him self on his intellect, but he was cynical, and held inferior men, and particularly ostentatious men, in great scorn. There was a Mr. Hollins, in Baltimore, a merchant of considerable wealth, a very respectable gentleman, but inclined to be state ly, showy and grave. He was at the head of the firm of Hol lins & McBlair, and regarded himself as holding a position very high in our mercantile community. With a fine exterior, a bald head, a grave, wise-looking countenance, he was not very intellectual. Hollingsworth, I suppose, did not like him, and one day, at a dinner-party, he was asked if Mr. H. was not an intimate friend of his. The judge was somewhat start led at the question, and denied the intimacy, spoke rather sharply against his townsman, and said he and Mr. H. had no Doints of sympathy, and then quoted Pope (I dare say his A JUDICIAL FRIEKD. 59 diatribe was secretly inspired by his first perception of the wit of the quotation) " Worth makes the man, and want of it, the fellow All the rest is leather and prunella !" This was the gentleman with whom my boyhood was now so intimately conversant. He threw me into a state of con fused modesty and embarrassment one day that I called to sit with him at his house Upton, that was the name of his seat when, in the presence of a company of ladies and gen tlemen who happened to be there, he said to me : " Young man, what was the purpose of those oratorical flourishes of yours this morning, when you were walking in your garden, with a paper in your hand, and were gesticulating in such a dramatic way for a good hour before breakfast ? I -suppose you are preparing to astonish the debating society with one of those magnificent impromptu speeches, which will annihilate every man in the opposition." He then described my walk ing up and down the garden-walk, imitating me by walking across the room my violent toss of the arms, and my frequent recurrence to the paper in my hand which I was evidently committing to memory. He did this so comically as to set every one laughing, and to cover me with confusion at being discovered in what I thought was a most private study. He had guessed the truth. I had been practising a speech, and manifesting all the vehemence he imputed to me, in what I thought a perfectly concealed part of the garden. But it happened that unconsciously I was in full view 7 of the judge, who was on the porch at Upton, and who, seeing me in this state of excitement, had called out his sons to look at me. Horatio was a member of the debating society, and knew the subject I was upon, and made my exposure a topic for many a jest afterwards. A less shy nature than mine would have made light of the joke, but I sank under it almost as much as if I had been detected in a piece of roguery. I owe a great deal to Judge Hollingsworth in the way of 60 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. stimulus to study and good advice. He discoursed so elo quently, and so much to my taste, on books, often reciting pages of the best passages, that I found a new zeal in study ing them afterwards. My father had a share in the Baltimore Library, which I used freely. There was a book in it which was warmly commended to me by the judge for the beauty of its composition, which I have never met anywhere else. It is "Brown s Estimate of the Manners of England," written somewhere about 1756. The author acquired an enviable fame in his day, and was commonly known in the literary circles as " Estimate Brown." This boo k was written after a series of reverses to the British arms in the war of that period, and its purpose was to arouse the nation to a new reckoning of its strength and character. It is written with great eloquence. The judge was unbounded in the praise of it, and infused into me a good share of his admiration. He also drew me to the study of Dryden s prose works by some printed criticism upon his style, which he particularly com mended to my notice. I read, under this influence, with all the judge s own relish, the introduction to the translation of the ^Eneid. I can remember now the fervor with which the old gentleman quoted a* passage from that introduction, as he strode across his parlor, with his long, gaunt figure tossed, or rather scattered, into such queer angles as he walked, giving him a Don Quixotic air. It was Dryden s comment on a line in the ^Eneid, something in this way, for I have not read the book for forty years, and therefore depend on an indistinct memory " Aude, liospes contemnere opes Et te quoque dignam finge deo." " I am lost," says Dryden, " in admiration of the language when I read these lines, and ashamed of my own when I attempt to translate it." The judge seemed to be equally moved by the admiration LITERARY PASTIMES. GL and the shame, as he poured this quotation forth in his own deep and emphatic tone of elocution. I sometimes found him reading Terence and Plautus, and he often acted the scene he was reading by taking the floor and reciting the verses in the Latin text as theatrically as he would have recited Shakspeare or Sheridan. What an impression does such a man make on a young student, such as I was! How I envied his power of appre ciation and his facility of interpreting the feelings of these authors ! He has given me many a sleepless hour of study in the vain effort to arrive at his accomplishment. I attribute to such an influence many of my own secret labors, which have, not once or twice only, but often, kept me at my books till the day dawned upon me ; more often till two or three in the morning. Our house at Shrub Hill was small, and my brother Andrew and myself occupied the garret-room, of which I have spoken in a previous chapter. We had a stove there, and I was accustomed to work at my desk long after Dag, as I have not yet ceased to call my brother (for that was his early and now his .latest nickname), was silent in slumber. That desk of .mine is a remembrance. I made it myself rough carpentry with rough materials. It was a portable box, with lock and key, and for finish, by way of ornament, was covered with newspapers pasted over its different faces. The top was shelving, so that I could write upon it ; and what a treasure it held under the lock ! Essays, treatises, notes, journals, farces, poems, travels, pencil sketches, paintings what author ever was prouder of his collection ! I used to contemplate them with a quiet admiration that I generally expressed in a low whistle of a familiar tune which always denoted singular satisfaction and contentment of mind. No wonder I sat up so late and so often before this magical desk ; which, like a huge musical-box, constantly to my ear poured out such a succession of melodies, all the richer to one, that no other mortal upon earth could hear them. 02 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. I had, besides, in the room, an old-fashioned mahogany chest of drawers, with a secretary top, which might be said to be made in the manner of a hipped roof. When this top was opened down upon two holders, which could be drawn out from the sides, it made a writing-table, above which there was a range of pigeon-holes, in the centre space of which range was a little closet with lock and key, and within that, small drawers, where pride had a daily banquet. They were all mine, and all were supplied with appropriate lucubrations my most mature productions. The newspaper desk was a place of probation a nest for embryos ; but the pigeon-holes ! they were the recipient of what had passed the ordeal for the perfect works which I designed for posterity. There were the letters of my numerous correspondents, my finished orations, my sermons, for I had even written sermons, my grave tracts on military tactics, engineering, a treatise on botany, and another on chemistry, one of which, on chemistry, I think, was stolen from Watson. My first productions were also garnered here, very crude and jejune, I knew, and written with infinite labor, but self-adjudged worthy of careful pres ervation exactly as they were, because I felt confident posterity would be curious to see these first dawnings of genius, and would anxiously inquire for the memorials of a writer who, at that date, intended to do great things in the literary way, which things, that same posterity, when it became anxious on this subject, would have before it already done, and in con summate accomplishment. Oh ! the dreams of boyhood ! Life develops its hopes and its judgments in its own way. What a change has come ! I guarded these treasures for years ; visited and re-visited them as a miser his gold ; read, over and over again, every thing ; and, at last, on one winter night, holding myself to be a man, and taking a manly scorn of all childish things, I deliberately took out of the pigeon holes and little closet and small drawers all this precious deposit, turned each paper carefully over, read a little at top and a little at bottom, and then, with a new judgment and a LAW STUDIES. 03 most unsparing critical condemnation, deliberately commuted all and sundry, one by one, to the flames. There perished poetry, art, science, literature, humanities, geologies and theol ogies, all in one great heroic auto da ft! It was very rash, and I have been sorry for it a hundred times since ; not for any merit in the aforesaid accumulation, but because they were the footprints of my life up to that time, for I had scarcely any other life than in these cobwebs. IV. Being now emancipated from the schools, and very flimsily armed for the encounter of life, my next thoughts ran upon the question, " Well, what now ?" I can scarcely call it choice which shaped my career from this point. It was fixed fate. I came along to the verge of the bar as a cork upon a stream bobs along towards the eddy which catches it on its way, and bears it in upon its own perpetual circle. I looked to the law, I suppose, because my classics and my debating society floated me to the eddy upon which I was destined to swim. There were, however, two forces now acting upon me, not necessarily altogether opposite, and yet not altogether in har mony. I finally made a compromise with both in the difficul ty of surrendering only to one. We had the war, now just beginning to become a reality. It was declared in June, 1812. I graduated in September of the same year. So here was Law and the Camp both putting forth their attractions for a boy whose imagination was most susceptible to each la us marts quam menurio. My father had not encouraged my army scheme, and so I considered that hopeless, and I forth with placed myself under the guidance of my uncle, Edmund Pendleton, who had lately married Miss Parnell, in Baltimore, and was now in the practice of the law. He had an office at the corner of St. Paul s and Fayette street, then called Chat ham, and in a house that is now (1855) and for two or three 64 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. years past has been displaced by a part of Barnum s hotel. My uncle s library consisted, in great part, of the books that once belonged to the celebrated Judge Samuel Chase of rev olutionary memory, and I found some additional stimulant to the ambition of my profession in getting my first lessons in it out of volumes which bore the autograph of the distinguished judge. Many of these books were, in after years, given to me by my uncle, by me at a later period given to my nephew Andrew. Among these I read Rutherforth, Blackstone and Justinian, and worked with a vigor of application and perse verance which, if it had been seconded by any thing like a pro portionate capacity to understand, would have made me the wonder of the street. This law what an intricate, inscruta ble, dreary mystification it is to the young student in his first endeavors to get into and out of the fog the dense fog that fills its whole atmosphere ! While I worked at this like a novice who conscientiously acts up to the maxim that we should do our, duty, whether pleasant or not, I had another calling where all was true sunlight and captivating glitter. I straightway I mean in a few months after my coming upon what I regarded as the world, entered the military service as a volunteer private of Captain Warfield s company, the United Volunteers of the Fifth Regiment Maryland Militia, under the command of Colonel Joseph Sterrett, and belonging to the Third Brigade. I think I did this in the winter of 1812-13, when the whole country was measuring its paces to a univer sal rub-a-dub, and marking time to the order of the drill-ser geant. It was a time of great stir, excitement, anxiety, effort and hope. We have had nothing like it since. It is the glory of my life, its vivid point, that I lived in the day that was tilled with the exultation of the first naval victories of our gov ernment. When the Constitution brought in the Guerriere what a day was that ! The enemy took possession of Chesapeake Bay and occupied it during both summers of 1813 and 1814. There was a squadron under the command of Admiral Sir John Borlasse MILITARY LIFE. G5 Warren, assisted by Admiral Sir George Cockburn and Sir Peter Parker, who was an army officer. These names became very familiar to us in Baltimore during this period. The squad ron consisted of several men-of-war, and one or other was always in sight at the mouth of the Patapsco sometimes the whole with any quantity of small craft captured in the bay. To me it was a delightful stimulus to live in the midst of so many excitements. There was, first, the constantly coining news of the war and its disasters, especially in 1813, for things were shockingly managed in that year. Then the naval victories which were coming in thick as often as an American ship met a British and which brought such a phrensy of ex ultation ; then an alarm of the enemy landing somewhere near us, and this followed up by such a stir on our side ! No one can adequately imagine the vividness and the pleasure of these excitements who has not experienced them. Baltimore, as in fact the whole country, became a camp. We had some five thousand volunteers and militia always on foot, and as the regular resources of the Federal Government were sadly defi cient, the militia was called into service, or at least the volun teers offered themselves and were received to do garrison and other duties in the forts around us. This arrangement brought certain portions of the Fifth Regiment into periodical service for a week at a time at Fort McHenry. What a glorification this afforded to me ! Here I was, just out of college, in a very dashy uniform of blue and red, with a jacket and leather helmet, crested with a huge black feather, and surmounted by a particularly limber and, as I thought, graceful red one, with my white cross-belts, pure as pipe-clay could make them, my cartridge-box and bayonet, and a Har per s Ferry musket of fourteen pounds, white drill pantaloons (blue in winter), with black gaiters. There I was, eighteen years of age, knapsacked, with blanket, canteen and haversack (generally a cold fowl, biscuit, fried tongue and bottle of wine in it), and detailed for a week s duty at the fort. Talk about luxuries! I have had a good share of what goes by that DO LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. name in my lifetime, but I have never had since any thing in that way that might be compared with the nights in the guard room, and the routine of the sentinel s duty in weather wet or dry, and in moonlit and moonless midnights, to which I have been detailed at Fort McHenry. To sleep between guard- hours on a bench, to eat and drink in the intervals, and to tell stories and laugh as healthy and light-hearted boys only can laugh in such scenes, were to me enjoyments that never waned in interest and never lost their zest in repetition. Our military service was thus but a pastime, recurring sometimes every day for weeks, and then intermitted for a week at a time, when the occasion was not pressing. I had abundance of time on my hands, therefore, for study, and being conscientious on that point, I worked very diligently. I had my law course prescribed, and with it I associated a considerable amount of miscellaneous reading ; too miscellaneous, I must say now, when I reflect on the dissipation of mind which it produced. In the diary of my studies, which I regret having destroyed some years ago, I can remember what a variety of minutes I had to make of a rambling course of reading which embraced almost every recognized department of literature. I know that I toiled wearily through many ungenial subjects, and ran to others of more attraction with an avidity I found it hard to satisfy. And, like a great foundation, labor-ponderous, unsat isfactory and terrible, there was always before me, predomi nant and exacting above the rest, the Law the crabbed, un- amiable and indigestible Law. I had an excellent memory, which I rather think was an impediment to me. I once wrote off on a bravado in which my veracity was called in question, a page from the eighth edition of " Conise s Digest," the page being chosen for me, and the volume taken away after I had been permitted to read it I think five minutes, some very short study. I could do this more readily with subjects to which I had a fancy, and particularly in poetical works. My admiration of good speak ing enabled me to report speeches very well from memory. MILITARY LIFE. 07 I have written out a considerable part of a sermon heard but once, and, on one occasion, I made an almost verbal trans- script of a speech of Mr. Pinkney s, in a case in court that at tracted my attention by its felicity of expression, and which was recognized for the unusual accuracy of the report, by all who had an opportunity to compare it with their own recollec tions. In the summer of 1813 the mouth of the Patapsco was kept under an almost constant blockade by Admiral Warren s squadron. The enemy occasionally landed on the Chesa peake Bay, making short incursions into the country. Our troops were therefore kept in active service. We had a pa rade every morning at six two or three hours 1 drill ; were dis missed during the middle of the day and allowed to pursue our ordinary avocations, and re-assembled for a second drill to wards evening. In addition to this we were regularly, in turn, detailed for garrison duty. We were, in fact, growing to be excellent soldiers. In my intervals of release from duty, I sometimes wrote what I thought spirited appeals to the coun try to stimulate our people. These were published in the newspaper. I was very shy of my authorship, and anxious to know how my exhortations. took with the public. I, of course, believed every-body read them with delight and wondered who could write them. As our regiment was one day returning from drill on Londenslager s Hill, where our parade-ground was, I ventured to say to a comrade marching next to me, that there was an address to " The Volunteers of Baltimore" in the paper of that morning. Yes, he had seen it. " Who do you suppose writes these things." He didn t know. From his manner, it was evident it did not much interest him to know. I was set all aback. It hadn t created the enthu siasm I expected. No one ever said what I imagined I would hear many saying : " Who can be writing those stirring pa pers?" I have learned since that- fine writing falls on the busi ness world like water on a duck s back. At this period I was eighteen years old. Eighteen has always a susceptible heart. 68 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. The war was the nurse of romance and kindled the conc^v that drives youth into chivalric ideas of love. The young girls of Baltimore were very beautiful, and I was a passionate ad mirer with some violent preferences. Nothing is more natu ral than this association of youth, military ardor and suscepti bility to the charms of female society. My own life at this pe riod found a delightful engrossment in the varying influences produced by the public exigencies and these attractions of so ciety. For the first time I began to conceit I had some poet ical faculty, and I accordingly wrote verses, poor enough they were, but to my imagination or vanity they presented seeds of promise seeds that never afterwards came to fruit. Meantime the war rolled on. The papers were full of stir ring events. We suffered no ennui. Every day had its excite ments. There was a wonderful amount of personal activity de veloped in all classes. The fears and hopes of war are full of delights. We had, in the winter of 1813-14, a little affair on the East ern Shore which went by the name of " The Battle of the Ice Mound." A small schooner of ours taken by the British and manned by a few men under the command of a lieutenant and a midshipman, got frozen up in the ice near Kent Island. Within two hundred yards of her position was a mound of ice, heaped up by the flow of the tide. A number of the country militia got out to this mound, and using it as a point of attack, protected from the enemy s fire, made a brisk assault from it upon the schooner, which was soon obliged to strike her colors. The lieutenant and midshipman, with their party, were made prisoners, and were sent to Baltimore, where the two officers spent the winter, quite distinguished objects in society, and, I doubt not, much gratified at the exchange of their wintry guard on the bay for the comforts of a pleasant captivity. In the Spring, the war began to assume a new aspect. The year 1813 was one of defeats on land. This year, 1814, our armies had more success. Our soldiers were growing more confident. A little skirmish occurred on the Eastern MILITARY LIFE. 69 Shore nearly opposite to the mouth of the Patapsco. Sir Pe ter Parker had been ravaging that neighborhood in small fo rays, and was at last encountered by some of our militia under Colonel Philip Reid, and was killled. There was also a little affair on West River, where our militia cavalry defeated a par ty of British. The war was coming near to our own doors, and events every day grew more exciting. Our military ardor was on the rise. I was in a state of constant exhilaration. Our drills and occasional detached service became more frequent and severe. In fact, Baltimore assumed more and more the character of an extensive garrison. Still, in the intervals of duty I pursued my studies, and I am conscious of a little ten dency at that time, to the swagger and insouciance which boys are apt to consider as one of the elegancies of military charac ter. I visited a great deal among the younger belles of the city, and rather piqued myself upon the importance of belong ing to the army which was entrusted with the defense of the state. Very natural, this egotism, at such a time, when every body looked upon our regiment as an elite corps ! We began to long now for more active service. Several victories on the Canada border had raised the national ardor. Some of my companions had taken commissions and gone off to "the lines" in that quarter. Strother, Hunter and Mackay had gone from Virginia the year before friends of mine. Hunter, David Hunter, a half brother of my uncle Stephen Danclridge, was killed at Williamsburg in Canada. Strother and Mackay served through the war. Strother is yet (1860) alive, living at Berkeley Springs, the father of the artist, David Strother. He married Elizabeth Hunter, my first cousin. I don t know what became of Mackay. This departure of associates of my own age for the field of war in the regular service, fired me with a fresh zeal for the same enterprise, but my father s advice was against it, and so I remained with the Fifth Regiment on duty at home, which, very much to my content, was now beginning to give promise of more busy work. 70 LIFE OF JOHN T. KENNEDY. In the month of June we had rumors from England of a large expedition being fitted out for an attack on the States. The war was to be transferred from Canada to the Atlantic coast. This army of six or eight thousand men was said to be composed of the regiments which had just returned from Spain, where they had distinguished themselves under the Duke of Wellington. They were to be commanded by Lord Hill. We were left in great uncertainty as to the point at which they were first to strike. It was generally believed, however, that they were to come either to the Chesapeake or the Dela ware, to attack Philadelphia, Baltimore or Washington, or per haps all three. What a splendid commotion this intelligence made ! We were all entirely convinced that, at whatsoever of these points the attack might be made, our brigade would certainly be pres ent. We volunteered our services to inarch to any point where we might be required. All kinds of preparation were set on foot, forts strengthened, discipline increased and supplies accumulated. Troops in Virginia and Pennsylvania were or dered to be in readiness to march at the first summons. Gen eral officers were appointed by the government to command these districts. There was every sign of imminent war. Commodore Dale had a few ships at Philadelphia which were kept ready to defend the Delaware Bay. There were also small vessels for the service of the Chesapeake. Commo dore Barney was entrusted with a flotilla of these, which was kept afloat in the bay to watch and report the progress of the enemy. There was a joke of Dale s current at that day. Some one said to him, " Well, commodore, there is news that Hill will soon be in the Delaware." " I shall be glad to see him," said the commodore, " and the moment I hear that he is coming up, we shall have a brisk time up Hill and down Dale." At length the enemy showed himself in force in the Chesa- speake. Barney s flotilla was in the Patuxent, and in the OX THE MARCH. 71 month of August the British fleet, under Admiral Warren, ap peared at the mouth of that river. Their smaller vessels pursued Barney up the river, and compelled him to burn his flotilla. Immediately afterwards we had information that a land force had disembarked on the shores of the Patuxent, and that the fleet had sailed up the Potomac. It was evident that an attack upon Washington was the object of these movements. This, of course, increased the stir of busy life. As we ex pected, our regiment, with a brigade of drafted militia under General Stansbury, were ordered to inarch towards the capi tal. This order came on the nineteenth of August. Stansbury was instantly in motion. We marched on Sunday, the twenty- first our regiment, the Fifth, accompanied by a battalion of riflemen, commanded by William Pinkney, then recently re turned from England, where he had been our minister for sev eral years, and now, at the date of this campaign, Attorney- General of the U. S. We had also with us a company of artillery, commanded by -Richard Magruder, another member of the bar, and a small corps of cavalry from the Baltimore Light Dragoons Harry Thompson s company the detach ment being under the command of Lieutenant Jacob Hollings- worth. A portion of Sterrett Riclgeley s Hussars were also in the detachment. These were all volunteers of the city. My father was a member of Hollingsworth s command, and, with John Brown, an old schoolmate of mine, and three or four other pri vates of the corps, served as videttes to our brigade. It was a day of glorious anticipation, that Sunday morning ; when, with all the glitter of a dress parade, we set forth on our march. As we moved through the streets, the pavements were crowded with anxious spectators ; the windows were filled with women ; friends were rushing to the ranks to bid us good bye many exhorting us to be of good cheer and do our duty ; handkerchiefs were waving from the fair hands at the windows some few of the softer sex weeping as they waived adieux to husbands and brothers ; the populace were cheering <:s LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. and huzzaing at every corner, as we hurried along in brisk step to familiar music, with banners fluttering in the wind and bayonets flashing in the sun. What a scene it was, and what a proud actor I was in it ! I was in the ecstasy of a vision of glory, stuffed with any quantity of romance. This was a real army marching to real war. The enemy, we knew, was in full career, and we had the certainty of meeting him in a few days. Unlike our customary parades, our march now had all the equipments of a campaign. Our wagon-train was on the road ; our cartridge-boxes were filled ; we had our crowd of camp servants and followers. Officers rode backward and forward along the flanks of the column, with a peculiar air of urgent business, as if it required every thing to be done in a gallop the invariable form in which military conceit shows it self in the first movements towards a campaign. The young officers wish to attract attention, and so seem to be always on the most important messages. As for me, not yet nine teen, I was too full of the exultation of the time to think of myself; all my fervor was spent in admiration of this glit tering army. " It were worth ten years of peaceful life One glance at their array." I thought of these verses, and they spoke of my delight. It was not long before we were outside of the town, in full ca reer on the Washington road. It was afternoon in warm Au gust weather when we started. By sundown we reached Elk Ridge Landing, and there turned in upon the flat meadow ground that lies under the hills upon the further bank of the Patapsco, to pitch our tents for the night. Camp-kettles were served out to us and our rations of pork and hard bread. We formed our messes that evening, and mine, consisting of six members, who were consigned to one tent, was made up of pleasant companions. This was all new to us, and very amus ing. The company consisted of gentlemen of good condition and accustomed to luxurious life, and the idea of a supper of IN CAMP. 73 fat pork and hard biscuit was a pleasant absurdity which we treated as a matter of laughter. We had our own stores in the wagon to rely upon when we could get at them, and a short, active negro man as a servant for the mess, whom we took into service that evening from the crowd of stragglers who follow ed the column of march. The first care after getting our tent up was to hold a consultation about our domestic affairs, and it was then resolved that two of us should in turn serve as house-keeper, successively from week to week. The choice to day fell upon Ned Schroeder and myself. We were to attend at the giving out of the rations and then to cook them. The mess was not likely to grow fat under our administration. Upon repairing to the quartermaster for our supplies, we were given a piece of pork of five or six pounds,, a new camp-ket tle, and a quantity of hard biscuit. Ned and I had a consul tation } upon the process of the cooking, the result of which was that we determined to put our pork in a kettle, fill this with water to the brim, and then set it over a brisk fire for two hours ; so we set about it. To make the fire we resolved to signalize our service by that soldierly act which is looked upon as a prescriptive right the robbing of the nearest fence of as many rails as suited our purpose which we did like veterans, satisfying our conscience with the reflection that sometime or other, perhaps, Congress would pay for the dam age. We got up a magnificent flame, and by placing our ket tle on a support of stones it the midst of it, we made sure that the cooking would soon become a happy success. This being done, we sauntered off to look at the evening parade, from which our culinary labors gave us an exemption. In less than an hour we lounged back to take a view of the kettle. There it was, buried in a little mound of hot coals, the water all boiled out, and the iron red hot. In the bottom of this lu rid pot we discovered a black mess which seemed to be reduced to a stratum of something resembling a compound of black soap in a semi-liquid state, and on drawing the kettle out of the fire, and cooling it as quickly as we could, by setting it in I* LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. water, we came to the perception that our supper, or at least so much of it as we had cooked, was a compost of charred bones, and a deposit of black fat, the whole plated over with the scales of iron which the heat had brought off in flakes from the kettle. Our comrades of the mess gathered around this ruin with amused interest, and we were voted a diploma for our admirable experiment in the art of dressing pork. We had found our company s wagon by the time this experiment was so finely concluded, and, with the help of Elizah, or Lige, as our servant was called, found a very good resource for supper without the aid of the pork. We had coffee and choc olate, good bread and ham in abundance. The night was chil ly, and I had come away without a blanket, trusting to a great coat which I thought would be sufficient for a summer cam paign. Luckily, my father came along by our quarters, and perceiving my condition, went out and supplied my need by a contribution from a friend in the neighborhood. At the regu lation hour, the members of the mess who were not detailed for guard duty some four of us crept into our tent and ar ranging our blankets into a soft bed, laid down and fell into a hearty sleep, which was only broken by the reveille the next morning. This was my first night of a regular campaign. The next day we marched from the Landing to Vansville, about twenty miles, halting an hour or so at Waterloo, then Mc Coy s tavern, where we got dinner I mean my comrades of the mess and myself, having no need and not very willing to try another experiment in cooking for ourselves. The day was hot, and portions of the road in deep sand, It was a great trial. We were in winter cloth uniform, with a most absurd helmet of thick jacked leather and covered with plumes. We carried, be sides, a knapsack, in which in my own case I had packed a great coat, my newly-acquired blanket, two or three shirts, stockings, etc., etc. Among these articles I had also put a pair of pumps, which I had provided with the idea, that, after we had beaten the British army and saved Washington, Mr. Madison would very likely invite us to a ball, at the White ON THE MARCH. 75 House, and I wanted to be ready for it. The knapsacks must have weighed, I suppose, at least ten pounds. Then there was a Harper s Ferry musket of fourteen pounds. Take our burden altogether, and we -could not have been tramping over those sandy roads, under the broiling sun of August, with less than thirty pounds of weight upon us. But we bore it splendidly, toiling and sweating* a dense cloud of dust, drinking the muddy water of the little brooks which our passage over them disturbed, and taking all the discomforts of this rough experi ence with a cheerful heart and a stout resolve. We joked with our afflictions, laughed at each other, and sang in the worst of times. The United Volunteers was the finest company in the regiment, about one hundred strong when in full array, but now counting eighty effective men. These were the elite of the city several of them gentlemen of large fortunes. William Gil- mor was one of them a merchant of high standing; Meredith, who has so long been among the most distinguished at the bar, was another. It was what is called the crack company of the city, and composed of a class of men who are not general ly supposed to be the best to endure fatigue, and yet there was no body of men in all the troops of Baltimore who were more ready for all service, more persistent in meeting and accom plishing the severest duty. To me personally labor and fa tigue were nothing. I was inured to both by self-discipline, and I had come to a philosophic conviction that both were es sential to all enjoyments of life, and beside this bit of philos ophy, I was lured by the romance of our enterprise into an oblivion of its hardships. The second day brought us to Vansville, by the way, a town consisting of one house, on the top of a hill, where stage- passengers stopped for a change of horses on the road to Wash ington ; and at early dawn the next day Tuesday morning, the twenty-second of August we resumed the road, and reach ed Bladensburg about five in the afternoon, having marched very slowly, with many halts during the day, waiting for orders from the commander-in-chief. Reports were coming to us 70 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. every moment of the movements of the enemy. They had pass ed Maryborough, and were marching on Washington, but wheth er they were on the direct road to the city, or were coming by Bladensburg, was uncertain. Our movements depended somewhat upon them. General Winder, who commanded the army immediately in front of the ertfiny, and was retiring slowly before him, was advised of our^Rrch, and was sending frequent instructions to our commander. Of course we in the ranks knew nothing about these high matters. All that we could hear were the flying rumors of the hour, which were stirring enough. One of Winder s videttes had come to us. He had a great story to tell. He was carrying orders to Stansbury, who was ahead of us, and fell in with a party of British dragoons, from whom he fled at speed for his life. The country in Prince George is full of gates ; the highroads often lie through cultivated fields, without side fences to guard them, and every field is entered through a gate which is al ways old and ricketty, and swings to after your horse with a rapid sweep and a bang that threatens to take off his tail. One vidette, a Mr. Floyd, known to us in Baltimore, told us he had been pursued several miles by four of these dragoons. He reported that the British army had a corps of cavalry with them, and that being splendidly mounted, as we saw he was, and having General Winder s servant with him also mounted on a fleet horse, to open and hold open the gates for him, he had es caped and had got up to us. This was all true as he told it, except that he was mistaken, as we found out the next day when we joined Winder, in one important particular, and that was, that his pursuers were not British dragoons, but four members of the Georgetown cavalry, who fell into the same mistake. They supposed him a British dragoon, straggling from his corps, and gave him chase, feeling very sure, from the direction they had pressed him to take, that they must soon drive him into our hands. It was only because they could not keep up with him that they failed to witness that happy denoue ment. This report of cavalry in the enemy s army, of course, IN CAMP. 77 furnished us, as green soldiers, with much occasion for remark and reflection. We had a pleasant evening in camp near Bla- densburg. Our tents were pitched on the slope of the hill above the town on the eastern side of the river. Stansbury s brigade of drafted militia were there, and Winder, with the rest of the army, which altogether perhaps counted nine thousand men, was not far off. He was falling back before the march of the enemy, who could not then have been more than ten or twelve miles off. The afternoon towards sunset was mild and pleasant, and we had leisure to refresh ourselves by a bath in the Eastern Branch. Our camp was supplied with every comfort, and we did not depend upon the United States for our supper, for Lige was sent out to forage, with money to purchase what we wanted. He returned about dark with a pair of chickens and a handful of tallow candles, which seemed to be an odd com bination ; and upon being interrogated by me what it meant, he said he found them under the flap of a tent in Stansbury s brigade, and being perfectly sure that they were stolen, he thought he would restore them to their proper owners. The stealing was probable enough, and we therefore had little scru ple in consigning the fowls to Lige s attentions in the kitchen, and finding ourselves with an extra supply of candles, we in dulged the luxury of lighting some three or four, which, being fitted into the band of a bayonet with the point stuck into the ground, gave an unusual splendor to the interior of our tent. The keg in which we kept our biscuit Jamison s best crack ers made the support of our table a board picked from some neighboring house, and here we enjoyed our ease, and ham, chicken and coffee. My feet were swollen and sore from my day s march in boots, such as none but a green soldier would ever have put on so for my comfort, I had taken them off, and substituted my neat pair of pumps from the pocket of my knapsack, and in this easy enjoyment of rest and good fellowship, we smoked our cigars and talked about the battle of to-morrow until the 78 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. hour when the order of the camp obliged us to extinguish our lights and " turn in." I was too much excited by the novelty and attraction of my position and by the talk of my comrades in the tent, to get asleep much before midnight. About an hour after this one o clock we were aroused by the scattered shots of our pickets, some four or five in succession, in the direction of the Maryborough road, and by the rapid beating of the long roll from every drum in the camp. Every one believed that the enemy was upon us, and there was consequently an immense bustle in getting ready to meet him. We struck a light to be able to find our coats, accoutrements, etc., but in a moment it was stolen away by some neighbor why came to borrow it only for a moment to light his own candle, and in the con fusion forgot to return it. This gave rise to some ludicrous distresses. Some got the wrong boots, others a coat that didn t fit, and some could not find their cross-belts. There was no time allowed to rectify these mistakes. I, luckily, was all right, except that I sallied out in my pumps. We were form ed in line and marched off towards the front, perhaps a mile, and when we came to a halt, we were soon ordered to march back again to camp. What was the cause of this sudden excursion and quick abandonment of it I never learned. But it was evident there was a false alarm. On our return march our attention was called to the sudden reddening of the sky in the direction of the lower bridge of the eastern branch, by which the river road from Maryborough crossed to Washington. The sky became more lurid every moment, and at last we could discern the flames. A despatch which reached us when we got back to camp, and had just laid down again to sleep, brought us infor mation that Winder had crossed the bridge and then burnt it to impede the march of the enemy, who, in consequence, was forced to direct his march upon the Bladensburg road. Win der himself was en route to join us, and we were ordered forthwith to break up our camp and march towards Washing- BATTLE OF BLADKNSBUKG. 79 ton. Here was new excitement every thing was gathered up in a few moments. All our baggage was tossed into our regi mental wagon knapsacks, provisions, blankets, every thing but our arms. Among them went my boots. The tents were struck and packed away with the speed of the shifting of a scene upon the stage, and in half an hour from the time of receiving the order we were in full column of march upon the road. Descending into the village we crossed the bridge and moved toward Washington ; but after making about two miles at a very slow pace, we found ourselves brought to a halt, and after this we loitered, as slow as foot could fall, along the road, manifestly expecting some order that should turn us back to wards the village we had left. What a march that was ! I never was so sleepy in my life. We had been too much exhil arated in the early part of the night to feel the fatigue of our day s march, but now that fatigue returned upon me with dou ble force. It was but an hour or two before day that hour when the want of sleep presses most heavily upon all animals that go abroad by day. Nothing could keep us awake. I slept as I walked. At every halt of a moment whole platoons laid down in the dusty road and slept till the officers gave the word to move. on. How very weary I felt ! The burning of the bridge lighted up the whole southern sky, but it had no power to attract our gaze. At length when we had reached a hill some three miles on our route, we were marched into a stubble field and told we might rest till daylight. Here we threw ourselves upon the ground without any covering, exposed to the heavy dew which moistened the earth and hung upon the stubble, and slept. Mine was the sleep of Endymion. When I awoke I was lying on my back with the hot sun of a summer morning beaming upon my face. Our orders then were to march back to Bladensburg. Soon we had the famous " trial of souls" the battle of Bladensburg. The drafted militia ran away at the first fire, and the Fifth Regiment was driven off the field with the bayonet. We made a fine scamper of it. I lost my musket rn the mele^ while bearing off a comrade, James W. so LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. McCulloch, afterwards the cashier of the Branch Bank of the U. S. in Baltimore, whose leg was broken by a bullet. The day was very hot, and the weight of my wounded companion great, and not being able to carry both, I gave my musket to a friend who accompanied me, and he, afterwards being wound ed himself, dropped his own weapon as well as mine. This humorous story of discomfiture, after all the prelimi nary ebullition of youthful valor, scarcely does justice to the volunteers and their associates, and fails to explain the cause of defeat. Another of the brave young patriots, Mr. Seaton, who was active on that occasion, we are told, " always depreca ted the injustice which this really spirited skirmish received at the hands of history ; and was glad when the incidents of the action were placed in their true light by the late Colonel John S. Williams, a nephew of the gallant revolutionary patriot, General Otho Williams, of Maryland, and a participator in the events he impartially relates in his Invasion of Washing ton." * * "Life of William Winston Seatoii," pp. 115, 11G. BAI.TIMOKK. 81 CHAPTER II. Baltimore. Historical and Social reminiscences ; Local and Literary. r I ^HE interest which Mr. Kennedy always manifested in JL the prosperity of his native city, his long and honorable identification with her economical progress and her political and educational welfare : his contributions to her historical record, and the estimation in which his name is held by her patriotic children, make it desirable, in a memorial of his life, to glance at the salient points in those local influences by which he was surrounded, and through which he exerted so benign and prolonged an- activity, literary, civic and social. The community in which Mr. Kennedy s life was spent, and the city which gave him birth, have always been more distinguished for commercial enterprise than literary culture : in this respect, like most of our mercantile and manufacturing centres, forming a striking contrast to the capital of New England. But that compensatory principle which modern philosophers recognize in the elements of local civilization, is not less evident in the fortunes and fame of Baltimore. Her social amenities, educational resources and legal talent are quite as remarkable as the rapidity of her economical develop ment. Before the revolution a little town of five thousand inhabitants, and, sixty years after, the third city in the Union, with a favorable position for trade was combined, in her people, a rare degree of public spirit and intelligent enter prise. When, in 1621, Sir George Calvert,* finding the * Vide Mr. Kennedy s address on Ms Life and Character before the Maryland Historical Society. 2 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. climate of his tract in Newfoundland, for which he had obtained a charter from King James, ungenial, and the prospect for settlement discouraging, visited Virginia and Maryland, and obtained a grant of the region now so-called, bequeathed his title and fortune to his son Cecilius un der the latter s auspices two hundred persons landed, in February, 1634, at St. Mary s, on the north bank of the Potomac, and near its junction with Chesapeake Bay. The liberal conditions of emigration, the lucrative tobacco culture, and the refuge the colony afforded to the persecuted Roman Catholics, caused the region to increase gradually in popula tion and prosperity. " To George Calvert," it has been justly said, " the immor tal glory is due of having laid the foundation of free govern ment in America. Living in the enervating atmosphere of a court and that the court of the despotic Stuarts he rose su perior to his early training and his constant surroundings, and adopted the beautiful and wise maxim: Peace to all, persecution of none. "George Calvert died on the 15111 of April, 1632. The charter was executed on the 2oth of June of the same year, the name of Cecilius being substituted for that of his father. King Charles gave the name of Terra Maries, or Maryland,, to the new province, in honor of his queen, Henrietta Maria, instead of Crescentia, the name by which Calvert had deter mined to call it. " In less than three months after the body of the first Lord Baltimore was deposited in the chancel of St. Dunstan s Church, London, the patent which Charles I. had promised him was issued in the name of Cecilius Calvert, his eldest son and the successor to the title. To him was entrusted the fulfilment of his father s designs, and he determined to carry it out at once. But he experienced many vexatious delays in England and great opposition in Virginia. At length, in July, 1633, the powerful influence, of Wentworth prevailed, and it was decided in a privy council that Lord Baltimore should not BALTIMORE. 83 be disturbed in his undertaking ; and a royal letter was despatched to the governor and council of Virginia, stating that Lord Baltimore intended to transport a number of persons to that part called Maryland which we have given him ; and they were commanded to afford him friendly help and assistance in furtherance of his undertaking. " Every difficulty being overcome and every arrangement completed, the colonists who were to commence the settle ment of Maryland, sailed from the Isle of Wight on the 220! of November, 1633, in two vessels the Ark, a ship of four hundred tons, and the Dove, a pinnace of fifty tons. The emigrants numbered two hundred, mostly Catholic. " On the 3d of March they sailed up the Cheaspeake, and after spending three weeks in exploring the numerous and beautiful rivers of Maryland, they finally landed, planted the cross, and took possession of the country for our Saviour and for our sovereign lord the king of England. Mass was said by Father White, the chaplain, a solemn procession was formed, and the litany of the cross was chanted." As late as 1729, the site of Baltimore was half forest, half farm ; at that period, by an act of the Assembly, five com missioners were authorized to lay out a town, and the domain on which it rose was sold by Mr. Carrol for forty shillings an acre. And old chart, drafted by John Mole in 1752, indicates but twenty-five houses, and all the shipping in the now crowded port, consisted of a single brig and sloop. Four years later began the varied emigration that originated the peculiar social traits of the community, which eventually made the lonely scene a busy mart and a hospitable home to thousands : Many a weary year had passed since the burning of Grand Pre, When, on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed, "Rearing a nation with all its household gods into exile, Far asunder on separate coasts the Arcadians landed, Scattered were they like flakes of snow, when the wind from the north-east, Strikes aslant through the fog, that darken the banks of Newfoundland LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. Friendless, homeless, hopeless, they wandered from city to city, From the cold lakes of the north to sultry southern savannahs.* And one band of these French refugees settled in Baltimore; less than half a century ago there were venerable survivors. After Braddock s defeat an Indian incursion was so imminent that the women and children were placed in boats ready for flight at the approach of the enemy, so small were the means of defence ; and up to the advent of the Revolution, the increase of population was slow ; no newspaper was published until 1773 ; merchants, until then, advertised in Annapo lis journals ; tobacco was the great staple, and had been thus far exported by the agents of foreign merchants, who re sided at landings on the Chesapeake, received the product from the planters, made advances thereon, and shipped it; these agents were chiefly English and Scotch. Wheat and Indian corn were also extensively cultivated ; by degrees a large commerce was thus initiated ; and, as they gained means, the Baltimore merchants owned shipping and took the lead, until their town became the best market and acquired all the tobacco of the State. The fisheries of the Chesapeake became lucrative ; trade with the West Indies developed ; and in 1788, Baltimore ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope. During the war of the French Revolution and the insurrec tion in St. Domingo, not less than fifty-three vessels arrived with a thousand white and five times as many colored refu gees, for whose immediate relief twelve thousand dollars was raised by subscription. The greater portion of these exiles became permanent citizens ; traces of their influence remain, less distinct, however, than formerly, in a remarkably faithful class of colored servants ; and in the excellent vegetables for which the markets of the city were long celebrated, and which originated in the frugal skill of the St. Domingo emigrants, who applied themselves to gardening in the suburbs. While war in Europe increased the carrying trade of Baltimore, her * Evangeline. direct commerce with the West Indies grew yearly ; in return for supplies sent them, the product of the islands was brought back and exported to Europe in exchange for foreign goods. As importations increased, ship-building became a great industrial resource, and mechanical employments of all kinds flourished. In the former branch Baltimore attained a special eminence for swift sailing vessels made to navigate the Chesa peake. No city suffered less from the Berlin decrees as her constant intercourse with St. Domingo continued to prosper and her trade with the East Indies, though limited, was profit able. Meantime the Baltimore clippers and the Virginia pilot boats were models of swift and convenient craft. Thus, although, from time to time, suffering from the inevitable vicis situdes of trade, and especially by over-trading after the last war with England, the city grew in wealth and population with un exampled rapidity. Among the inhabitants by whom business was carried on, in these early and palmy days, scarcely one was a native ; the successful merchants were from Great Britain, Germany, New England and Holland. Hence the remarkable diversity of blood and variety of character which make up the population. The natural resources of Balti more account for her prompt expansion when capital and labor united to develop them. Situated at the head of the Chesapeake, the nearest market to the West, and with a safe and commodious harbor, no sooner were lines of interior communication opened, than it became a great centre of trade. These began, as usual, with turnpikes slowly traversed, a few years ago by stage-coaches, which brought news from Europe by the way of Boston in a week, and from Philadelphia in three days ; then came canals, the coast steamboat navigation, finally railways each successive facility of transit adding to the local trade and the commercial prosperky. It has been well said that " there is one important physical fact to which Baltimore, in common with the rest of the sea board cities, is more indebted than might at first view be sup posed. The whole Atlantic coast stretching from New York SG LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. southward is composed of a slope where the continent origi nally terminated, clearly indentified by its hard, granite rocks, and the plain subsequently made by the deposits from the ocean. At this line of demarkation the streams that flow into the sea break over their hard granite beds in waterfalls or rap ids, which intercept the progress of navigation. Now it is pre cisely at this point that New York, Trenton, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Georgetown, Richmond and Raleigh, have sprung up, and grown into an importance that their projectors could hardly have predicted. This fact demonstrates how vast an influence the geological formation exercises over the character of a country and the movements of its population." Manufactures flourished no less than trade the Patapsco offering effective water-power; and while droves of cattle from the West, and tobacco and wheat from the adjacent counties, found a mart in the city, the well-protected harbor was frequented by a large fleet of coasting vessels and ships from Europe and the Indies. One of the first settlers was a quaker, who patented, in 1662, fifty acres of land on what is now Whitestone Point, opposite the eastern section of the pres ent town. The county-town was not removed to Baltimore until 1767; the old court-house stood on the site of the pres ent monument in Calvert Street ; and, until 1808, the old- fashioned whipping-post was adjacent thereto; in 1780 was erected the, first custom-house, and in 1784 the first mar ket-house. Although thus comparatively recent in municipal and maritime importance, educational interests early occupied public attention. St. Mary s College, a Roman Catholic insti tution, originated in 1791, and although suppressed sixty years after, its seminary was maintained and Loyola College sup plied its place ; Baltimore College was chartered in 1803 ; sub sequently united to the medical school, it became the University of Maryland ; Washington College was instituted in 1828 ; Baltimore Female Colkge the next year; the convents of the Visitation and the Carmelites are among the oldest religious asylums in the city ; and in 1829, the first public school was BALTIMOIIK. 87 opened ; within the present decade, the number of pupils at the different institutions of this kind, which have since then been established, was about twelve thousand, with two hundred and fifty teachers ; the Bible is read in the public schools daily, the King James s version to the Protestants and the Douay to the Romanists. In a recent report it is stated that "not a single graduate of the schools has ever been charged with or convicted of crime." Besides these educational resources there is a " float ing school" for making sailors ; and the Maryland Institute of Mechanic Arts, the Maryland Historical Society, and the Peabody Institute minister to popular culture ; with an endow ment of five hundred thousand dollars the latter establish ment, with its gallery, library, concerts and lectures, is a noble monument of private beneficence and rare and accessible provision for literary and artistic enjoyment and discipline. With a tasteful public spirit, characteristic, in recent years, of American communities, Baltimore has embellished and hallow ed her picturesque vicinage with a finely wooded Park and a beautiful Rural Cemetery. Nor is there any lack of hospitals, infirmaries, and asylums for the indigent and suffering. Thus French refugees, English quakers, Scotch merchants, the planter from St. Domingo, with an admixture of Irish and Dutch, combined to form a singularly cosmopolitan basis of lo cal society, wherein the shrewdness of the New Englander and the glow of the Southerner, harmoniously coalesced ; from the Romanist convent to the American free school, the West In dian s vegetable garden to the British emigrant s compting- house, from the renowned barister s office to the thrifty me chanics neat little abodes, were to be recognized varied ele ments of liberal enterprise and local versatility of character, creed and vocation, whereby a certain social toleration and sympathy was fostered unattainable in older and more prescrip tive communities. To these and other more latent causes we must ascribe the peculiar charm of Baltimore society ; even the critical reporters of our social anomalies from beyond the sea, have been conciliated by the " fine climate, cheerful elegance 88 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. and cordial yet dignified hospitality" of Baltimore; while there in past times have foregathered, as on a common and congenial arena, the choicest spirits of the North and the South in grate ful companionship. No city is so ostensibly identified with the history of our last war with Great Britain ; against her fleet Fort McHenry successfully defended Baltimore ; and in her most eligible dis trict, a monument commemorates those who fell in her defence. With a flag of truce, during the investment of Baltimore by the British, for the purpose of obtaining the release of a friend, the author of our national lyric who had been captured at Marlborough, and was held a prisoner in the enemy s fleet, reach ed the mouth of the Patapsco, but was not permitted to return lest the intended attack on Baltimore should be revealed ; kept under the guns of a frigate, he was obliged to witness the bombardment of Fort McHenry, which the admiral confidently declared he would capture in a few hours ; Key watched the conflict all day and through the weary and anxious night; when morning dawned, the flag of his country still waved tri umphant on the rampart, and the cheering sight inspired him, in an hour of patriotic exaltation, to write the " Star Spangled Banner," a martial lyric which has endeared his name to his countrymen and survives, by virtue of its national senti ment and musical emphasis, all his other effusions. Comfort among the working classes has long been a distinct feature in the population. When Dickens first saw the long rows of small, cosy brick dwellings in Syracuse, N. Y., and learned they were built and owned by mechanics" this," he exclaimed, " is the privilege and the glory of America ; honest industry, in a few years, enables the humblest to rise in the social scale, to become a freeholder and own his dwelling, which, with the Anglo-Saxon, is the source of self-respect." Instead of the crowded tenement houses of other cities, " the neat, thrifty traders dwellings," separate and comfortable, at test a more hopeful civilization in Baltimore. The city has always been the favorite resort of epicures. There the luxn- BALTIMORE. ries of life abound, from the peerless canvas-back duck to the unrivalled oysters and unique maderia ; so that, with the ex cellent fare, the refined manners, the liberal hospitality and the agreeable atmosphere, we cannot wonder at the attachment of the natives and the partiality of casual residents. The vi cinity of Baltimore to Washington and intimate association with Virginia, her active trade with the West and the influx of Eastern merchants, account, in a measure, for the catholic spirit of her society, a cross, as it were, between the Puritan and Cavalier traits and tone, which gives such individual at traction to the place and people. With the increase of mate rial prosperity, Art and Letters gained upon the sympathies of the community, which soon boasted a high degree of musical culture, and some of the earliest and best private collections of pictures and sculpture in the country. The Romanist character of Baltimore, which long distinguished its religious community from the Episcopal predominance in the Southern, the Methodist in the Western, and the Presbyterian in the Eastern States, became gradually modified by Northern emi gration and a mixture of races, so that now its population offers as great a variety of sects, with no disproportionate prosperity of any one, as the other American cities ; although a few of the old and aristocratic Roman Catholic families are still rep resented. British travellers always find in Baltimore a striking resemblance to an English town. Anthony Trollope, in not ing the fact, observes that the adjacent region is just what a hunting country should be, and cites the testimony of one of the old citizens that packs of hounds were once kept by the gentry ; while he discovered an old inn with wagons in the yard, such as are seen to this day in the towns of Somerset shire. In a pleasant, colloquial lecture, entitled " Baltimore Long Ago," delivered a few years since, Mr. Kennedy reverts to the aspect and social traits of his native city, in the days of his youth, with much zest and humor : " It was a treat to see this little Baltimore town just at the termination of the war of Independence," he writes, " so con- LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. ceited, bustling and debonair, growing up like a saucy, chubby boy, with his dumpling cheeks and short, grinning face, fat and mischievous, and bursting, incontinently, out of his clothes in spite of all the allowance of tucks and broad salvages. Market Street had shot, like a Nuremburg snake out of its toy box, as far as Congress Hall, with its line of low-browed, hipped-roofed wooden houses in disorderly array, standing forward and back, after the manner of a regiment of militia with many an interval between the files. Some of these structures were painted blue and white, and some yellow ; and here and there sprang up a more magnificent mansion of brick, with windows like a multiplication table and great wastes of wall between the stories, with occasional court-yards before them ; and reverential locust trees, under whose shade bevies of truant school boys, ragged little negroes and gro tesque chimney-sweeps, shied coppers and disported them selves at marbles." " The growth of a city," he adds, "is a natural process which creates no surprise to those who grow with it, but it is ve^ striking when we come to look back upon it and compare its aspect at different and distant eras. If I had been away dur ing that long interval which separates the past, I have been describing, from the present, I doubt if I should now find one feature of the old countenance of the town left. Every thing is as much changed as if there was no consanguinity, or even acquaintance, between the old and the new. " In the days I speak of, Baltimore was fast emerging from its village state into a thriving commercial town. Lots were not yet sold by the foot, except, perhaps, in the denser marts of business ; rather by the acre. It was in the rus-in-urbe category. That fury for levelling had not yet possessed the souls of City Councils. We had our seven hills then, which have been rounded off since, and that locality, which is now described as lying between the two parallels of North Ch arles Street and Calvert Street, presented a steep and barren hill side, broken by rugged cliffs and deep ravines, washed out by BALTIMORE. 01 the storms of winter, into chasms which were threaded by paths of toilsome and difficult ascent. On the summit of one of these cliffs stood the old Church of St. Paul s, some fifty paces or more to the eastward of the present church, and sur rounded by a brick wall that bounded on the present lines of Charles and Lexington Streets. This old building, ample and stately, looked abroad over half the town. It had a belfry tower detached from the main structure, and keeping watch over a graveyard full of tombstones, remarkable-^-to the observa tion of the boys and girls, who were drawn to it by the irre sistible charm of a popular belief that it was * haunted and by the quantity of cherubim that seemed to be continually crying above the death s heads and cross bones, at the doleful and comical epitaphs below them. The rain-washed ravines from this height supplied an amuse ment to the boys, which seems to have been the origin of a sport that has now descended to their grandchildren in an im proved and more practical form. These same hills are now cut down into streets of rapid descent, which in winter, when clothed in ice and snow, are filled with troops of. noisy sled- ders who shoot, with the speed of arrows, clown the slippery declivity. In my time, the same pranks were enacted on the sandy plains of the cliff, without the machinery of the sled, but on the unprotected breeching of corduroy much to the dis content of mothers who had to repair the ravage, and not al ways without the practice of fathers upon the same breeching, by way of putting a stop to this expensive diversion." Two local shrines were endeared to his youth the Court- House and the Theatre, which he thus describes : " One of my earliest landmarks is the epoch of the old Court House. That was a famous building which, to my first cognizance, suggested the idea of a house, perched upt>n a great stool. It was a large, dingy, square structure of brick, elevated upon a massive basement of stone, which was perfor ated by a broad arch. The buttresses on either side of the arch supplied space for a stairway that led to the Hall of Jus- LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. lice above, and straddled over a pillory, whipping-post and stocks which were sheltered under the arch, as symbols of the power that was at work up stairs. " This magisterial edifice stood precisely where the Battle Monument now stands on Calvert Street. It has a notable history, that old Court-House. When it was first built it over looked the town from the summit of the hill some fifty feet or more above the level of the present street, and stood upon a cliff which, northward, was washed at the base by Jones s Falls in that primitive day a pretty rural stream that meandered through meadows garnished with shrubbery and filled with browsing cattle, making a pleasant landscape from the Court- House windows. " The new Court-House arose a model of architectural magnificence to the eye of that admiring generation, only sec ond to the national Capitol and the old one was carted away as the rubbish of a past age. Calvert Street straggled on ward to the granite hills. People wonder to hear that Jones s Falls ever rippled over a bed now laden with rows of comfort able dwellings, and that cows once browsed upon a meadow that now produces steam-engines, soap and candles, and lager beer. " Still dear to me is the memory of the old Court-House. I have a sober faith that the peopb of the days of the old Court-House and the old Court-House days themselves had more spice in them, were more genial to the kindlier elements that make life worthy to be loved, than any days we have had since. The youth of a man has a keener zest for enjoyment and finds more resource for it than mature age. Use begets a fastidious appetite and disgust for cheap pleasures, while youth lives in the delight of constant surprises and with quick appreciation and thankful reception of novelties. " Next after the old Court-House, and in vivid associations far ahead of it, my most salient memory comes up from the old PI ay-House. We had not got into the euphuism of calling it the theatre in those days, or, at least, that elegance was BALTIMORE. 93 patronized only by the select few who in that generation, like the select few of the present, were apt to be caught by the fan cy of a supposed refinement in the substitution of Greek for the Anglo-Saxon. The Spectator and the * Vicar of Wakefield supplied the vocabulary of that era, and I think Adclison, Johnson and Goldsmith generally followed Ben Johnson and Shakspeare, and taught people to call it the Play-House. I clare say the actors especially the young ones who were proud of their calling and were inclined to strut, in speech as well as on the boards had, even then, begun to naturalize the new word. But there is such a perfume lingering about the old vernacular the aroma of flowers planted by it when all the world was fragrant to me that I cannot give it up with out risk of dulling the husbandry which yet keeps these fine odors, alive. " The Theatre would bring me to a later period, when the foot-lights were no longer fed with oil, when the glass diamonds and tinsel had lost their reality, and the stage had begun to re veal its tawdry secrets, to the disenchantment of that beautiful school-boy faith with which I plunged into this weird world of faerie. "This Play-House stood in Holiday Street just where the present Theatre now stands. What a superb thing it was ! speaking now as my fancy imagined it then. It had some thing of the splendor of a great barn, weather-boarded, milk white, with many windows and, to my conception, looked with a hospitable, patronizing, tragi-comic greeting down upon the street. It never occurred to me to think of it as a piece bf ar chitecture. It was something above that a huge, mystical Aladdin lamp that had a magic to repel criticism, and filled with wonderful histories. There Blue Beard strangled his wives and hung them on pegs in the Blue Chamber ; and the glorious Valentine overcame his brother Orson, by the clever trick of showing him his own image in a wonderful shield of looking-glass, which, of course, we believed to be pure burn ished silver : and there the Babes in the Wood went to sleep LIFE OF JOHN T. KENNEDY. under the coverlet provided for them by the charitable robins that swung down upon wires which we thought was even superior to the ordinary manner of flying ; and the ghost of Gaffer Thumb came up through the floor, as white as a dredge- box of flour could make him much more natural than any common ghost we had seen. Alas ! what has become of Or- cobrand s Cave and the Wood Demon and the Castle Spectre, and all the rest of those delightful old horrors which used to make our hair stand on end in delicious ecstasy in those days ? This reflection gives me rather a poor opinion of the modern drama, and so I do not look much after it. In fact, I suspect this age to be greatly behind ours in these terrible fascinations. Young America is evidently not so easily scared as old Amer ica was : it has a sad propensity towards fast trotters and to that wretched business of driving buggies, which has spoiled the whole generation of young gentlemen, and made a good cavalry officer, just now, an impossibility or, at least, a virtuous exception in one half of the country. The age is too fast for the old illusions, and the theatre now deals in respectable swindlers, burglars and improper young ladies as more conso nant with the public favor than our old devils, ghosts and as sassins, which were always shown in their true colors, and were sure to be severely punished when they persecuted inno cence. "The players were part and parcel of the Play-House, and therefore shared in the juvenile admiration with which it was regarded! In fact, there was a misty confusing of the two, which destroyed the separate identity of either. The Play-House was a compound idea of a house filled with mountains, old castles and cities and elderly gentlemen in wigs, brigands, fai ries and demons, the whole making a little cosmos that was only connected with the world by certain rows of benches symmet rically arranged into boxes, pit and gallery, where mankind were drawn by certain irresistible affinities to laugh and weep and clap their hands, just as the magicians within should choose to have them do. BALTIMORE. 95 " Of course, there was but one Play-House and one company of actors. Two or more would have destroyed that impression of the supernatural, or rather the extra-natural, which give to the show its indescribable charm. A cheap and common illu sion soon grows stale Christy s Minstrels may be repeated every night, and people will only get tired of the bad jokes and cease to laugh ; but Cinderella and her glass slipper would never endure it. The fairy bubbles would burst, and there would be no more sparkling of the eyes of the young folks with the delight of wonder. Even Lady Macbeth, I believe, would become an ordinary sort of person in a run such as is com mon now. The players understood this, and therefore did not allow themselves to grow too familiar. One company served Baltimore and Philadelphia, and they had their appointed sea sons a few months or even weeks at a time and they played only three times a week. The actors are coming hither, my lord, would seem to intimate that this was the condition of things at Elsinore one company and a periodical visit. There was a universal gladness in this old Baltimore when the word was passed round The players are come. It instantly be came everybody s business to give them a good reception. They were strange creatures in our school-boy reckoning quite out of the common order of humanity. We ran after them in the streets as something very notable to be looked at. It was odd to see them dressed like gentlemen and ladies almost incon gruous, we sometimes thought, as if we expected to see them in slashed doublet and hose, with embroidered mantles and a feather in their caps. There goes Old Francis, was our phrase ; not that he was old, for he was far from it, but because we loved him. It was a term of endearment. And as to Jef ferson ! Is there anybody now who remembers that imp of an cient fame? I cannot even now think definitely of him as a man except in one particular, that he had a prominent and rather arclrng nose. In regard to every thing else he was a Proteus the nose always being the same. He played every thing that was comic, and always made people laugh till tears 96 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. came to their eyes. Laugh ! Why, I don t believe he ever saw the world doing any thing else. Whomsoever he looked at laughed. Before he came through the side scenes when he was about to enter O. P. or P. S., he would pronounce the first words of his part to herald his appearance, and instantly the whole audience set up a shout. It was only the sound of his voice. He had a patent right to shake the world s diaphragm which seemed to be infallible. No player comes to that per fection now. Actors are too cheap, and all the hallucination is gone. " When our players came, with their short seasons, their three nights in the week, and their single company, they were received as public benefactors, and their stay was a period of carnival. The boxes were engaged for every night. Families all went together, young and old. Smiles were on every face : the town was happy. The elders did not frown on the drama, the clergy levelled no cannon against it, the critics were amia ble. The chief actors were invited into the best company, and I believe their personal merits entitled them to all the esteem that was felt for them. But, among the young folks, the ap preciation was far above all this. With them it was a kind of hero worship prompted by a conviction that the player was that manifold creature which every night assumed a new shape, and only accidentally fell into the category of a common mor tal. And, therefore, it seemed so interesting to us to catch one of them sauntering on the street looking like other people. That was his exceptional character, and we were curious to see how he behaved in it and, indeed, thought him a little awkward and not quite at his ease in that guise. How could old Francis be expected to walk comfortably in Suwarow boots and a stove-pipe hat he who had, last night, been pursu ing Columbine in his light suit of triangular patch-work, with his wooden sword, and who so deftly dodged the police by making a somersault through the face of a clock, and dis appearing in a chest of drawers ; or who, the night before that, was a French dancing-master, and ran away with a pret- BALTIMORE. ty ward of across old gentleman, who wanted to marry her himself!" We may add to these vivid reminiscences a later picture of Baltimore from the pen of one whose life Mr. Kennedy has written with sympathetic insight : " Yesterday morning," wrote William Wirt to his wife from Baltimore in 1822, "I arose before day, shaved and dressed by candle-light, took my cane and walked to market. There are two market-houses, each of them about two or three times as long as ours in Washington. Oh ! what a quantity of superb beef, mutton, lamb, veal and all sorts of fowls hogsheads full of wild ducks, geese, pheasants, partridges ! I must not forget to mention the load of sweet cakes, of all sorts and fashions, that covered the outside tables of the market-place and the break fasts that were cooking everywhere for the country people who had come many miles to market. After walking about a mile I came to the summit of a hill. The ground had begun to smoke from the warmth of the rising sun, and the city seemed to spread itself out before me to a vast extent, a huge, dusky, mass, to which there seemed no limit. But towering above the fog was the Washington monument, a single beautiful column, one hundred and sixty feet high, which stands in Howard Park (and is rendered indescribably striking from the touching sol itude of the scene from which it lifts its head), and several noble steeples of churches, interspersed throughout the west of the city, whose gilded summits were now glittering in the sun. Casting the eyes over Baltimore, it lights upon the Ches apeake Bay, and after wandering over that flood of water it rests on Fort McHenry and its star spangled banner. No city in the world has a more beautiful country around it than Bal timore, in the direction of the west. The grounds, which were originally poor, have been made rich : they lie very finely, ris ing and falling in forms of endless diversity. This beautiful, undulating surface has been improved with great taste, the fields richly covered with grass, the groves, clumps of trees and forests pruned of dead timber and all deformities, and flourish- 5 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. ing in strong and healthy luxuriance. The sites for the houses are, well selected, always upon some eminence embosomed amid beautiful trees, from which their white fronts peep out enchant- ingly." What literary associations obtained in this comparatively new society were identified with the Bar and the Newspaper press. In the former sphere and subsequently, as American Minister to England and Naples, then as Attorney-General, and Senator of the United States, and as a patriot soldier, Wil liam Pinkney had achieved a wide and eminent fame, and as an orator had few equals in the country ; while, at the time of his death, he was the acknowledged head of the American Bar. The province of Maryland had been famous among the colonies for a long line of learned and able lawyers ; Pinkney studied his profession with Mr. Justice Chase, an eminent prac titioner ; and on his first appearance in the courts was recog nized as an adept in forensic eloquence ; in the law of Real Property he was thoroughly versed and a master in the science of special pleeding. While in England he was the companion of Scott and Erskine, and on his return devoted himself to the study of English literature, whereby he acquired a happy choice of language; a zealous volunteer officer in the war of 1812, he addressed an able appeal to the people of his native state ; the address to Mr. Madison, at the close of the war, from the citizens of Baltimore, was also drafted by Pinkney. He com manded his corps with great gallantry, and after the battle of Bladensburg, wherein he was severely wounded, his battalion sent him a highly complimentary address ; and when he died, his eulogy was eloquently pronounced by Marshall, Clay and Webster. " No man," says Mr. Kennedy in his "Life of Wirt," "ever drew forth a larger share of mingled applause and censure, or was visited with more exaggerated extremes of opinion. He was popular as a political champion and he had acquired a high standing in the country for his diplomatic service." While the oratory of William Pinkney is one of the cher- BALTIMORE. 99 ished social traditions of Baltimore, a few tender and favorite lyrics keep alive the memory of his son, Edward Coates Pink- ney, who was born in London in 1802, and died in Baltimore, at the age of twenty-six ; a graduate of St. Mary s College, he entered the navy ; afterwards studied and practiced law and edited a political journal in Baltimore, until ill-health obliged him to retire from active life. His little volume of Poems, published anonymously, was a literary novelty when it ap peared in 1825, and was justly deemed a work of poetical promise, not so much on account of the principal poem, " Rudolph," as because of a rare musical grace and genuine sentiment manifest in the lyrical* strains ; two of them "A Health" and "Picture Song," still hold their place among our few but endeared household verses of native origin. During the intervals of his legal duties, as professor and practitioner, David Hoffman wrote many pleasant and instruc tive essays, which were collected and published under the ti tles of " Thoughts on Men, Manners and Things," and " Via tor," embodying the fruit of extensive reading, of observation, reflection and travel ; and in 1853, appeared in London from the same pen, the first volume of a condensed history of the world since the birth of Christ, under the guise of " Chroni cles Selected from the Original of Cartaphilus, the Wandering Jew." - Under date of November i4th, 1854, Mr. Kennedy writes : " We have news of the death, by paralysis, of David Hoffman. He died in New York, on Sunday. He was a man of singu lar learning and various study ; and has written some clever books, among them " Chronicles of Cartaphilus, the Wander ing Jew " a strange work, full of erudition." Brantz Mayer, another Baltimore author, who was educated at St. Mary s and had travelled in India, gave to the public two interesting and valuable works on Mexico ; his discourse before the Maryland Historical Society, in 1851, is noteworthy as a vindication of an honest backwoodsman against the famous speech of Logan, the Indian chief; while his story of Captain 100 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. Canot, which appeared three years after and describes twenty years of an African cruiser s adventures, has been compared with the writings of De Foe; two of the most efficient liter ary institutions of Baltimore the Athenaeum and Historical Society, are largely indebted to the liberal encouragement of Brantz Mayer. Edgar Allen Poe was born and died in Balti more. Some of the earliest of Mr. Kennedy s literary experiments were tried in the columns of a weekly journal called the Por tico, which flourished in Baltimore in 1816, to which paper Paul Allen, Pierpont and John E. Hall contributed ; the lat ter soon emigrated to Philadelphia to edit the Portfolio : jo cose paragraphs, coarse epigrams, essays and sketches of travel, now and then, appeared in the local papers of the city. General Harper wrote several political tracts before he came to Baltimore and some pamphlets on Internal Improvements afterwards ; and among the casual poetic effusions still re membered is a beautiful lyrical reply to Richard H. Wilde s " My Life is Like the Summer Rose," attributed to Mrs. Buck ler. Several New England writers, subsequently known to fame, identified their early literary efforts with a residence in Balti more ; among them, Jared Sparks, John Pierpont, John Neal, and, at a later period, Bishop Coxe. But it was with the Bar and Journalism that local literature was chiefly associated ; as editors of or contributors to the leading journal the Baltimore American, we find George Henry Calvert, a lineal descendant of the original Proprietary of Maryland, and most favorably known by his "Gentleman," " Scenes and Thoughts in Eu rope," translations from the German and other writings ; Peter Cruse, a gifted writer who died young -and the subject of this memoir. SOCIAL MFE. 101 CHAPTER III. Law Studies ; Social Life ; Admitted to tlie Bar ; Eminent Lawyers Of Baltimore; Friendships; "The Red Book;" Death of Cruse; Public Life ; Pinkney ; Member of the House of Delegates ; Ap pointed Minister to Chili ; Declines ; Marriage ; Death of his Wife ; Fox -Hunting. /CONTINUING his law studies, after the brief military epi- V^ sode, Mr. Kennedy entered the office of Walter Dorsey, Esq., an eminent practitioner of Baltimore. He applied himself, with much zeal and conscientiousness, for several months to this professional discipline, alternating, however, his reading of Coke and Blackstone, with lighter literature, and seeking rec reation in social intercourse. At the period of his youth and early manhood, society in Baltimore was singularly attractive. Comparatively limited it was on that account more intimately associated ; there was a frank and free intercourse between the young and a lively interest in them on the part of their elders, which is only realized where a few families depend on each other for social enjoyment, that is fused and fostered by a social sympathy which is impracticable when communi ties are large and made up of the various elements incident to our age of more facile communication. The young people be longing to the better families in Baltimore, sixty years ago, were more like brothers and sisters than mere neighbors ; they met constantly at each other s houses for a dance or musical practice ; the fashion of extravagant entertainments, other than prandial, did not obtain ; most of the youths had their way to make in the world, and the young girls set an example of frugal fun by what they called "cotton-cambric parties," 1 AO fcltfE OF Jf.HX P. KENNEDY. wherein all luxury of toilette was prohibited. The womanly charms, as distinguished from mere intellectual pretension on the one hand, and worldly hardihood on the other, which has long been recognized as a rare and lovable characteristic of Maryland women, may doubtless be traced, in a measure, to the candid and kindly, yet high-bred and genial intercourse thus prevalent. The pure and self-respecting but comparatively unambitious domestic education of that day, confirmed and conserved what is most beautiful and attractive in the sex. Not a few fair Baltimoreans of the period, owe their intelligent principles of action and the religious elevation of their senti ments, to the benign influence of Margaret Mercer, a rarely endowed and widely endeared daughter of our revolutionary aristocracy, who, for many years, was the favorite female teacher in the State, and became the life-long friend of her pu pils ; the few who still survive hold her memory in tender and reverent gratitude. The following extracts from the reminiscent discourse of Mr. Kennedy, bring clearly to our minds the life and manners of that day, and the changes which the author lived to witness and record. "As communities grow in density and aggregation, the indi viduality of men diminishes. People attend to their own con cerns and look less to their neighbors. Society breaks into sects, cliques and circles, and these supersede individuals. In the old time, society had its leaders, its models and dictators. There is always the great man of the village ; seldom such a thing in the city. It was the fashion then to accord reverence and authority to age. That is all gone now. Young America has rather a small opinion of its elders, and does not patronize fathers and mothers. It knows too much to be advised, and gets, by intuition, what a more modest generation found it hard enough to get by experience. If we could trace this notion through all its lodgments, we should find that this want of rev erence and contempt of obedience is the deepest root of this mad rebellion. SOCIAL LIFE. 103 " Baltimore had passed out of the village phase, but it had not got out of the village peculiarities. It had its heroes and its fine old gentlemen, and its accomplished lawyers, divines and physicians, and its liberal, public-spirited merchants. Alas ! more then than now. The people all knew them and treated them with amiable deference. How sadly we have ret rograded in these perfections ever since ! 11 Society had a more aristocratic air than now not because the educated and wealthy assumed more, but because the com munity itself had a better appreciation of personal worth, and voluntarily gave it the healthful privilege of taking the lead in the direction of manners and in the conducting of public af fairs. This was, perhaps, the lingering characteristic of colo nial life, which the revolution had not effaced, the, as yet, un- extingu shed traditional sentiment of a still older time of which all traces have been obliterated by the defective discip line of succeeding generations. " I have a long score of pleasant recollections of the friend ships, the popular renowns, the household charms, the bon homie, the free confidences and the personal accomplish ments of that day. My memory yet lingers with affectionate delay in the wake of past notabilities, male and female, who have finished their voyage and long ago, I trust, found a safe mooring in that happy haven, where we fondly expect to find them again when we ourselves shall have furled our sails and secured an anchorage on that blessed shore. " In the train of these goodly groups came the gallants who upheld the chivalry of the age ; cavaliers of the old school, full of starch and powder: most of them the iron gentlemen of the Revolution, with leather faces old campaigners, renowned for long stories, not long enough from the camp to lose their military brusquerie and dare-devil swagger ; proper, roystering blades who had not long ago got out of harness and begun to affect the elegancies of civil life. Who but they ! jolly- fel lows, fiery and loud, with stern glance of the eye and brisk turn of the head, and swash-buckler strut of defiance, like game 104: LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. cocks, all in three-cornered cocked-hats and powdered hair and cues, and light-colored coats with narrow capes and long backs, and pockets on each hip, small-clothes and striped stock ings, shoes with great buckles, and long steel watch chains suspending an agate seal, in the likeness of the old sounding- boards hung above the pulpits. And they walked with such a stir, striking their canes upon the pavement till it rang again. I defy all modern coxcombry to produce any thing equal to it. There was such a relish of peace after the war, so visible in every movement. It was a sight worth seeing, when one of these weather-beaten gallants accosted a lady on the street. There was a bow which required the whole width of the pave ment, a scrape of the foot and the cane thrust with a flourish under the left arm and projecting behind in a parallel line with the cue. And nothing could be more piquant than the lady s return of this salutation, in a courtesy that brought her, with bridled chin and a most winning glance, half way to the ground. And such a volume of dignity ! " It was really a comfort to see a good housewifely matron of that merry time, trudging through town in bad weather, wrapped up in a great roquelaire, her arms thrust into a huge muff, and a tippet wound about her neck and shoulders in as many folds as the serpent of Laocoon, a beaver hat close over her ears, and her feet shod in pattens that lifted her above all contact with mud and water, clanking on the side walks with the footfall of the spectre of the Bleeding Nun. <; Even the seasons were on a scale of grandeur unknown to the present time. There were none of your soft Italian skies and puny affectation of April in December. But winter strut ted in, like a peremptory bandit on the stage, as one who knew his power and wasn t to be trifled with, and took possession of sky and field and river in good earnest, flinging his snowy cloak upon the ground as a challenge to all-comers, deter mined that it should lie there until he chose to take it up." While a law-student and subsequently, young Kennedy was a happy and popular sharer in the social privileges of his na- ADMITTED TO THE JiAR. 105 tive city. His high spirits, genial address, and pleasant humor made him a great favorite with the young of both sexes. His tastes and habits were remarkably pure. One of his com rades, during the excitement of the expected invasion, when free dom from customary routine and long intervals of leisure in the duties of the camp, allured some of the young volunteers into excesses, bears testimony to this exceptional conduct of young Kennedy, who, without the least asceticism of bearing or re proach, but with a kindly, yet resolute manner, invariably de clined joining his companions in the dissipation to which they were more or less addicted. His keen appreciation of the no bler pleasures of the mind and the more delicate enjoyment he derived from the society of the fair and the gifted, tended to confirm the high morale which sprung from natural charac ter and careful education. He was the life of the parties of that day and a welcome guest on all occasions of social festiv- ty ; but it was in the circles of family life and the compan ionship of intimate friends, that he appeared to the greatest advantage and found his true satisfaction ; favorite as he and his comrades were among men and women of their own age, the elders in society and at the bar, none the less adopted them into their good graces. There were famous amphy- trions in those days, men of wealth, position and influence ; dignified in manner, hospitable by habit, generous but exclu sive. The old Baltimore Library Company included many of these magnates, who held monthly dinners which acquired a high reputation for wine and wit. It was quite a startling soci al event when these "grave and reverend," but none the less jovial "signers" elected Kennedy and two or three of his friends members of this veteran corps ; " we want an infusion of young blood," said the prime mover in this innovation. On the first occasion of a re-union, after the new members had been installed, they acquitted themselves so well one by felicitous classical quotations, one by clever humorous sallies and another by a fresh contribution of witty stories, that the old gentlemen voted, by acclamation, to hold the dinner semi- 5* 106 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. monthly, and afterwards it became a weekly institution, so speedily had the vivacious and accomplished youths rejuvena ted the elders and given new life and grace to their banquet. Among the eminent lawyers Mr. Pinkney took a great interest in young Kennedy, who became engaged to his daugh ter Charlotte ; the engagement lasted but a few months ; and the lady soon after married a gentleman of New York. Her father continued, to the last, to feel and manifest a warm re gard for Mr. Kennedy. To this period the following letter from his brother refers : JEFFERSON Co., VIRGINIA, > CLAYTON, March llth, 1821. \ MY DEAR JOHN : The distressing solemnity of my Lord Coke s most grave Commentary, whereat I have been disport ing myself for awhile, and the ineffable dulness of two vol umes of the Revised Code, must be my excuse for not writing to you more frequently. I finished Coke some time ago and am now laboring through him a second time to what purpose I cannot tell, unless it be that my good uncle Phil, means to give me a surfeit at once, and thereby force me to abjure the law. We were sorry to hear the account of your disagreement with Miss Pinkney, but only regretted it as supposing it dis turbed your quiet. You are not one, however, who will surfer such things to make you very miserable especially as you are already so intent upon the gratification of your own honorable and, I may say, successful ambition, and besides, " There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far, Who would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar." And now, my dear Hero, or Hector, that you can rest from the struggle of debate ; now that you are quietly seated in your office covered with your laurels, or your bays, or your palms, or even with your old surtout with the reputation, at least in Virginia here, of being the most distinguished young man in Maryland, and the first man, young or old, in the Assembly ; now I say, ADMITTED TO THE BAR. 107 will you do me the favor to let me know, in a long epistle, what is going on in Baltimore. ? Yours, affectionately, ANDREW KENNEDY/ He was admitted to the bar under the auspices of General Winder, and commenced practice in 1816. He was counsel for some of the City Banks ; was associated awhile with Charles F. Mayer, and conducted some important cases before the Su preme Court ; he became trustee for several estates, and worked on steadily in his profession, then his sole dependence. Yet the law was distasteful to him from the first his tastes were all for literature and politics. " Is not the institution of lawyers men who live by attending to suits a great evil ?" he writes. " How completely and helplessly is society en cased and bound up in this web of law. Why should a man to get his rights, be obliged to pay so highly for it, and to be subject to such terrors in the getting of them? " Yet few writ ers have shown such an appreciation of lawyers as a class ; in his "Life of Wirt " and in "Swallow Barn," Mr. Kennedy portrays the peculiar intellectual charm of a judicial mind and the exceptional culture which, in his youth, distinguished the profession. The bar of Baltimore was then renowned for its able, eloquent and learned lawyers ; the names of Luther Martin and William Pinkney, of Generals Harper and Winder, and occasionally of Wirt, and with many others, are among the most eminent in American jurisprudence. The legal profession in our country, at the time he entered it, represented a kind and degree of intellectual ac tivity and influence, no longer so exclusively its own, as when reading men were less common. The social prestige and interest of the profession was thus early impressed upon his mind ; and his own qualities made him the congenial asso ciate of the eminent members of the bar. Cordially adopted as a young friend by the famous veterans of his youth, and a witness of many of their forensic triumphs, he soon learned to place a high estimate on the possible success and the intel- 108 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. lectual eminence of the legal fraternity. But this did not mitigate his own personal distaste for the vocation ; like so many others in whom the literary instinct is predominant, he turned from the dry details of law to the humanizing generali ties of literature, with unabated relish ; he wrote, and read his tory, poetry and fiction, as soon as he had disposed of a case or got through a document. And yet, according to one of his successful cotemporaries at the bar, Mr. Kennedy possess ed some special qualifications therefor. He had, says this, gentleman, a remarkable aptitude for the collection and anal ysis of facts and the facile exposition of a question ; he could draw up a masterly judicial statement, arrange and, as it were clarify and emphasize the details of a subject, with remarkable celerity and success. This qualification, we know in subse quent life, proved most auspicious to his usefulness in public duty, as is apparent in his Report on Commerce, as Secretary of the Navy", Commisioner at the Paris Exposition and on many other occasions, when the rapid elucidation or impres sive programme of a great subject was required. Despite his want of strong personal interest in law, he none the less ap plied himself to its duties ; he was very rarely a hard student, but always observant, a reader, and gracefully expressive ; he was a natural speaker and writer. Soon after commencing practice Mr. Kennedy, with his in timate friends Pennington, Dulany and Cruse, set up a bache lor s establishment in St. Paul s Street. The one survivor of the attached and happy quartette, has given me a vivid idea of the life they led after they began housekeeping. He describes his friends as about equally fond of literature and ladies ; Cruse was eminently classical in his taste and culture, brilliant in his talk, affectionate in his disposition ; Kennedy manifested more interest in public life, urbane and genial to a fault and fond of a joke. In the evening, when not engaged for a party or a play, and often before or after such pastimes, the young men would pursue their respective and characteristic occupations in the drawing-room together ; 100 while Pennington was at work upon a chancery bill, Kennedy and Cruse would be preparing a forthcoming number of " The Red Book; -and when either of them succeeded in "making a hit," satirical or elegant, as it might be, they remorselessly interrupted their more grave companion and bade him criticise their work or share the joke, for, writes a member of the Mon day Club," Mr. Pennington was the best narrator of anecdote and delineator of character among his associates." The history of this primitive literary enterprise is characteristic of the writers and the time. Both Kennedy and Cruse had, from time to time, contributed to the journals of the day ; the for mer, for awhile, was editor of the Baltimore American; and they constantly exchanged criticisms and formed plans. The idea of a local anonymous satire, to appear occasionally and astonish and mystify the town, was singularly fascinating to the young aspirants for literary influence ; and they issued the first number of " The Red Book" a small pamphlet, in verse and prose, very like, in form and purpose, the "Sal magundi" of Irving and Paulding. " This little work " says the preface, " comes before the public eye, the careless offspring of chance, unsupported by patronage and unadorned by the tinsel of fame or fashion. It possesses this advantage, that let the world slight it as it may, it will always be read. It is in vain to seek its origin, for no man shall say whence it came. The authors are not to be known though they may mingle freely with their fellows." Curiosity was piqued on the appearance of the initial number ; and the little serial soon became famous and was in such demand that the hand-presses, then in use, could not turn off an adequate supply of copies in season to meet the requisition. The secret of the authorship was well kept. Although a few shrewdly suspected that " The Red Book" emanated from the genial bacheloric domicile of the friends, who had such excellent opportunities to note the follies of the day and describe the eccentric or pretentious people around them ; yet all guessing as to the origin of special papers was a failure, and the young authors enjoyed their incognito 110 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. as well as the noise their lucubrations made in the world, Kennedy and Cruse were so well suited to each other, that their playful intercourse was a delight not only to themselves, but to all their friends. Many are the amusing reminiscences of the angry criticisms they used to hear upon* the personalities of " The Red Book ;" at the " cotton-cambric parties" it was discussed and the authors joined in the indignation expressed ; so that both its preparation and social ordeal became a source of jollity to the ingenious contrivers of this literary pastime. " The Red Book" appeared at intervals for two years ; and the numbers bound make two duodecimo volumes in old-fash ioned type ; they are now extremely rare. A glance at their pages shows the old Queen Anne essay style and scope, now al legorical and now a parody, here an imitation of obsolete Eng lish and there a reproduction of some classic type. The titles of the papers suggest their aim and style ; such as "The History of Mr. Bronze ;" " An old Prophecie ;" " Sidrophel to the Ladies ;" " From the Tusculum ;" " Market Street Musings" and " Horace in Baltimore," the last from a series of local satires written by Cruse, who knew the odes of Horace by heart, and having decided upon the one to travestie, would reel off an English imitation, with some of his fellow-citizens as satirical subjects thereof, with remarkable spirit and facility. The significance, and therefore much of the interest of their lo cal allusions, have passed away with the occasion, or persons that inspired them ; while the style of periodical writing has so changed that specimens of this early date have little attrac tion for readers of the present day. Regarded as an isolated venture not unsuccessful in its way, as an indication of taste and wit, the little volume is agreeably associated with the memory of its authors. This literary experiment was a source of much amusement, and some literary practice to them ; and they sent copies of " The Red Book " to. the few litera- tcurs the country then boasted, to elicit criticism as to the merits and promise of their work. Two replies to these applica tions are here inserted, as curious illustrations of the tentative "TIIK KKD HOOK." tate of literature among us half a century ago, and the formal ncouragement vouchsafed by scholars to the few young aspir- .nts to the honors of authorship : CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY, June 20, 1820. GENTLEMEN: There is so much talent displayed in "The led Book," that I should gladly see you strike boldly at greater .buses ; and, though it might still be done in a pleasant way, .im at elevating the turn of public feeling, on many important joints of opinion and morals. Your town is large enough to d m jt it ours is not ; for it is scarce possible with a limited >opulation like that of Boston, to say any thing which will not >ring you into personal collision with your acquaintances. Your obedient, humble servant, EDWARD EVERETT. To the Authors of " THE RED BOOK." CAMBRIDGE, July 24, 1820. GENTLEMEN : By virtue of the authority which you have rommited to me, I pronounce a favorable judgment upon " The cled Book." I have, indeed, to object to some levities which ather trespass upon propriety, and especially to an occasional vant of reverence in alluding to Scripture. But I am satisfied Tom this publication that the gentlemen engaged in it are ca- )able of doing something much better ; and it is because I im pleased with it, and not because I condemn it, that I look forward to their " engaging in something" much " more credit able." If I may be allowed to select any part, I should say that I was particularly pleased with the imitations of Horace. " Horace in Baltimore " has, to say the least, quite as much wit and spirit as " Horace in London." However, I mean to make no invidious distinctions. The prose is very worthy to accom pany the poetry. For the honor of Greek and Baltimore, I beg you no long er to print a instead of 9 final, nor use double y as a diph thong. I am, gentlemen, with great regard, Yours, ANDREWS NORTON. To tlie Authors of " THE RED BOOK." Of this youthful performance, Mr. Kennedy thought little, except as it was the occasion of much amusing experience and LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. literary sympathy : alluding to it many years after, he says "In 1818 Peter Hoffman Cruse and myself published in Bal timore, a little work, in two volumes, called " The Red Book." It appeared in numbers, at intervals of about a fortnight, and was of a playful, satirical character, no farther worthy of note than for its containing some excellent poetical articles by Cruse." The attachment between these young men was very strong, and based on a similarity of taste and the highest mu tual confidence. When Mr. Kennedy and his friend Penning- ton were married, leaving their old bachelor companion alone, the former said to his brother Benedict, "we must take care of Cruse ;" and he became at once an habitue of their homes " and like one of the family." During the melancholy summer and autumn of 1832, when the cholera prevailed so fatally in Baltimore, Mr. Kennedy was paying his accustomed rounds of family and friendly visits in Virginia; Pennington and Cruse remained in the city and daily met; they never failed to inquire each other s welfare with the peculiar solicitude incident to the constant ravages of the epidemic ; one day on leaving their respective law offices, which were adjacent, they ac knowledged to each other the symptoms of illness ; on parting, Cruse said feelingly to his friend " I hope we shall see each other again ;" soon after both were seized with the cholera ; by the timely and devoted care of his friend Dr. Buckler, Mr. Pennington overcame the attack ; but remedial means were too late to arrest the disease in the other case ; and the two friends never met again. It is a remarkable coincidence that, forty years after, when in the summer of 1870, Mr. Penning ton took leave of his old companion Kennedy, at the latter s threshold, on the eve of his departure for the north, the identi cal words fell from his lips which had proved the last of the friend of their youth. Feeling how precarious was the tenure of his life, Mr. Kennedy instead of his wonted jovial parting, said : " I hope we shall see each other again ;" the sadly re membered phrase struck upon the ear of his life-long friend, with an ominous thrill, and he exclaimed, " O John ! don t say PUBLIC LIFE. 113 that !" The words were prophetic ; they had parted on earth forever. Both cherished the memory of Cruse as did his other surviving friends. After the lapse of many years, in one of Mr. Kennedy s journals, in a programme of literary projects, he says : " I meditate a tribute to my friend Cruse, a little volume of his Life and Writings." This design, al though the materials were partly collected, was never fulfilled. With the cessation of " The Red Book," Mr. Kennedy for some time, gave more attention to public life than to litera ture, although he never wholly neglected the latter. A taste rather than an ambition for political activity, had early mani fested itself. He took an instinctive interest in questions of policy, and enjoyed the discussion of subjects connected with the welfare of the nation and the progress and prosperity of the community in which he lived. Frequently called upon by his fellow-citizens to address public meetings, he gradually became the recognized advocate of certain prin ciples and the graceful expositor of popular sentiment. He alludes, in his recollections of his early life, to the practice he enjoyed as a speaker in the Debating Club and in drafting by laws, reports and constitutions, as having been an unconscious but none the less desirable preparation for official duties. It was, therefore, with great ease that he, as occasion prompted, became the orator of a special occasion or the public advocate of an important measure, whether economical, educational or legislative. His oldest surviving friends recall his appearance in youth, when addressing the crowd from the gallery of the old Court-House. His style of speaking was, for the most part, unstudied ; he gained and kept attention by lucid argu ment, tempered by pleasantry, frequent sallies of humor, em phatic force of statement, good-natured raillery and occasional outbreaks of rhetoric. There was a magnetic charm about his manner, and often a finished cadence or quiet humor in his tone, which, combined with the good sense upon which his appeal or protest was based, secured him respectful attention and encouraging sympathy. In 1820 he was elected to the LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. Legislature of Maryland as a delegate from Baltimore, in which position he served for three successive years, having been re-elected in 1821-22. MARTINSBURG, Oct. 14th, 1820. MY DEAR JOHN : After receiving my congratulations upon the success of your campaign, I should like to hear some of the particulars of your election. There is a prodigious story brought here by Tom Smith, of the following tenor, viz. : that on your first rising to address your fellow-citizens, they loudly cried, " Down with him down, down !" upon which you modestly retreated for some minutes, rallied to the charge, and finally succeeded in eliciting loud and long huzzas from capricious multitudes, etc., etc. Let us hear all about these matters. Affectionately yours, ANDREW KENNEDY. In his legislative career he at once became prominent as an advocate of Internal Improvements and Reform ; in some cases, where his views were not in advance of the time, win ning thereby the applause of his constituents, and in other instances, when anticipating the progress of public opinion, he incurred critical opposition. A friend of his youth informs me that on his return to Baltimore from the State Capital, after successfully promoting one of these popular reforms, the whole audience in the theatre rose on his entrance with cheers; on the other hand, his persistence in denouncing the existent laws of imprisonment for debt, were severely con demned by the press and in the legislature. It is amusing, and at the same time instructive, to look back upon the special causes and methods of opposition in the career of a consistent and conscientious statesman, and regard them in the light of subsequent progress and policy. Thus his views on imprisonment for debt have long ago become the public sentiment of all civilized countries ; and while he was isolated and steadfast in his old age, in frustrating, to the best of his PARTY MANOEUVRES. 115 ability, the base mutiny against the republic in favor of slavery, he must often have remembered with wonder, that upon his entrance on political life, forty years before, being then, as ever, an opponent of the institution, one of the first slanders hurled against him by the opposite party in the caucus, was an accusation of pro-slavery opinions ; for, then and there, this blot on the national escutcheon was regarded as an economical blunder as well as a moral stain, by a large and influential class. A more amusing instance of partisan warfare is re membered by one of his constituents ; finding it impossible to assail successfully the character or depreciate the services of the young member from Baltimore, a zealous votary of the opposite party spent days in searching files of newspapers to discover a phrase of which the popular candidate was the author, in which, apropos to some argument, he had said of the citizens of Baltimore, that they "were not a reading people." While such now long-forgotten party manoeuvres were en acting, Mr. Kennedy had risen not only in the estimation of his townsmen and associates at Annapolis, as a young man of un common ability, honor and adaptation to public life, but many of his distinguished fellow-citizens in the national councils be gan to take note of his promise and claims. At that period journeys to Washington from Baltimore were only practicable to equestrians or in stage-coaches ; in spring and winter the roads were heavy and sometimes impassable. The prominent Maryland lawyers went there to attend the Supreme Court, and those of Virginia and other States came, like Wirt, to Baltimore to plead ; these visits being attended with delays and fatigue, in duced longer sojourns and more intimate social intercourse than either legal or legislative visitors of our day have time or inclination to indulge. Accordingly, a young and rising man, either at the bar, in society or public life, became sooner known more distinctly appreciated than is possible now, when competitors are so numerous and opportunities so eagerly and promiscuously sought. Many leading men thus came to feel LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. an interest in Mr. Kennedy from what they heard of his talents and enjoyed of his society ; and it occasioned no surprise that he received from Mr. Monroe, in 1824, the appointment of Secretary of Legation to Chili. Mr. Wirt, then a member of the cabinet, seems to have interested himself warmly in the project. For some time Mr. Kennedy hesitated as to his final acceptance ; but at last resigned the office, in regard to which the Attorney-General thus writes : BALTIMORE, April 16, 1822. DEAR SIR : It is understood that ministers are to be ap pointed to the new republic in South America, who are to be full ministers, and will, consequently, require Secretaries of Le gation, and with a view to one of the latter appointments I have been Requested to bring to your view Mr. John P. Kennedy, of this place, one of my younger professional brethren, for whom I entertain great respect and esteem, as do the people of this city, whose delegate to the State Legislature he has been fcr some time. Mr. Kennedy is a scholar and a gentleman- intelligent, liberal and enlightened, and would, I think, not only fill, but grace the appointment, and as such, I take the liberty to recommend him to your attention, happy to have it in my power to propose what I am sure will benefit my country, while it will gratify my own feelings, I remain, dear sir, most respectfully, Your obd t. servant, WILLIAM WIRT. 1 o the President of the United States. WASHINGTON, January 20, 1823. What if I didn t, my dear sir ; is it not a feather in your cap to have it in your power to go or not ? Besides, how did I know but you might change your mind again, and wish for a sight of the Andes, and sigh to hear Cotopaxi roar and assault the skies. Then again the diamond mines of Peru and Gol- conda and, en passant, the city of the unfortunate Montezuma, and the noble Guatimozin s bed of roses, to say nothing of the shows and natural wonders to which Humboldt has given in terest, and whose narrative, I take it, would be the companion of your journey, then that human volcano now in a state of political eruption, all his passions in a magnificent blaze, red- APPOINTED MINISTER TO CHILI. 117 dening the whole firmament with their fires and overwhelming towns and villages with their lava. How did I know but that on reflection you might regret your having missed a view of all these spectacles, and have thanked me very little for the sage counsel that might have contributed to the disappoint ment ? Besides, if you remain firm to your purpose of declining it, you can resign, and without censure, for I have seen the President and taken all the blame on myself. I am still old-fashioned and sage enough to think that it would be better for you both in a pecuniary and political view to " stick to the ship," but being no adept myself at either game, you had better consider this matter once more and con sult more experienced advisers than myself. Perhaps tha ex pedition may benefit you in both respects by throwing new brilliancy and eclat on your character, and thus attracting still more attention to you on your return. However, consider and decide as you please, and be assured that whether you ap prove my omission or not, it was well intended. After dinner : I wonder, at last, if it be not true that there is some subtle intercourse between spirit and spirit, though ab sent from each other, which gives each the cognizance of what is passing with the other. I wrote the preceding before din ner, in serious apology for having taken the liberty to with hold from the President the subject of your former letter. I have been troubled in spirit for not having done it soon er, but I wished the nomination to be confirmed before I apprised you of the trick I had played you. But the President told me when I made my confession to him, that the idea that you would not accept, had got afloat from some other quarter, but that it would be time enough for you to resign when the nomination should be confirmed, " but sir, he will accept, " these were his words, and far be it from me to call his spirit of prophecy into question. While at dinner, I received your let ter ^of the twenty-fourth, and now I have to consider this subject again, you call upon me to do it frankly : this is no easy task when I see the determined current of your own in clination. I perceive, too, it is not a temporary frolic that you are bent on, but a settled course of life, that is to exchange the lawyer for the diplomatist. " If you thought this appointment would lead to speedy preferment, as you have some hope it will, you would not scruple to accept, because you know you are better qualified for that kind of life than any other." The ground of this hope and the accuracy of this conscious ness are very important points in deciding on your final 118 LIFE OF JOHN p. KENNEDY. course. I am not, therefore, in possession of the facts which l nx the destiny of your ultimate pursuits, but I believe you must be indulged in taking this frolic for a year or so Ihis will give us time to consider, for as to the final iud ff - ment, curia advtsare vult. At your time of life an absence of a year or two can do no material injury ; the disappointment, at all events, might do you more harm than such an absence At your time of life /would certainly go, which, however only proves my own Arab propensity, and by no means, that the step would be right. Take the Law of Nations and Blackstone with you, and do not forget your Bible. You will be as certainly confirmed as the mission to Chili will. The appointments will both go together, /. e., share the same fate. I am as you conjecture, extremely busy. I shall see you I take it for granted, before your departure meantime, health and joy! Yours, truly, JOHN P. KENNEDY, ESQ. ^ M WlRT * " I have heard him describe," says Mr. Winthrop, " most hu morously his first interview with the late John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State, when he called at the State Department for his instructions, preparatory to embarking for his post." -"Instructions!" said Mr. Adams, "the only instructions I have to give you at present are these ; and reaching up, with the aid of a chair, to a high shelf or pigeon hole, he handed him a carefully prepared description and drawing of the uniform which our legations abroad were required to wear, not yet dis carded as inconsistent with Republican principles, and told him to provide himself accordingly. Mr. Kennedy s youthful aspirations for diplomacy were not stimulated or altogether satisfied, by this view of what was expected of him ; and, before it was too late, he obtained leave to resign the appoint ment j" which he did in the following terms : BALTIMORE, May 18, 1823. DEAR SIR : When I had the honor to see you on my last visit ^to Washington, I promised myself the pleasure of pro ceeding, as soon as the government might require it, with the mission to Chili, and hoped by the fidelity with which I should DEATH OF HIS WIFE. 119 discharge the trust committed to my keeping, to have made some requital for the favor you had shown me. Circumstances have since occurred which compel me to resign the appointment, and force me to throw myself upon your indulgence to be released from duties which, in any other situation, I would have under taken with the utmost alacrity. My very good friend Mr. Wirt has engaged to be answer able for this defection, and will take occasion in some personal interview to make you acquainted with my justification. Believe me. sir, none but the most cogent reasons could have induced me to decline the very flattering notice you have taken of me, or run the risk of forfeiting your confidence by what might be deem ed a capricious refusal of it. As some months must still elapse before the mission will leave the country, I hope I am not too late in announcing my resignation. I have the honor to be, my dear sir, with the most profound respect, Yours, etc., JOHN P. KENNEDY. To His Exc y JAMES MONROE, Prest. of U. S. Probably, besides his natural reluctance to give up a grow ing practice, Mr. Kennedy was influenced in his decision by the resolution he had formed to settle in life by entering into a new and tender relation. In January, 1824, he married a daughter of Colonel Tennant, a large and prosperous shipping- merchant of Baltimore ; in October of the same year his wife died after giving birth to a son, who survived her but a few months. To this brief and sad episode of his life Mr. Kenne dy always avoided reference. Its painful -associations were such that he, with a philosophy characteristic of his mind, turned from them to brighter thoughts and the healthful re sources of occupation and society. Though he preserved no traces of this period, the evidence of his journals and letters proves that the father of his short-lived bride, entertained for him the highest regard ; as the family trustee he fulfilled the duties delegated by Colonel Tennant with the most scrupulous fidelity and kindly attention. To the gentle and attached wo- 120 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. ma,n who was his companion for so short a time, he alludes, many years after, in one of his journals, with a tender respect for her memory characteristic of his heart : May 3ist, 1832. I have to note that in the course of last winter, the burial-ground of Christ Church, which was near the hospital, was broken up, and the remains of those buried there removed among the rest, those of one who is associ ated in my early affections with a fond memory, and whose short career belonged to a period of my life which was greatly endeared by her gentle and loving devotion, my first wife Mary the daughter of Colonel Tennant We were married in January, 18^2), and she died in October, in giving birth to a son, Tennant Pendleton. She was twenty-two a brief space wife, still briefer mother a woman of a kind and virtuous nature, true, just and noble in character, with a spirit all devotion, cheerfulness and trust. She was laid in the family burial- ground of her father, and as Colonel Tennant always intended to erect a vault there, I placed no memorial on the spot. In eleven months in September, 1825 her son followed her and was placed by her side. Upon the breaking up of this ceme tery, her remains, and those of her child, were deposited at Green Mount, in the enclosure owned by John Nelson, the late Attorney-General of the United States, who married her sister. Although I set no value upon a tablet to mark the resting- place of human remains, holding it to be an idle and useless custom, yet in deference to common opinion I mean to place some unostentatious and simple monument over the mother and child whose brief fortunes will never interest the world and will never need a memorial for my remembrance. The spirits that informed their bodies have joined their kindred na tures in a world of spirits, and the mortal part has long since escaped the bed in which it was laid. I must attend to this ; and get a stone prepared with such inscription as custom or dains, to tell to those who may seek such a record hereafter, how little is left of that natural structure which was once the temporary lodgment of a spirit as pure and gentle as that of FOX-HUNTING. the good into whose companionship she has long since enter ed, and with whom she now abides." There was a club of gentlemen in those early days in Bal timore and its vicinity, addicted to fox-hunting, another of the English affinities characteristic of the place and people. Mr. Kennedy, whose strength had been prostrated by a prolonged attack of quinsy the result of a severe cold taken during a visit to the Susquehanna as one of a committee of the House of Delegates joined this sporting corps and sought to build up his constitution by equestrian exercise, to which he had been accustomed in youth, the practice thereof having been neglect ed after he became engaged in professional and public life. He regularly hunted with the club, two or three times a week, for several winters ; and always reverted to the experience with much zest. They met at each other s houses, breakfasted by candlelight, and then rode to North Point, and thence, in every direction across the country. 6 122 LIFE OF JOHN I . KENNEDY. CHAPTER IV. Second marriage ; Law Business ; Absences ; Letters to Mrs. Kennedy ; Home life ; Journeys ; Residences in the City and Country house at Patapsco. WITH the commencement of the year 1828, a new vista of life was opened to Mr. Kennedy ; active as had been his mind, useful his labors and enjoyable his social relations, he needed, more than the average of men, a fame ; his nature was so gentle, his affections so earnest and his tastes so essen tially domestic, that for the healthful and happy exercise of his talents and the contentment of his heart, it was requisite that he should constantly breathe the atmosphere of household love and duty, and have free and fond scope for his best sympathies. The good Providence which he always gratefully recognized as the guard and guide of his life, led him now into the bosom of a family and to the hand and heart of a woman singularly con genial to his nature, and with whom, during the rest of his days, he found all that could harmonize and charm his being. In the minds of his friends, Mr. Kennedy s memory is indisso- lubly associated with those most near and clear to him ; with a household wherein the warmest affections, the most cultiva ted society, a hospitality and a heartiness beyond measure, seemed at once to enshrine and illustrate a life and character as benign as accomplished and noble. Among the letters of this period, the following has, to those who knew and appre ciated this happy home, a prophetic significance : " Monday night, June 23d 1828. " To EDWARD GRAY, ESQ. : I waited at your house last night, until after dark, expecting your return from town. It was to SECOND MARRIAGE. 123 tell you, with what pleasure I cannot express, that your Eliza beth is mine. Believe me, my dear friend, it has made me ex tremely happy, and that I feel I can never sufficiently discharge the obligation of protection and duty it has laid upon me. She shall always receive from me the homage of an ardent affection and the most sincere devotion to her welfare." This simple and manly declaration Mr. Kennedy carried out, with the most consistent and happy fidelity, for forty years ; his highest anticipations of domestic enjoyment were more than realized ; " God has given me many good gifts, Lizzie, during my life," he said to his wife a few hours before he died " but the best is you." His engagement was a new stimulas to in dustry ; many of his letters during the succeeding months, to his betrothed, are dated at Annapolis, where he was engaged in legal business \ and at Philadelphia, whither he often went to attend to the settlement of his uncle Anthony s estate, of which he was executor. A bequest from this relative was a very sea sonable aid to the young lawyer at this time ; but he depended mainly on the fruits of his professional labor. His love-letters, if such they may be called, during this interval, remind me of Steele s, they are alternately earnest and playful ; and their nat ural and manly sentiment is sustained by an equal element of good sense. On his journeys he describes very aptly the com pany he meets, and takes occasion to exhibit his own views of life and the conjugal relation ; he frankly narrates all he does, sees and thinks ; impatient at separation, he reveals himself so frankly by correspondence, that it is evident how the most per fect confidence is thus confirmed and what a pure and perma nent prospect of mutual happiness, based, as such must ever be, on the resources of character and the integrity of the affec tions, lies before them. Mr. Kennedy was married to Elizabeth Gray on the 5th of February, 1829. Scores of notelets, such as Dick Steele used to send Prue from the office of the Tattler and the House of Commons, to his wife from the Court of Ap peals, show how occupied Mr. Kennedy was during the first 124 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. years of his married life. He tells her when his case is coming on; how his argument was received or the result thereof; he gives her all those details of his personal welfare which soothe affectionate solicitude for the absent ; he draws amusing por traits of his comrades and colleagues ; reports his social experi ence with graphic zest, confesses his longing to be with her, and sends all kinds of warnings and suggestions for the happiness of his young wife ; " it is now eleven o clock," he writes, for in stance ; " I have got through all my studies and prepared my self to make a long speech to-morrow ; but I cannot go to bed without a line to my little girl. I am here with the Attorney- General, surrounded with books and papers, and wrapped up in my wadded robe de chambre ; the admiration of all visitors as stately and parti-colored as a Mufti. I am well, but home sick." And from Philadelphia he writes of an interview with Horace Binney, an evening with Robert Walsh, Gilpin or Mcllvaine, and a dramatic triumph of Fanny Kemble ; from Washington of the probable success of a memorial he is urging upon Congress ; of the prospects of the Tariff, of the " demolition of nullification under Webster s sledge-hammer," of the Bank question, and his own business before the courts, interspersed with personal details and loving utterances, all indicative of a busy, observant, sympathetic life, and invariably suggestive of a restrained eagerness to get back to his home. One is im pressed in glancing over these early family letters with the su perior facilities of communication we enjoy ; the closing of Elk River by the ice, the delay in organizing a line of stage-coaches, when a stoppage of steamboats occurs, and the slow transit by canal, are in striking contrast with the celerity of travel be tween the same cities now. A few selections from Mr. Kennedy s letters to his fiance, and subsequently to his wife, will best describe his occupations during the first years of his married life, and the feelings and views he cherished : LI .TTKK.S Ti> M1>S GRAY. 125 ANNAPOLIS, June SGtli, 1828. You see, my very dear Elizabeth, to what your pledge of last Monday has brought you. A letter, and I dare say he will think himself entitled to write you another and another. This is the first letter in what I trust is to be a long and happy correspondence through a life of various events, in which I hope to find ever at my side, for love and counsel, that enchanting little girl who sways like an empress all my best feelings. May every page which is hereafter to follow in this com munion, even to the latest day of a long life, bear to you the same fervent affection and unalterable faith that is pledged to you on this. I am here at present deeply engaged in the studies of the term, having several cases of great weight to argue in a few days, the preparation for which occupies all the time at my dis posal : this labor is by no means the most agreeable in the oppressive heats of the last three or four days ; and the uncer tainty of the moment when I shall be called before the court, prevents me from making any calculation when I shall be able to visit Baltimore. ANNAPOLIS, July 2d, 1828. I would have you believe that you mingle as much in the grave concerns of my life as you do in the most agreeable and gayest of my feelings. It belongs to my temper to throw off all distrust in every relation where my heart is interested, and to show the value I set upon the object of my regard by the most unqualified confidence ; to you, my excellent and lovely Eliza beth, prizing your good sense and accomplished spirit as I do, I shall always look as to an intelligent friend and faithful ad viser in every matter that can affect our personal happiness, saving only such emergencies as it might pain you to contem plate : as my affianced wife, it is not too much for me to ask of you a return of the same confidence, that I may be acquainted 120 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. with every shade of opinion that belongs to you, and what in any degree concerns your happiness. I deem too highly of the nature of this engagement to con sider it less than sacred; and it is the liveliest object of my wishes to make ours a union of affection, sentiment and inter est as perfect as belongs to the truest hearts. ANNAPOLIS, July 9th, 1828. I may thank my destinies for the course things have taken, as they have relieved me from further duty here for a week to come, and left me at liberty to return where my heart and service call me. I shall, therefore, be in Baltimore this even ing, and as soon as I can perform some little matters of busi ness which may occupy me for a day or two, will be found wending my way to the woody glen of the Patapsco and the cheerful little girl that adorns it. I have become quite scrupulous of late in all professional engagements, and look with the most contented spirit upon the prospect of an eager pursuit of professional honors. A quiet life of study with one charming being by my side whose virtues fill up the whole measure of my admiration, and whom I do most gallantly love, is to me at present the best purpose of my ambition. To cultivate her esteem as well as affection, and to give her cause to rejoice in the spirit that pro tects her, is a wish the dearer to my feelings as it sensibly involves all that I have to hope for in temporal happiness. BALTIMORE, July 24th, 1828. I have just returned from Annapolis, my dear E., with such experience of the heat of the season as made me very uneasy for your comfort in your journey from this to Bedford, where I take it for granted your are to-day, and I trust in the enjoyment of ease and pleasure. You are able now to say whether I misrepresented the annoyances and fatigues of your enterprise, and still I hope you have not found them so bad as to repress the alacrity of your homeward progress, which, indeed, my dear LETTERS TO MISS GRAY. 127 girl, I look for as the Pagan looks for the rising sun, with eastern devotion. So pray come back as son as you have discharged your promise to your Pittsburg friends. I met with more than ordinary success in my visit of two days to Annapolis, having gained two causes and settled all my business for the term. So to-morrow I set out for Philadelphia, and on Monday to Cape May, where I shall remain for a week, and thence speed to the mountains. Tell me truly what you think of your ride along that ever lasting turnpike, and at hours so uncongenial to your common habits ; and after all, whether you are compensated by any thing you have seen in that town of dust and smoke where this will find you, apart from the satisfaction of meeting friends and re lations. Your philosophy is somewhat sturdier than I take it to be if it triumphs in this trial. BALTIMORE, August 4th, 1828. I have just got home, my dear Elizabeth, after an absence of ten days, having arrived yesterday morning. I wrote to you from Philadelphia on the 27th, the evening before I embarked for Cape May and proceeding on my voyage remained on the sea-shore only five days, having grown tired of* all I saw and enjoyed, for in truth the bathing there, and the climate too, merit all commendation ; but the society was in no respect very captivating, being composed of a class of people that I always avoid, and besides that, I myself was as grave and out of place as the genius of dulness could make me. I twice sat down to write to you and actually finished a letter each time, but not car ing to inflict upon you the malady of my own heaviness, I tore them up, designing to write under better circumstances. The truth is, there is something Boeotian in that atmosphere the eternal billow breaking on the ear, the breeze that flutters across you all day, and more than all, the ceaseless obtrusion of the ocean swell upon the eye, gave to me a constant sensation of a swimming motion that has not even yet left me. I start with it in my dreams, and during the whole time I remained on the 128 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. coast, it kept my mind in confusion too great to enable me to extricate myself from the natural loneliness of spirits into which our separation had thrown me. , August 8th, 1828. I arrived here about nine o clock to-night, having left your father s since breakfast. It would make you vain to tell you with what eager expec tation the mail was looked for yesterday morning, and how tristful every visage was when Uncle Joe announced no letters. And what a rapture they were all thrown into this morning when the deficiencies of yesterday were supplied by the kindly packet that came to hand, bringing your letters of Friday and Sunday ! I rose late, not dreaming, my dear girl, that after the disappointment of yesterday our good fortune was to be so suddenly reversed ; but when I came down, I had a lecture from your father who had been waiting for me on the porch upon my lazy habits ; then there was a sort of misgiving joke of his about the girls at Pittsburg not writing, then the announce ment of the news, while he slipped your enclosure in my hand. I read it over and over, and thank you, dearest E., with all my heart. CLAYTON, NEAR CIIARLESTOWN, VA., August llth, 1828. I write to you, dearest E., from my father s, in Virginia, amid green fields and glad faces. My last letter to you was written en voyage at Fredericktown, on Friday night, by one poor candle, and after a fatiguing drive. You perhaps could scarcely read it, and if it were legible, found it difficult to con nect its disjointed scraps together. Still, my dearest love, it was the pleasant offering of a warm heart to the mistress of his life, and spoke what he will ever feel. I came on to this re gion the next day it was excessively hot and poor Topthorn remonstrated with me very much for the length of the drive ; but I could not stop short of this term of my journey for the sake of saving the exertion of some ten miles, so e en in de- LETTERS TO MISS GKAY. 129 spite of the very warm weather, came on. My mother and fa ther, but especially my mother, were delighted to see me, and after some sober and constrained reserve upon the subject in tending to leave me to my own time my mother began to give me some hints about you. I came out and told her ev ery tiling and how good you were, and how sensible, and how educated; how pretty, and how much I loved you, I couldn t tell her how much, and then I let her into all my plans, and I could see in her eyes, while I spoke to her, that joyous lustre that comes from a mother s sympathy. And she told me that I was to be very happy if half I said was true, and that I must take care of you and cherish and protect and value you very much ; to which I said I was ready to vow that in the church and so I am, Elizabeth, and to make good my vow so long as we both shall live. MARTINSBUKG, BERKELEY Co., August 16th, 1828. Although I have been continually surrounded by the best and kindest of friends since I set my foot in Virginia, it still goes heavily with me, because, in truth, I want to see you very much, and am almost tempted to cross the Alleghany in spite of your injunction. However, you may rest easy on that score. I shall wait in the confident hope that after the lapse of one week, when this shall come to hand, you will be preparing for your return. WINCHESTER, Aug. 28tli, 1828. Do you know, I have not received a letter from you or any body else since I left your father s ? I directed my brother at Charlestown to forward letters to me only when he was sure that they would come safe to hand and my course of late had been so eccentric and extravagant (I mean in Shakspeare s sense) that it would scarcely have been practicable to have overtaken me without an express. And I must consequently wait until Sunday before I can get a line. You don t know how it frets me, all patient and immovable as you take me to be. 6* 130 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. By the by, I think a man who talks a little and shows some anger suffers less under such circumstances. I feel as if I could swear it off and get into a better humor by "unpacking my heart with words " but that I do not think it congruous with the char acter I aim at. So I will e en play the philosopher until we meet, dearest E. And if ever you catch me travelling east again when you travel west, or find yourself journeying alone in this wide world, it shall be because I have no right or privi lege to guard or guide you. Next summer I hope we shall visit this country together. I can give you many inducements to such a journey. My friends here are excellent people, with whom you will find many points of communion. Mr. Philip Pendleton, my uncle, with whom I have passed the last ten days, I think the first man in point of talents, ac quirements and manners that I have ever been acquainted with His influence upon society here is pervading and irre sistible, and his reputation throughout the State very high. The good estimation in which my friends here hold me (for I am like the stray sheep of the Scripture, whose return gives more joy than the safety of the whole flock), already has ren dered you an object of interest to them. I am sure you will love each other. This little place, Winchester, has some pretensions to fash ion. It has a sort of city aspiration, a metropolitan air, and holds its head high above the villages around. Its society is tolerably large and gay. They have belles and beauties here, and coquettes too, and scores of flirtations. I mean when I get home to write a chapter upon " Country Belles," and am look ing about now for subjects. PHILADELPHIA, October 18th, 1828. I have been too much engaged since I left you almost to write ; my uncle s estate having been left under the control of three executors, of whom I am the only counsellor, you may imagine the few days I have been here have not been idly spent. LI:TTI:RS TO MRS. KENNEDY. 131 I can hardly tell you the value of what he has devised to myself and my brother property in town here worth perhaps forty thousand dollars, and Heaven knows how much land in Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, some of it about thir teen miles from Pittsburg a rather troublesome inheritance, and I apprehend, in my hands, not worth much. I shall let it all be quiet to increase in value as the country grows, and support myself and family by my professional labors seek ing that darling of my hopes, renown, in a course of assidu ous application. What think you of that ? PHILADELPHIA, April 4th, 1832. MY DEAR E. : I have not discovered that the city of Penn has in any degree changed its position since my last advices. The only vicissitudes worth remarking is the sudden return of winter, who (like some awkward bully that has flung out of a room in a passion and returns again for his hat, and then again for his cloak and afterwards for his gloves, all of which he had severally forgotten, when he ought to have remembered them) comes back upon us now when we had congratulated ourselves that he was half-way to the North Pole. PHILADELPHIA, April 25th, 1832. MY DEAR E. : Dag (a pet name of his brother Andrew) left here this morning, and your father has not yet arrived, and between the two stools I have come to the ground. Think of your unfortunate lord pent up in the third story of Mrs. Swords s back building, looking out westwardly upon a buck wheat-batter sky, with a pewter sun shining through it like a kitchen plate. No minstrelsy music to Beguile my captivity, except the clink of trowels chucking in mortar upon the foun dation stones of Mrs. Swords s new house that is building (being built) next door. No wild ocean roar to lullaby his free soul into forgetfulness, except the roar of a cart that is now passing along with ashes over the pebbly bottom of Chestnut Street j no warder s tramp upon the battlements to revive the recollec- 132 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. tions of chivalry, except the heavy, fat-ankled foot-fall of J. A. M., of Bordeaux, who deals in wines, as he steps ponderously along the lengthened corridor in a pair of indiscriminate boots, fire-bucketish and meal-baggish, and capable of being drawn upon either leg of any man six feet in the waist, or weighing twenty-five stone made by the celebrated boot maker between Girard s Bank (Girard no more) and Chestnut Street ; no chieftain s horn to raise up visions of the woodland chase, but the huge prolonged proboscal blast of Doctor C. (next room) as he ever and anon puts down his pen and, for a second, ceases to illuminate the world, while he revivifies his exhausted brain with snuff and twangs his nose so loud and clear that all Mrs. Swords s boarders, among whom is Mrs. C., acknowledge it the herald and harbinger of learned tidings to the world of reading dunces. Such and so barren is the thral dom of your poor husband. Certainly your fate, piteous as you represent it, cannot compare with this ; and I would therefore have you contemplate the picture I have given you, that you may thence derive consolation and lessons of resig nation. PHILADELPHIA, April 27th, 1832. MY DEAR E. : Your father has come back from New York ; our business is all arranged, or will be to-day, and we set out to-morrow morning on our return to all that we hold clearest. And how glad I am to see the clay of return draw nigh ! This whole city, with all its dust, that they throw into people s eyes, would be a poor bargain in exchange for the pleasure of get ting back to little Puss, even to pass a day with her. I -have bought you some toys, in my idleness, which I assure you gen erally costs me as much money as other people s industry. PHILADEPHIA, Dec. 26tli, 1832. Only think what a course of dissipation I run through ! Here is Wednesday, the day I had proposed to set out for Baltimore by the way of Lancaster, and I am still in Thebes. LETTERS TO MRS. KKXNKDV. 133 The reason of it is two-fold : ist, it rains, and I could not travel ; and 20, the agent of the steamboat says the thaw will restore the navigation by Friday, so I determined to stay for it. Mr. Clay is waiting for the same opportunity, and so is Mr. Johnston. Mr. Webster will be here to-day to pursue the same route. If the boat fails, we have all agreed to take a coach to ourselves on Saturday, and return at our leisure in two days, without this pestilent early starting before day. This arrangement is recommended by so many considerations of comfort and. the pleasure of good company, that I have fallen into it without further quarrel with the difficulties that have blockaded me in this port ; so at the outside look for me on Sunday evening. Mr. Clay is in good heart about the Union. He thinks the difference will be arranged by a surrender of the Tariff by the Jackson party. I don t think so. They will perhaps strike upon some plan to reduce the tariff in ten years, by steps three years apart. This may save us, and in the meantime a European war may occur that will be as good as a tariff. This is all the hope I have. The course taken by Virginia is very ominous. It will utterly prevent all fighting, and per haps lead to discontents in the North which will sever the Union sooner than those of the South. Both sides are exas perated, and there is no hope between them. There is the deep wound. It is a melancholy subject, and I am glad to get rid of it. PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 28th, 1832. What a long journey, dear E. I left this place Monday morning at 6 o clock, on my way to Baltimore, and here is Friday, and I do verily believe it will be Saturday night before I arrive ; and for a man in a hurry, too, what despatch ! Well, if life has its headwinds it has also its havens, where a man gets at last however buffeted. I hope now speedily to furl my sail in that only haven where a sensible man fixes his affections at home with wife and friends. 134: LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. NEW YORK, October 18th, 1833. ^Well, dear little girl, it is all over, and such a time as I had of it ! You may imagine the crowd three thousand people in the room and about one thousand out of doors trying in vain to get in. Mr. Clay and myself were waited upon by a committee at seven o clock and conducted to the chapel, which we entered arm and arm and passed down the long aisle to the pulpit, where he took his seat upon my right. The house was well adapted to the voice it was the old Chatham Theatre where we saw the French opera. The boxes and gal lery remain as they were, and these were filled to the back of the third tier not another soul even, to say nothing of body, could have been crammed in. In all the light and declama tory parts of my oration I got a liberal hand from my audience they applauded to the echo. In the grave and tariffy parts they were respectfully silent, which was all I could ask. The ladies (of which I suppose one-half of my auditory consisted) are not apt to relish political economy. I am told, however, and so Mr. Clay has said in private since, that it was an ex cellent speech, and that my effort was altogether successful. The night was hot, and we kept the windows near me open- in consequence the wind blew in upon the lamps that stood near and put them out alternately on my right and left three times. Whenever this happened I only shifted my reading desk to the opposite side. If it had not been for this dis closure I believe the audience would not have been aware that I was reading from my notes. We had an orchestra with about one hundred voices to help it, and the ceremonies commenced with the Marseilles Hymn. After the oration we retired to a splendid supper with the members of the Institute, about three hundred. This was very brilliant. Mr. Clay was toasted, and made a speech which he concluded by proposing, most unex pectedly and alarmingly to me, my health, with some compli ment to my speech. So of course I had to get up. I did so, and made a short speech, and in the usual form offered a sen- LETTERS TO MRS. KENNEDY. 135 timent that was well received, and soon afterward, it being now midnight, we retired to our lodgings. Mr. Clay made me re main with him a short time after the company left us to say that he was very much gratified, etc. BEDFORD SPRINGS, Aug. 6th, 1834. I have discovered, dear E., that our gynocrasy, or female body politic, is split up into factions. We have first a Balti more party, second, a Philadelphia party, and a teriium quid. in a Pittsburg party.. The Baltimore party is charged by both members of the opposition with being clannish, in other words, too powerfully acted upon by the attraction of affinity ; the Philadelphia party is different : it suffers from the attrac tion of repulsion, whereby its members or integral parts are not only at war with the other parties, but also at war with themselves. The Pittsburg party labor under the disadvantages of too potent an attraction of gravitation, whereby, like lead, they have a tendency to come to the ground. They are staid and quiet and sleepy. Such is a philosophical analysis of the internal discriminations which prevail in the mixture of our society. These differences have produced, as is usual in all States, a party war, which is carried on with a spirit and zeal that partake of the complexion of the respective belligerents. The Baltimoreans fight in a phalanx, closely shouldering side by side, like the Saxon array in the Lady of the Lake. The Philadelphia s skirmish, as Davy Crockett says, "each upon his own hook ;" sometimes shooting at the enemy and some times treacherously at each other. The Pittsburgians stand like a clownish toy between two combatants, getting hits from each, and gaping in passive wonderment upon the fray. Mrs. B., with her tribe of Lilliputians, arrived here in the midst of the war, and a stray Philadelphia!!, not suspecting whence she came, but probably believing the party to be inland, made a full disclosure to one of the girls of the odious deportment of the Baltimoreans, hoping to enlist the new-comers as allies in the Philadelphia cause j but you may imagine an overture of 136 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. such treasonable import was not only rejected with disdain, but encountered with all the fervor of indignant patriotism. So the war has got bitterer than ever. We shoot past each other in carriages, gigs, buggies, barouches and other ordi nance, of the war, on our evening drives, like so many Hectors or Diomeds in armed chariots darting over the battle-field. At night the cotillions are so many detachments drawn up for separate combat ; the reel is the most spiteful of manoeuvres, and the waltz is a regular joust d r entrance. But still the main thing goes on ; we are all increasing in bulk and breadth, eating like so many trained soldiers indifferent to the horrors of war, and drinking more like a fire-engine than Christian men. ANNAPOLIS, Dec. 31, 1846. MY DEAR E. : My little clock, which hangs upon the wall of my chamber, is now clicking industriously on its way to mid night. In a few minutes, the year 184*7 will glide in upon this silent world. A few guns fired at intervals through this little metropolis tell the drowsy inhabitants that 46 is speeding off to jo,in 45 and the dead centuries. I have had visitors with me all the evening, and have been busy until the last half hour in making out my list of committees for the House, and although tired, I could not go to bed without wishing that you, my dear wife, who have been so good through all the past of our fellowship, may henceforth through the New Year, and many more besides, be as happy and blest as your heart could wish. A thousand thousand blessings on you, dear E ! and the choicest gifts of Heaven on your good father ; may his old age continue many years as happy as now. Say to dear Mart that I wish her all manner of good gifts in this world and rich rewards in the next, where I hope she will not go for a half century yet. As to myself, a jolly young dog, I am determined I will reform, and save my constitution for the benefit of the good people of the year 1900. ABSENCES FROM HfrtlK. 137 Quite naively these off-hand epistles make us partake his daily life and casual moods. His prescience as regards the char acter and future record of public men, many of whom he knew at the very outset of their career, is often apparent in the first impressions thus confided to his wife in such remarks as this : " The only topic here is the probable nomination of to ; not to my taste, but, speaking in reference to his powers of doing mischief, it is probably best fur the country that he too should be pocketed, as a billiard-player would say ; he ought to have been a cardinal and planted at Rome, to intrigue for the Papal chair." The vicinity of Mr. Kennedy s house to the> Capital, made it convenient sojourn for his friends there, when they had a day or two for rest and recreation ; and they often went with him on his return and passed a Sunday at the charm ing country residence of his father-in-law. During his visit to Washington, when attending the Supreme Court or the passage of some bill through Congress, he saw much of Seaton and Southard, William Kent and Judge Wayne. His impatience at these enforced absences during the early years of his married life, sometimes finds amusing expression. Thus, writing from New York in the summer of 1836, after describing the pleasant intercourse he had enjoyed with Hone and Irving, Brevoort, Captain Read and others, he adds : " I am at Bunker s, four stories high, in a room sufficiently stocked with mosquitoes ; O Puss, how little I would be bitten if you were here ! but at pres ent, I am the sole object of their regard ; and later, from An napolis, he writes : " the course of law never did run smooth, so here I am a forlorn tide-waiter on their three worships the Court of Appeals ; I am very well, and if my shirts hold out, shall be as happy as my beautiful remembrance will allow your disconsolate shadow to be :" and again from Philadelphia " O Lizzie, Lizzie ! these villains of the Mercantile Library, have just sent for me to dine with them to-morrow, some state occasion, to which the lecturers are invited, and so I must go and there must be a speech." In the summer following his marriage Mr. Kennedy visit- 138 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. ed, as usual, his kindred in Virginia, and on his return to Bal timore, in the autumn, took up his residence with his bride in a house in North Charles Street which -her father had furnished for them. His days were sedulously occupied with legal bus iness ; but he devoted the evening to literature and began to prepare his first acknowledged work " Swallow Barn" for the press. Never dawned a more happy, domestic life than now cheered and charmed him ; with business enough to sup port his household and yet adequate leisure for literary pur suits, with a few choice and intimate friends, a lovely and de voted wife and a growing reputation for high character and rare talents, Mr. Kennedy s early manhood was singularly blessed. His wife first entered society after her marriage, and the most agreeable reunions alternated with dramatic entertain ments or quiet and genial hours by their own fireside. Almost daily they had a friend or two at dinner, and their house was the centre of a delightful circle. The early summer months were al ways passed at Mr. Gray s house in the country ; in August they made a trip to Virginia or the north, or visitedjhe White Sul phur Springs, travelling in the family carriage, by easy stages ; there were but few railroads then in Virginia. The first stroke of adversity which broke upon their early happiness was occasioned by the ravages of cholera in Baltimore dur ing their absence. For many months Mr. Kennedy s spirits were depressed by the loss of his friend Cruse, whom he never ceased affectionately to regret. There is a passage in the " Life of Wirt" describing the auspicious influence of his do mestic life upon his social and professional career and his per sonal happiness, which finds its parallel in the author s own ex perience : " Here it was his happiness to witness the quick growth of esteem and consideration; to become conscious, clay by day, of the unfolding of those talents which were adequate to the winning of a good renown. Here he found himself growing, with rapid advance, in the affection of a circle of friends, whose attachment was then felt as a cheerful light upon his TOWN RESIDENCE:*. path, and which promised a not less benign radiance over his future days. But, above all other gratifications, here it was that he became an inmate of that delightful home which love had furnished." In 1833 Mr. Kennedy and his wife visited Saratoga, the White Mountains and Boston ; his review of Cambreleng s Report had made him favorably known in the most intelligent and influential political society there ; and his pictures of Vir ginia life, in the olden time, were familiar to the literary cir cles, so that he was cordially welcomed and entertained by the leading citizens and laid the foundation then and there of last ing friendships. In 1834 Mr. Kennedy and his old friend Pennington bought lots together in Mount Vernon Place and built the two houses that now form part of the Peabody Institute ; they were then the only dwellings in the vicinity, except that of Mr. Charles Howard ; none of the streets around were paved and but few graded ; many trees grew upon the slope. The house was large, eligibly situated and most comfortably ar ranged ; but as Mr. Gray passed the winters with his son-in- law, and objected on account of his asthmatic tendency to climbing the adjoining hilly streets, after five years, Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy took up their abode with her father, in a house in North Calvert Street, where Wirt had formerly resided, in the lower centre of the city, on Monument Square. During his residence in Mount Vernon Place, Mr. Kennedy wrote his two novels " Horse-Shoe Robinson " and " Rob of the Bowl." At this period he gradually withdrew from .the practice of law, and devoted his time and talents to economical enterprises connected with the progress and pros perity of his native city. His journals at this time exhibit a remarkable combination of practical and artistic work ; for while engaged upon his historical romances, he was the assid uous and official promoter of the most important railroad lines then projected and since identified with the enlarged trade and increasing population of Baltimore. 140 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. After the death of Mr. Gray, in 1856, the house on Cal- vert Street was relinquished ; and on the return of Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy and her sister from Europe in 1858, the house in Madison Street, in which was passed the remainder of his life, was built. They moved into it in December, 1859. Mr. Kennedy took much interest in arranging this, his new abode ; he enjoyed constructing a library according to his own taste and wishes. He found, indeed, such congenial occupation in this agreeable sanctum, that, yielding to the infirmities which precluded much exercise, his life became altogether too seden tary after he had installed his household gods to his satisfac tion ; and his old friend and physician Doctor Buckler was obliged, again and again, during the latter years of his life, to insist upon his abandoning books and writing-desk, and taking long journeys both abroad and at home, whereby his health was renewed and his existence prolonged. But his town resi dences are riot the only homes affectionately associated with his memory in the hearts of his friends. Several months of every year were passed at Patapsco, the country-seat of his father-in-law. Mr Gray highly enjoyed his rural abode in the midst of his industrial enterprise. This pleasant but unpretending country-house rises from the river bank, about a mile below Ellicott s Mills, with a bridge across the Patapsco ; on the op posite shore the Baltimore and Ohio railroad winds along in the shadow of the hills ; these picturesque heights rise grace fully around ; they are at the lowest declivity of the Maryland Highlands, called Elk Ridge. Encompassed by lofty and wooded hills, the long glen thus formed, with its range of mills and beautiful stream, reminds one of some of those old half-feudal looking localities in the old world, where little towns nestle amid the fastnesses of nature and romantic scen ery lends a charm to isolated life. In this instance the resem blance is enhanced by the village itself a long row of dwell ings and shops on both sides of the Patapsco, whence a road ascends to a mountain the very site for a Baronial Castle, but ELLICOTT S MILLS. 141 now graced with a more appropriate republican edifice, de voted to a flourishing female seminary. In the palmy days of the township, before flood and fire had marred its prosperity, Mr. Gray might have been regarded as a kind of lord of the manor, not as suggesting the old traditional authority, but from his beneficent influence, his encouragement of schools and churches, his kindness to the sick and poor, his constant hospitality and the number and thriftiness of his employees. His house was then surrounded with fine trees and rare shrub bery ; its architecture and material were composite originally built in the old post frame style, parts were added of granite ; it was embosomed, in summer, in foliage ; nothing can ex ceed the radiant beauty of the autumn-tinted woods which clothe the adjacent hill-sides at that season ; and even in win ter, when the verdure of the evergreens contrasts with the snow-clad landscape. Its sheltered position, however, made it an undesirable abode at midsummer, and as the weather grew sultry, the family made a trip to the mountains of Vir ginia or the watering places of the North. With a taste for horticulture and a love of books and cultivated society, the in tervals of Mr. Gray s work, while superintending the mills, were here spent delightfully in fostering rare plants, reading favorite authors or making excursions with his guests about the adjacent country. For more than thirty years this favorite homestead was the scene of his most successful labor and his happy, domestic and social life. The winter months he usu ally passed in Baltimore, only nine miles distant and acces sible by turnpike and railroad. We gain a pleasant idea of the pleasant life in this rural abode from a letter of Mr. Kennedy s written thence to his sister-in-law who had preceded him and his wife to Europe : PATAPSCO, June 7th, 1857. MY DEAR MARTHA : After a week of unexampled work we have at last got a foothold here amid this beautiful scenery, where every thing around is so fresh and green and the people LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. all so happy at our coming. All seem to be doing unusually well, and even little Jenny is chirping over her work and crochet, Lizzie tells me, in a perfect delight, with a boast that " now she is sure to have something nice every day," and ac cordingly Lizzie began this morning one. of the lovely morn ings of the year by sending her a good breakfast. This will be followed at dinner with strawberries and cream, and the little child will sing for joy. Old Wheeler is storing the books and furniture and giving up our house in Calvert street with many a bland smile of congratulation, with that stoop of his which, I should say, has been copied by the Dean of St Paul s, who though a wiser is not a better man. Bone is blooming like the rose of sharon ; and his wife is a vivid portraiture of that tradi tional hilarity which ancient observers picture to have found in its highest exaltation in " a basket of chips ;" and little Agnes is shooting up in similitude of a May pole, considerably freckled and rather inclined, I should suppose from looking at her, to disorder the equilibrium of her health by elongation her blood becoming thin by the length of the tubes through which it is driven. All are in excellent humor at our coming, mingled with regrets that you are not along with us. They take comfort, however, in the remark, that you are half seas over and have such a brilliant full moon to preside over the good counsel they imagine you to be giving to Mrs. W. and Miss E. after night fall, on the deck of the Arago. They one and all unite with us in sending you greeting and good wishes for your success and pleasant experiences, French German and Dutch. I for got to tell you how Irving came to be separated from us when we took leave of you on board of the Arago. We found him on the wharf in something of a fret. When I asked him how it happened that he lost us ; he said, " I tried to follow you through the crowd, but there was such a pack of fools I could not get on. I was accidently kissed by three women who each mistook me for a friend, so I hurried back over the plank to the wharf in despair." At the last moment he made an effort to return on board to say good-by, but it was to late. Lizzie ELLICOTT S MILLS. 143 and I, who are both here in the library, send you all manner of love and good wishes for a pleasant time, till we see you. So dear Mart, God bless you ! Yours ever, JOHN P. KENNEDY. To Miss M. E. GRAY PARIS. In the summer of 1868 a terrible freshet, unequalled in its sudden irruption and devasting course, burst over the valley, swept away massive stone walls, bridges and dwellings, and changed the whole aspect of the scene. In consequence of a bend in the river Mr. Gray s mill escaped destruction, as far as the edifice was concerned, but its machinery and surroundings were submerged and ruined, and more than half of the dwel ling-houses and all the choice trees were carried off, leaving a debris of stones and slime where once the garden bloomed. A more striking and painful contrast cannot be imagined than that presented by photographs of the scenery before and after the flood. Mr. Kennedy thus alludes, in his journal, to his first visit there after their return from Europe : "BALTIMORE, Nov. 4th, 1868. I propose a visit to the millsthe day is fine and E. consents. We take the horse- cars at eleven, reach Catonsville at twelve, where I delivered my vote for Grant and Colfax, and then walk to my brother Anthony s at Ellerslie a mile and a half off. We spend an hour with the family and they send us in their carriage to our house. Here we witness the terrible desolation of the great flood of last July. Every tree and shrub, the conservatory, the fences, the out-buildings are all swept away. A great part of the dwelling-house is in ruins, a deposit of three or four feet of white sand spread over the grass-plots ; quantities of stone brought down the river from the mills destroyed above, strewed over this deposit ; the porches carried away ; my library en tirely taken off, leaving lib vestige of books, prints, busts and other articles with which it was furnished ; the Factory shock ingly injured, requiring some fifty thousand dollars of repairs ; 144 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. Mr. Bone s (the manager) house lifted up from its foundation and borne bodily away upon the floods ! The devastation has so completely altered the aspect of the place that I should not know it. After an hour here we drive up to the village ; the same kind of ruin is visible all the way. It has been an overwhelming affliction to many families here. The loss of life extended to forty-two persons. It was very sad to us to see our old home and all that rural scene of content and happy abodes which the valley presented when we left it, to make our visit across the Atlantic, so disastrously changed." The associations became too painful for the survivors of that happy household to resume their abode in the changed and, to their hearts, desolate home ; the mill was repaired at great expense and the remaining section of the house renovated ; it is now occupied by their agent. In this charming suburban retreat Mr. Kennedy passed some of his happiest days ; there he read and wrote undis turbed ; every picturesque haunt in the vicinity was familiar to him ; the windows of his library commanded a lovely view of the woods and hills ; and the whole scene was endeared by the memory of select companionship and genial seclusion. Here, too, his most intimate political friends resorted from Washington to pass a few days of tranquil leisure. " Our friend Irving has come here," writes Mr. Kennedy, " as to a Castle of Indolence, to get rid of work and to seduce me into, a moun tain foray into Virginia." His guest s own impressions of and associations with the place, are indicated in one of his letters : alluding to some of his friend s " improvements," Mr. Irving writes to Mrs. Kennedy, " I envy K. the job of building that tower if he has half the relish for castle-building that I have air castles or any other. I should like nothing better than to have plenty of money to squander on stone and mortar and to build chuteaus along the beautiful Patapsco with the stone that abounds there ; but I would first blow up the cotton-mills (your father s among the number) and make picturesque ruins of them ; and I would utterly destroy the railroad, and all the ELLICOTT S MILLS. 145 cotton lords should live in baronial castles on the cliff; and the cotton spinners should be virtuous peasantry of both sexes, in silk skirts and small-clothes and straw hats with long ribbons, and should do nothing but sing songs and choruses and dance on the margin of the river." And writing thence when on a visit,to his favorite niece, Mr. Irving says : " The evening passed delightfully : we sat out in the moonlight on the piazza, and strolled along the banks of the Patapsco ; after which I went to bed, had a sweet night s sleep, and dreamt I was in Mahomet s Paradise." 7 146 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. CHAPTER V. " Swallow Barn ;" Its Publication ; The Class of Writings to which it Belongs ; Its Plan, Style and Significance ; State of American Lit erature at the Time of its Appearance ; Discouragement Thereto ; Its Reception ; Success; Subject; Republication and Illustration. BETWEEN the literature of power and that of knowledge, so justly denned by DeQuincey, there is a table-land singularly congenial to those harmonious minds of which taste and truth are the prevalent characteristics. It is in this sphere that the household authors of our language hold a per manent and benign sway. Equally, removed from pedantry on the one hand and extravagance on the other, this class of writers are characterized by good sense and pure sentiment, by a love of nature and a spirit of tranquil and gracious sym pathy akin to what is best in social life. Indeed it is a certain social tie and candor which make the charm of these authors ; they are companionable and suggestive they reflect life in its average and normal aspects; they inculcate wisdom with pleasant humor and describe manners with graceful authentic ity ; literature with them is rather the overflowing of the mind than what Montaigne calls forging its products ; that pioneer essayist was the founder of this order of books ; he first brought knowledge, criticism and individual experience into colloquial vogue as written thought, and made what was once the monopoly of scholars the privilege of all mankind. And although we find somewhat of the same quiet finish and salu brious flavor in English writers of the Elizabethan period, yet social literature first bloomed auspiciously in the days of Queen Anne ; and was fairly initiated by Addison and Steele. Half "SWALLOW BARN." 147 a century ago these authors and their followers were the ideals of disciplined and aspiring youth with a keen love of letters. To write with ease, grace and purity, with good sense, patient humor and a sympathetic charm, and, to describe nature and life with truth and spirit, and in good English, were the in stinctive aims of well-balanced minds familiar with these do mestic favorites. Since then popular taste has undergone a great change ; much of the kind of writing then in vogue, is deemed tame, or, in the slang of the day slow; to produce a sensation is now the essential of success, no matter by what sacrifice of truth or through what abuses of the vernacular ; and yet when, in the quietude of thought, in the retirement of intellectual integrity, we seek to refresh and inform, to har monize and cheer our jaded minds and fevered imaginations with sound sense, honest observation and genial converse, these neglected " wells of English undefiled" are our best re source. Our own pioneer author was a faithful disciple of the writ ers of Queen Anne s day ; his first experiment was after the manner of the Spectator, and the " Sketch Book" and " Brace- bridge Hall" were but elaborations of the same precedent. It was, therefore, quite natural that one of his earliest admir ers and latest personal friends, when, in the prime of his life, and after securing the means whereby freedom from care and toil was obtained, he turned to literature, after trying his hand in the desultory work of a humorous serial, and contributing, as occasion suggested, to current journalism, he should adopt the form and emulate the spirit which habit made attractive to his mind and success had rendered familiar to the public. In attempting to delineate the manners, describe the scenery and embody the country life of Virginia, Mr. Kennedy had the advantage of thorough knowledge of and sympathetic re lations with his subject. Some of the most delightful exper iences of his youth were associated with the Old Dominion, dear to him as the abode of cherished kindred and the scene where he first leained to love and explore nature ; and realize 1-tS LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. all the comfort and grace of generous hospitality and genuine companionship. We can easily imagine the new zest im parted to such reminiscences when pondered from the vantage- ground of mature age, after a long interval of professional work ; we can understand the affectionate patience with which he gathers up every detail of that free, frank and cheerful hol iday, and the interest every incident of family life and salient trait of character, thus acquired in the retrospect. In " Swal low Barn" is portrayed a singularly authentic and elaborate picture of the scenery, the domestic manners and the rural life of Virginia soon after the close of the Revolutionary War. There is in the ease, conversational tone, artistic description and quiet humor of the work, the same gentle attraction and pleasing fidelity which charm us in " Sir Roger de Coverley" and " Bracebridge Hall ;" but while thus analogous to these memorable pictures of English life in form and spirit, the scope, scene, traits and tones are absolutely local, drawn from and inspired by the landscape, domestic interiors, familiar talk and country pastimes on the banks of the James, seventy years ago. No fact or fancy illustrative of the region escapes the author. He delineates the still life, he sketches the scenery, gives us vivid portraits, and, with the most distinct outlines, harmonizes the picture with a certain genial atmosphere and personal magnetism. The swamps and the superstitions, the delicious summer mornings, the woodcraft, the county court and the plantation dinner, the table wisdom and the family mirth, the freedom, hospitality, provincialism, pride, wit, purity, honor, improvidence, gentility and vagabondage, citizenship and serf dom, rhetoric, egotism, kindliness, horsemanship, conviviality, speculation, politics, humors, loves and loyalty every fact, trait and tendency which constitute the experience and eluci date the life then and there, are noted with tact ; -sometimes the pictures are elaborately finished, as in the description of the old homestead or of an opposum hunt by moonlight ; some of the portraits are carefully detailed, as that of the Virginia country gentleman of the old school, the political phiiosopher, U9 the country lawyer, the spinster, the romantic, the eccentric, convivial, sentimental, pragmatical, hoydenish, modest, oracu lar and mirthful characters, whose peculiarities have such re lief in an isolated neighborhood and in the glow and light of long intimacy. A law and a love suit are detailed with minute and curious zest ; an old mill makes a picturesque landmark in the narrative ; there is an admirable portrait of a faithful and spoiled old negro, and charming ones of fresh, frank and proud maidens and quaint ones of crochety and chivalric old men and genial lords of the manor ; while the rides and the romps, the discussions and the harmless coquetry, the feasts and the excursions, the dogs, trees and birds, the pranks and eclogues, the prudery and the pretension, the affection and the humor make up a living local picture which informs and amuses in equal proportion. As a record it is all the better for not being a novel, since the author has escaped the temp tation to embelish and exaggerate almost unavoidable in fic tion. Such faithful contributions to social history have a per manent value ; they conserve the features and phases of life and afford materials for the future annalist and artist ; to write his history of England Macaulay resorted to the Parson of Fielding and the pictures of manners drawn by Addison and Steele ; and to the same source Thackeray owes the most au thentic touches in his social tableaux of the same period. However the public taste may have outgrown or more proba bly degenerated from, a taste for quiet and truthful illustrations of life, the artistic process of minute and patient delineation adopted by Mr. Kennedy in " Swallow Barn," is identical with that which preserves to us so vividly the country life of Eng land in Jane Austen s day and the ecclesiastical of our own as photographed by Trollope. The desirableness of conserving the social spirit of the past and the individualism of more primitive times, is acknowledged by all liberal critics, and constitutes, in fact, the permanent worth of artistic fiction. A writer comparing the present with the past in a critical estimate of " Swallow Barn, remarks : 1 50 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. " We are philosophical all, and are given to turn thought back upon itself and analyze ourselves for amusement. Is the heart of our people wanned through and through as then ? Then men gathered worthy of the name, daring in thought, strong in action, faithful in friendship. They brought alike to the work and play of life, the appetite of a vigorous constitu tion. We sentimentalize where they felt ; we have grown too languid or too wise for pleasure ; we are so conscious that we forget ourselves, lose ourselves, give ourselves up to nothing. And when we go into society it is with a knife in one hand and a microscrope in the other, to anatomize and expose each oth er. How much of moodiness, vanity and self-exhibition !"* Already the latent significance of the picture comes forth un der the inspiration of subsequent history. In the local self-im portance and the limited views of political issues incident to isolated life and narrow experience, as here traced in the hon est but prejudiced country gentleman of Virginia, we recognize the origin of that exaggerated estimate of State rights and that insensibility to national interests, which, in the last analysis, originated the fatal doctrines of secession destined to culumi- nate in civil war. On the other hand, the same pleasant and patient record gives us the humane side of slavery, while it was yet a domestic institution, before the exigencies of cotton-cul ture had made it a cruel trade in human flesh, in the very re gion where individual kindness and family affection mitigated its essential injustice. Hereafter, to the philosopher and histo rian, this true and grateful delineation of a corrosive social evil, and fundamental civic error, will explain, in no small degree, a baneful anomaly and counterbalance more prejudiced and pain ful representations of the blot on the escutcheon of our former national character. When " Swallow barn" first appeared few vivid and faithful pictures of American life had been executed. Paulding had described Dutch colonial life in New York ; Tudor had pub lished Letters from New England ; Flint and Hall had given us "* Southern Quarterly fievicw, Jan. 1852. 151 graphic sketches of the West, towards which virgin domain the tide of emigration had set ; but, with the exceptions of a few impressive and finished legendary tales from the then unap preciated pen of Hawthorne and the genuine American novels the " Spy" and " Pioneer" of Cooper, American authorship had scarcely surveyed far less invaded the rich fields of local tradition and native life. Accordingly, " Swallow Barn" met with a prompt and cordial reception ; emanating from a man of leisure it was hailed as the precursor of a series of works im bued with the spirit and devoted to the illustration of our his tory, scenery and manners. It was welcomed by rare critical appreciation. " The style of Swallow Barn, " said the New York Review, " is polished and graceful ; its distinguishing fea ture is its pure Americanism. The story of Abe and the negro mother, for pathos and power, is not surpassed by any thing that had yet appeared in the literature of our country." " This," re marked the North American Review, then in its palmy days, " is a work of great merit and promise. It is attributed to a gen tleman of Baltimore, already advantageously known to the pub lic by several productions of less compass and various styles. The present attempt proves that he combines, with the talent and spirit he had previously exhibited, the resources, persever ance and industry that are necessary to the accomplishment of extensive works. We do not know that we can Better express our friendly feelings for him than by expressing the wish that the success which this production has met with, may induce him to withdraw his attention from other objects and devote himself entirely to the elegant pursuits of polite literature, for which his taste and talent are so well adapted ; and in which the demand for labor to borrow an expression from a science to which he is no stranger is still more pressing than in law, political econo my arid politics." It was not uncommon in those days of our nascent literature for patriotic critics thus to welcome the advent of a promising writer. A glance at the chronicles of Duyckinck and Allibone indicates that many an aspiring youth and not a few mature men, hazarded a more or less successful venture in the LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. field of letters, and, after being greeted as having auspiciously commenced a career of authorship, retired from the arena to seek subsistence in trade, professional work or journalism. The elder Dana, in prose and verse, won sympathy and admiration; but found too little encouragement to make literature a lucrative pursuit. For twenty years Hawthorne wrote with grace and artistic finish and deep insight, before his pen sufficed to earn him bread; and whatever popular suc cess he finally achieved, came from the latest fruits of his charm ing studies ; Halleck wrote memorable lyrics while a merchant s clerk, and Drake in hours snatched from medical practice ; Everett delivered eloquent orations amid the carefully fulfilled duties of official life ; Charming published admirable essays while a devoted parish minister ; Bryant s noble poems were written in the lapses of earnest editorial work on a daily jour nal ; a diplomat, like Wheaton, found time to prepare a History of the Northmen ; a gifted divine, like Buckminster, made sermons classical ; a lawyer and country gentleman like Ver- planck, charmed the town with an elaborate historical dis course ; Robert Walsh gave critical force and grace to the prosaic columns of a newspaper ; Clay or Clinton added to political efficiency the attraction of patriotic rhetoric; but Sparks was the solitary historic purveyor, exclusively devoted to his task ; and Hillhouse embellished a life of cultured retire ment with occasional dramatic and academic efforts, remark able for their purity of finish and purpose. Thus, literature, with us, was casual ; Irving and Cooper were, for a long time, our only professional authors. The causes of this discourage ment in. the exclusive pursuit of letters, are many and ob vious. The exigencies of political life are paramount in our new communities ; the pecuniary remuneration in authorship, proverbially precarious, is more so in a country where the productions of the mind are unprotected by international law, and where the needed supply of reading is obtained from, beyond the sea, at no expense but that invalued in the manu facture of books. If our publishers were obliged to look at 153 home for material, it would be an object for our educated class to devote to literature the time and labor they now give to professions, often far less congenial to their native tastes and abilities than authorship ; and our popular reading would be imbued with a native zest and scope eminently conducive to national sentiment, instead of being, as now, the medium of foreign precedents in manners, politics and social life, alien to our institutions and prejudicial to the integrity and purity of republican aspirations. But it is not the economical necessities of the case alone that limit authorship among us; public spirit itself beguiles the votaries of literature into politics ; ambition usually tends in that direction, and opportunity favors it. Thus many a man, destined by natural gifts to a literary career, drifts into political or official life. Such was the case with the author of " Swallow Barn," although he, again and again, returned to his first love, and never ceased to find in his pen and his books the most congenial resources. We are not by any means certain, that obstacles to success in literature peculiar to our country, are not blessings in dis-. guise; doubtless while they deprive us of many benign minis- trants at the shrines of nature, of truth and of fancy, they also banish mediocrity into less perilous paths, where failure is not so lamentable and conspicuous. Moreover, there is prevalent an exaggerated estimate of literature, as such, as well as a lack of appreciation of its possible utility and charm. Authors are apt to be absorbed in their vocation, conscious of their renown, eager for success, in a manner and to a degree prejudicial to manliness and social integrity. One of the peculiar attractions and most valuable precedents in the life and character of Mr. Kennedy was his entire superi ority to this selfish egotism. Writing was to him what a gifted woman loved to declare it " the surrogate of living." His mind, as well as heart, were instinctively cognizant of the superior claims of social duty ; companionship had for him a claim above the gratification of isolated private success ; to make others happy was his delight ; to enjoy nature, to be 154: LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. useful, to cheer, inform and sympathize, and make daily life and human intercourse grateful and inspiring, was to him the first object. Indeed, what is most characteristic and vital in his books, is social, the recognition of what is salient, the zest for what is genial, the clevelopement of what is sympathetic ; and those intimately acquainted with the man, find his most person al and pleasing traits and tone reflected in the author. It is ever thus with adepts in social as distinct from scholastic literature, which, on this account, is more endearing and au thentic ; and becomes, also, from that cause, the most desir able memorial of life and character when both are hallowed by death. This just estimate of the relation of letters to life, not less than the influence of circumstances, made Coleridge s maxim a practical truth to Kennedy : " Let literature be an honorable augmentation to your arms, but not constitute the coat or fill the escutcheon." The following letters give a pleasant idea of the interest " Swallow Barn" excited on its first appearance : PHILADELPHIA, CHRISTMAS, 1832. To MRS. KENNEDY. MY DEAR LIZZIE : The joy of the season to you ! and many, many happy returns of it, each return, even in a ripe and remote old age, bringing new pleasures, and showing you in in the midst of those you love best ! and that happiness, as the ballad of John Gilpin says, " may I be there to see !" To night I go to Walsh s. Last night I was at a great po litical (I suspect) supper at Josiah Randall s. Mr. Clay was the lion of the evening, next to the author of a twopenny book. Do you know they make a great parade here about " Swallow Barn ;" and everybody who is introduced to me forth with begins to talk of Ned Hazard, Mike Brown, etc. There were divers authors last night who seemed to think it right to induct me into the honors of their acquaintance, especially he of S , and another of C. , and another of God knows what the little wits of this great Athens. B , the moment he was .introduced, said : " Well, sir, it s a great thing to have your 155 book read a hundred miles from home. Now, egad sir, they don t read mine even here." A gentleman said to me " I have waded through it." " No, sir, that s impossible," I re plied "it is out of your depth, my good friend, you got over your head." I think I had him there, and he and all the by standers some dozen set up a great laugh. I have not time to tell you all the nonsense they say here, so will postpone my gossip until we meet." T BALTIMORE, May 23, 1832. To JOHN P. KENNEDY, ESQ. MY DEAR SIR : If you should chance to know a certain Mark - Littleton, author of " a righte merrie and conceited work/ called "Swallow Barn," which is occupying all the attention that can be spared from politics, I would thank you to make my respects and acknowledgments to him for a handsome copy of the work, and the well-turned dedica tion with which he has complimented me. He mi^ht have chosen _ a patron more auspicious for himself, but^no one with kinder and warmer feelings and wishes for his suc- Ihe dedication proves his ability to give interest to les. With regard to the book itself, I have been so en gaged as to have been able to make but little progress in it But so far as I have read, it is full of gayety and goodness f heart and the author trips it along, on "light fantastic :oe with all imaginable ease and grace. The characters are well sketched and grouped, and the plan as well as the inci dents are new and fresh so far as I have gone. But I have read too little of it to play the critic on its merits. The object of this note is simply to convey my thanks to the author, without delay, for the present of the book and the honor of the dedication, and I trouble you with this agency, because of the on dits that the author is in the cir cle of your acquaintance. Good-night, WM. WIRT. The critic already quoted, while recognizing the merits of these sketches, indicates why they appeal almost exclusively to that class of readers who are superior to the blandishments of the marvellous and romantic as opposed to the natural and the true ; their value he tells us justly "lies in the truth and 156 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. spirit with which the purpose is effected ; the texture of the fable is natural and sufficiently ingenious, though, from the na ture of the plan, it does not excite a very deep or strong in terest." Another reviewer thus sums up the attractions of the work : " The love of nature, the fine appreciation of a coun try life, the delicate and quiet humor and hearty joy in ev ery one s enjoyment, which those who know Mr. Kennedy per sonally, will recognize as elements in his own character, are reflected in the pages of the book." Perhaps no State out of New England has been more fre quently illustrated by pen and pencil than Virginia; the beauty and variety of her scenery, the romance of her history and the number of illustrious men to which she has given birth, have inspired authors and artists to make her annals and aspect the subject of their delineation. One of the most quaint and primitive colonial reports is Captain John Smith s account of the domain named for the virgin queen ; one of the earliest local scientific descriptions emanating from a native source, were the " Notes on Virginia" prepared by Jef ferson, soon after the revolution, at the suggestion of the French minister to the United States ; one of the first books published among us, which united to finish of style, elaborate and graceful description, were Wirt s "Letters of a British Spy ;" Paulding soon after gave us casual glimpses of the re sources and modes of life in the Old Dominion ; in the early chapters of his "Life of Washington," Irving goes into pleas ant and picturesque details of the hunting and hospitality of the landed gentry of the colonial era, as illustrated in the home and habits of Lord Fairfax ; James, the novelist, during his sojourn in this country, laid the scene of a romance in Virginia at the period of Nat Turner s insurrection ; Thacke ray made the cavaliers of the colony the heroes of one of his last stories ; Moore sung of the Dismal Swamp ; and Mrs. Latimer, ne e Wormley, in " Our Cousin Veronica," drew a lively and dramatic picture of the more recent social life of the State. " Swallow Barn" differs from all these in a certain 157 unity of design and strictness of portraiture ; in its pages fact and fancy are kept consistently apart ; truth to local traits is adhered to ; there is no exaggeration in the incidents, no con ventionalism in the style rural life is described with relish, but neither the improvidence nor the self-importance, the nar row experience or the convivial habits incident to the state of society, are disguised or palliated ; but the sense of honor, the purity and peacefulness of domestic life, the amenities of hos pitality and the charm of generous and genial character, give a grace and glow to the family annals ; while their environ ment is sketched with Flemish exactitude. Frank Meri- wether, the prosperous Virginia country gentleman and justice of the peace ; his wife the assiduous queen of the household ; his mischievous and amusing son Rip ; his venerable house keeper and spinster sister Prudence ; the Presbyterian tutor, the pragmatical old negro Carey; the humorous, hearty, in genuous Ned Hazard, the neighboring family at " the Brakes ;" spirited and fastidious but gay and handsome Bel Tracy, with a genuine Virginia lawyer, old beau, and many subordinate characters, are depicted after the manner of that memorable episode in the Spectator ; which yet serves as the authentic portrait of the old English country gentlemen : and these peo ple so act and talk " as to exhibit the rural life of Virginia im mediately subsequent to the revolution." There is nothing very exciting in such a programme or very impressive in the execution ; but there is geniality, liveliness and grace ; there is artistic truth in the details ; the author s method and style are in harmony with his subject, and he excels both in descrip tion and narrative ; so that " Swallow Barn," like a series of genuine letters communicating all the daily routine, talk, inci dents, fancy, fun and sentiment of a household, and doing this cleverly and winsomely serves not only for immediate enjoyment proportioned, in each reader, to his or her inter est in the scene and life described but also as a pleasing and permanent memorial of a phase of American life forever past, yet of lasting significance ; and all the more interesting and 158 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. endeared because between its calm and gracious features and our time, has intervened a sanguinary conflict, whose land marks desolated tracts, innumerable graves and levelled for ests, now mark the region where its peaceful life-drama was before enacted thus making its pictures more mellow by the long vista which such terrible events lend to the apparent lapse of time. Twenty years after " Swallow Barn" was pub lished, and long after it was out of print, a new edition was is sued with very expressive illustrations by Strother - } and in his " word in advance to the reader," the author thus speaks of his work : " Its republication has been so often advised by my friends, and its original reception was so prosperous, that I have almost felt it to be a duty once more to set it afloat for the behoof of that good-natured company of idle readers who are always ready to embark on a pleasure excursion, in any light craft that offers. Swallow Barn exhibits a picture of country life in Virginia, as it existed in the first quarter of the present century. Between that time and the present age, time and what is called " progress" have made many innovations there as they have done everywhere else. The Old Domin ion is losing somewhat of the raciness of her once peculiar and speaking with reference to the locality described in these volumes insulated cast of manners. The mellow, bland and sunny luxuriances of her home society its good-fellowship, its hearty and constitutional companionableness, the thriftless gayety of the people, their dogged but amiable invincibility of opinion and that overflowing hospitality that knew no ebb these traits, though far from being impaired, are modified at the present day, by circumstances which have been gradually attaining a marked influence over social life as well as politi cal condition. An observer cannot fail to note that the man ners of our country have been tending towards a uniformity, which is visibly effacing all local differences. The old States especially are losing their exclusive American character. The country now apes the city in what we suppose to be the ele gancies of life ; and the city is inclined to adopt the fashions "SWALLOW BARN/ 159 it is able to import across the Atlantic ; and thus the whole sur face of- society is exhibiting the traces of a process by which it is likely to be rubbed down, in time, to a level and varnished with the same gloss. The fruitfulness of modern invention in the arts of life, the general fusion of thought through the medium of an extra-territorial literature, which, from its easy domestication among us, is hardly regarded as foreign, all these, aided and diffused by our extraordinary facilities of travel and circulation, have made sad work, even in the present generation, with those old nationalisms that were so agreeable to the contemplation of an admirer of the pictur esque in character and manners. Looking myself somewhat hopelessly upon the onward gliding of the stream, I am un willing to allow these sketches of mine to pass away. They have already began to assume the tints of a relic of the past." Since this was written circumstances and time have but em phasized these considerations. To the last Mr. Kennedy cherished a strong interest in the State whose social life he had portrayed and an earnest faith in her future. " Swallow Barn" was republished in 1851, twenty years after its first appear ance; and under date of New York, October nth, of that year, Mr. Kennedy writes : " I go to Putnam s. He tells me Swallow Barn is remarkably well received; no book, he says, reproduced, after a lapse of time, has done better than this." Dr. Bethune, a man who thoroughly enjoyed and carefully observed nature and life, said of "Swallow Barn" that it was the best book of the kind which had appeared from an Amer ican source. It was translated into Swedish and published at Stockholm. Among the mountains of Virginia it found stanch admirers ; and I have been assured by readers who have lived in the Old Dominion, and their fathers before them, that the mi nute accuracy of the picture and its consequent local interest, cannot be appreciated except by those acquainted with the scenes described. It differs from similar literary experiments in the objective aim and method of the author, who never attempts ICO LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. to introduce his personal idiosyncrasies or to invent extra neous material, but strives simply to report the facts of scenery, society, manners and traits ; the permanent worth of such rec ords is owing to their truth ; we gratify our imagination by communion with the travels of Sterne and Beekford ; but we gain veritable and vivid glimpses of the actual past of France and America in the pages of Arthur Young and Mrs. Grant Frank Mayer executed an effective sketch of the night scene in " Swallow Barn ;" " Meriwether and Parson Chub asleep over their studies." The illustrations by Strother are excellent, and suggest the artistic treatment in which the author excelled, by furnishing such graphic pictures of real life, to the ready pencil of one to whom Virginia was as favorite and familiar a theme as to himself.* * The subjects of these illustrations are as follows : " The arrival of Mark Littleton with Scipio at Swallow Barn/ " " Frank Meriwether and Parson Chubb in the Library." " Ned Hazard and Mark surprised by Bel Tracy Bel Tracy against the field. " " Mike Brown and the Goblin Swamp." " Stable Wisdom." " Carey disputing a point with Frank Meriwether." " The wet day at Swallow Barn. " " Phil- pot went riding the Circuit with his hounds." " The Fourth of July on the River." " The party leaving Swallow Barn in the morning for the Trial." " Frank Meriwether arguing the Mill question with Mr. Tracy." " The party arriving at the Brakes." " Old Jupiter the King of the Quarter." " The Mythologies explained by Parson Chubb to Bel Tracy Ned and Harvey listening." I -v vl X, \ 1 s * v f .; eS : v i 1 . * i^ n ! t i^^ \\ X ^ ^ -x > W , \, \K Knneiy: Pr=t ace to Horse- Shoe Robinson 1 revised ed. 1851. NOVELS. 161 CHAPTER VI. Novels ; Horse-Shoe Robinson ; Its Scope and Aim ; Its Hero ; Moral ; Criticism ; Its Success. EPHEMERAL as the current average novel proverbially is, the Historical Romance, when studiously true to the facts of the Past and made vital by sympathetic unity of concep tion, has a permanent value and interest. Long after the nov elty of the Waverley romances had passed, Scotland was and is peopled to the heart by their traditional heroes ; and the intelligent sojourner in Florence, who would realize her medi aeval life, turns fondly to the authentic and artistic pages of Guerazzi, D Azeglio and Rosin?. The fame of Cooper, who was our pioneer in this attractive branch of popular literature, had scarcely dawned, while Hawthorne s was yet nascent, when Mr. Kennedy produced a genuine and effective work which has taken its place in the brief but creditable list of standard American fictions. The story opens with the triumph of the British arms at the South in the war of the Revolution and closes with the battle of King s Mountain, when the tide of victory turned in favor of the patriots. The wanderings of an American major, his captivity and escapes, with the hazardous pilgrimage through a region "tainted with disaffection," of his wife and her chivalrous attendants, bring into view all the forms and phases of civil war in its most noble as well as inhu man development, associated,.by the graphic pen of the author, with the local accessories and natural phenomena that give re ality to the scenes and situations. Thus Mr. Kennedy s next literary venture was more substantial in construction ; in " Swallow Barn" he had sue- 162 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. cessfully tried his hand at descriptive writing, giving the results of patient observation, without, however, moulding the materi als into a regular story, but using a slight thread of narrative whereon to exhibit many scenes of real life and rural nature. The style of these sketches was at once facile, humorous and unambitious, and inevitably suggested the American " Sketch Book" and the old English Spectator ; but in his new experi ment the author undertook to illustrate historical events and embody local character, while both were developed according to the popular precedents of modern romantic fiction. Ac cordingly, not only the form but the style adopted, were more original and so ably used as fully to justify the favoraWe proph ecies of the critics founded on his preceding work. The sub ject and scene of his tale were fresh and comparatively little known except to historical students. He aimed to describe the peculiar and adventurous phase of our revolutionary war incident to a region where public sentiment was divided on the great issues of the conflict ; where all the fierce antagonism and the dramatic vicissitudes of border warfare prevailed ; and life as well as opinion, in a thinly settled district, were exposed to constant attack. The story opens at the most critical peri od of the war at the South, when Charleston had been captured by Clinton ; when foraging parties of both armies ravaged the neutral district ; and the bitterness of partisan animosity was increased by the feuds of neighborhood and the cruelties of reckless adventurers. The events recorded culminate both in significance and interest, in the darkest hour of the patriotic struggle, when the surrender of Gates and the advance north ward of Cornwallis, had inflamed the arrogant vinclictiveness of the Tories and nerved the heroic republicans to stern and earnest coalition. Upon this historical background^ the personages of the story are delineated with careful reference to local facts ; each prominent class of the people is represent ed; the manorial gentleman of studious tastes domestic hab its and conservative pride ; the woodman, hunter, frontier set tler, a Presbyterian miller, an intriguing loyalist, British officers, 163 patriot militia, a rustic maiden, a lady of the manor, brutal sol diery, chivalric leaders each and all of the heterogeneous and conflicting, as well as characteristic social elements of the coun try and the era. The scenes are authentic as well as pictu resque : we have vivid glimpses into the woodland camps of Ma rion ; we follow the bold and swift raid of Sumter ; we witness the ravages of the isolated troopers of Tarleton ; the glare of the burning farm- house ; the drunken revelry of the bivouack ; the solemn funeral of the martyred patriot in the forest ; the escape of the prisoner of war ; the grief of the bereft, the terror of the captive, the exultation of the victors ; the suspense, privation, weariness, hope and despair born of civil war. But these and such as these traits belong to the military nove/ as such, and though skilfully used by Mr. Kennedy, do not, of themselves, account for the merit and popularity of his tale of the Tory Ascendancy in Carolina. These are owing to two advantages he eminently possessed descriptive talent, emphasized in this instance, by early familiarity with the country where the scene is laid ; and a central figure drawn from nature by so faithful a hand, that its individuality gives vital interest and perma nent value to the whole picture. We believe that every recog nized original in fiction has its genuine counterpart in fact ; and that it is because the writers thereof have been so fortu nate as to encounter and appreciate a fresh subject for their art, that the best creations of the novelist have been preserved and transmitted. Moreover, if too much idealized, the charm is lost, for the strong magnetic features of nature alone seize upon the fancy and impress the mind. In the winter of 1819 Mr. Kennedy made a horseback journey from Augusta, Ga., through the western part of South Carolina ; the weather was fine,j;he journey to youthful sympathies cheer ing ; and both observation and fancy gave interest to the ex perience. We may infer from his allusions to such an eques trian journey performed by Mr. Wirt in his youth, how much he enjoyed this excursion : " The way was long and a great deal of it lay through a dreary wilderness of pine-forest 164 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. and sand ; it was no light enterprise in that day ; but we may well imagine that to the cheerful boy, so full of pleasant fan cies and rosy hopes, the wayside brought no weariness ; no shadow upon his path ever takes a gloomy hue, no lonesome by-way finds him unaccompanied with pleasant thoughts, no fatigue overmasters or subdues the buoyancy of his mind ; nightfall but heightens the romance of his dreams, as he holds his way guided by some distant taper, to the rude shelter of a woodman s hut ; the hearth to which he has found this doubt ful path, gleams with a light more cheerful than the illumina tion of a palace, when its rays are thrown on the homely group of the woodman s family from the blazing faggots kindled to prepare for him a supper, with which no banquet in his elder day is to be compared." An ardent lover of nature and with an eye for the comedy of life, no scene of beauty or characteristic phase was lost upon Mr. Kennedy during his journey. At a time of life when im pressions are the most vivid, he observed the mountains, forest, streams and atmosphere of a region new to him. Seeking one evening the hospitable shelter so readily accorded the solitary wayfarer in the sparsely populated country he traversed, he ac cidentally encountered a remarkable man, and heard from his own lips the story of his exploits and adventures at the mem orable period of the revolutionary war. The courage, honesty, n Hve manliness and bonhomie of this veteran, his vigorous frame, candid expression, self-reliance, tact and modesty, strong ly impressed the young traveller. In the preface to " Horse- Shoe Robinson" he gives an interesting account of their inter view ; and around this actual basis, with this original and gen uine character as the nucleus, he crystallized the scenes of the Tory Ascendancy ; the events described are real ; the charac ter delineated is drawn directly from nature ; the scenes por trayed were reflected upon a warm heart, noted by a careful and loving eye ; and, therefore, it is that we have a genuine tale of American life, wherein the scenery, the incidents, and the char acters are faithfully reproduced from history, tradition, observa- ir>5 tion and life. When, many years after, the finished tale was submitted to its unconscious hero, he said ; " it s all true and right in its right place excepting about them women, which I disremember ;" a spontaneous compliment to the author, who confined his romance, as such, to the subordinate characters ; but kept strictly to fact in regard to the events of the war and the adventures of the patriotic yeoman. Galbraith Robinson s sobriquet of Horse-Shoe was derived partly from his original vocation that of a blacksmith and partly from the fact that his little farm on the Catawba boasted a dwelling " upon a promontory, around whose base the Wax- haw Creek swept with a regular but narrow circuit ;" this famil iar appellative had followed him to the army ; and we may add, became the playful designation whereby his genial biographer was often addressed and alluded to by his friends, after the popularity achieved by the novel that bears his name. Like Old Mortality and Leather Stocking he was one of those primi tive characters born of special local influences ; thoroughly American ; mechanic, woodman, soldier, patriot and philoso pher in his homely and honest way, he differed, in many re spects, from the somewhat similar type of men born or bred in New England and the Western States. Illiterate but saga cious, observant and thoughtful, with an imperturbable good humor, a companionable temper, he possessed the valor of a hero, a fidelity to cause and friend as steadfast as the stars, combined with a gentleness such as only a true and tender heart can engender. " With seventy years upon his poll," says Mr. Kennedy, describing his aspect years after the events in which he took so prominent a part, " time seemed to have broken its billows upon his front only as the ocean breaks over a rock ; tall, brawny and erect, his homely dress, his free stride, his face radiant with kindness, the natural gracefulness of his motion, all afforded a ready index to his character; Horse-Shoe was evidently a man to confide in." One of na ture s noblemen, a self-devoted champion of freedom, full of re sources in perilous times and with as much prudent foresight 106 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. and practical wisdom as native courage and benign sympathy, he yet made sad havoc with the King s English, could not sign his name, and destitute of all clerkly arts, had the soul of a true cavalier. Only the discipline of frontier life, the loneli ness of forest wayfaring, the habit of self-reliance and an at mosphere of liberty, could have given birth to such manly prob ity and genuine sentiment unrefined by education and social position. Among the peasantry of Europe, the rustics of England, the sons of the Eastern deserts, may be found certain traits and tendencies akin to the American backwoodsman ; but his morale is wholly diverse, his intelligence of another order, and the peculiarities of his diction, the habitudes of his life, and his facility of adaptation as well as candid self-respect and un faltering heroism all distinctive and individual ; and it is be cause these are so faithfully conserved and illustrated that both the story and its hero are so consistently and emphatically American. " We are as confident," says a well-informed critic, " in read ing * Horse-Shoe Robinson, of its historical facts, as if we got them from Ramsay or Chalmers." The description of the battle of King s Mountain, in this novel, has been regarded by competent judges as one of the best ever written both as to absolute historic truth and clear emphatic details ; and long after the story appeared, an artist celebrated for his fidelity in delineation, who had visited King s Mountain, expressed to Mr. Kennedy, after making a careful drawing thereof, his great surprise at the minute accuracy of the latter s topographical description. Nor is this comparatively remote theme as thus treated, de void of present significance. " One feature," says Mr. Kennedy, " that belonged to this unhappy state of things in Carolina, was the division of fami lies. Kindred were arrayed against each other in deadly feuds. ~ A prevailing spirit of treachery and distrust marked the times. There is no trial of courage which will bear comparison with that of a man whose own opinions stand in opposition, upon "HOBSE-SHOE ROBIXSOX." 167 fearful questions of passion, to those of the giddy-paced and excited multitude, and who nevertheless carries them into act. That man who can stand in the breach of universal public censure with all the factions of opinion disgracing him in the thoughts of the lookers-on, with the tide of obloquy beating against his breast, and the fingers of the mighty combined many pointing him to scorn that man shall come forth from this fierce ordeal like tried gold ; philosophy shall embalm his name in her richest unction ; and history shall give him a place on her brightest page." How little did the earnest writer think, while thus expressing his manly appreciation of the undaunted minority that refused to succumb to the " Tory Ascendancy" in Carolina, that, forty years after, he would be hold a like moral, necessity for national loyalty in his native State and city ; and himself illustrate it by consistent fidelity to the national life and honor, in the face of banded and often brutal social and political alienation ! " Altogether," says the Southern Quarterly Review, when this novel first appeared " a more perfect and perfectly drawn study of its class you will hardly find anywhere in American fic tion; and the felicity of the portrait was at once established by the popularity of the character." And the New York Review, in the same strain, remarked : " This is a faithful portrait of a frank, shrewd, generous, high-spirited backwoodsman ; rough, untutored, but warm and kindly ; unlearned in books, but of an admirable mother wit ; quick in expedients, fertile in resource ; of large experience and of that buoyant nature which never knows how to succumb to misfortune and so laughs under the pressure of fate as to take from it its most sour aspect. In a broader style, less subtle but perhaps more truthful, Horse- Shoe Robinson is another Leather Stocking." o With the exception of the " Spy" and " Lionel Lincoln." no successful attempts at the historical novel had previously il lustrated the brief annals of our country. This experiment of Mr. Kennedy s was, therefore, hailed with satisfaction and en couragement. The minor characters were not regarded as suf- 108 LIFE OF JOHN T. KENNEDY. ficiently original, nor did the narrative, as such, meet with ; much favor as it seems to us to deserve ; these were overshadow ed by the interest and emphasis of the principal personage ; ye upon a recent reperusal, we find a completeness of detail in tl still-life and an authenticity in the historical scope, which desen grateful recognition although we agree with the critic last qu ted, that Mr. Kennedy s merits "lie in portraiture of characte and especially in a happy perception of the piquant and the c rious," we none the less appreciate the force and fidelity of h descriptions of scenery, of the sentiment and the sensation d rived from the transitions of nature, and a careful loyalty to hi tory and tradition in the political and social frame-work of tl story. He has drawn, in these pages, the natural features c parts of Virginia and the Carolinas, with a truth which every a tistic mind will enjoy ; he therein proves himself a conscientioi as well as skilful limner. Nor has he failed to give us the mo vivid and just impression of the hardihood and faith of tho: " who in South Carolina entered with the best spirit of chival into the national quarrel and brought to it hearts as bold, mint as vigorous and aims as true as ever, in any clime, worked o a nation s redemption. These men refused submission to the conquerors and endured exile, chains and prison rather thi the yoke. They lived on the scant aliment furnished in tl woods, retreated into secret places, gathered their few patri neighbors together, and contrived to keep in awe the soldi government that now professed to sway the land." "Horse-Shoe Robinson" was published in 1836 ; andnes ly a quarter of a century after, the story was effectively drar atized : " I went the other night," says the author in his diary, dat< Baltimore, May 5th, 1856, " to see the new drama of Horse-Sin Robinson, fabricated by Mr. T of the Holiday Stre Theatre, out of my novel. It was the first performance of A great crowd was there and greeted it with vehement a plause. It is amazingly noisy, and full of battles, and amus the gallery hugely. Mr. Ford was very kind in giving me 169 private box to witness it. It has had a most successful run since that night for a week." And another social result of the book is thus noted: "Baltimore, Sept, 23, 1855. There is to be a celebration at King s Mountain, in North Carolina a commemoration of the great battle of the Revolution, which I have made so prom inent in Horse-Shoe Robinson. It is to take place on the an niversary of the fight the 4th of October. I received a letter yesterday, dated the loth, from a committee from Yorkville, inviting me to be present, and unite in the celebration. They urge their invitation with much kind flattery of Horse-Shoe." The following letters agreeably suggest the cordial recep- d on of the story : NEW YORK, June 5, 1836. MY DFAR KENNEDY : I have read your work with great gusto ; and think honest Horse-Shoe will be a decided favor ite with the public. I am sorry you did not caution me sooner to secresy about it, as I was so tickled with some parts of it, that I could not for the life of me help reading them to some of my cronies among the brokers and jobbers of Wall Street ; but then they are men to be relied on and they swore the thing should go no further. They think your work could not be "thrown into the market" at a better moment than the pres ent, when money is plenty, and "fancy stocks" of all kind " looking up." Yours, very truly, WASHINGTON IRVING. LONDON, June 10, 1836. MY DEAR SIR : In to writing thank you, as I ought to have done long ago, I am at a loss how to express my feelings in the first place, for an honor so great and so undeserved as the dedication ; and in the second for a staff, my constant compan ion in my walks, a companion endeared to me by so many pleasant associations for, vast as is the sea that rolls between us, I can seldom lean upon it or lift it from the ground in our crowded streets, without reflecting on the romantic character of its birth-place, and on your kindness for thinking of me there. Your story in my eyes has a double charm ; for, delightful 8 170 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. as it is in itself, the time was the time of my childhood, and the turns of fortune in that cruel war are as fresh in my men- ory as the events of yesterday. My earliest pulses beat in your favor ; and, little as I was then, I can well remember what we felt, when, as we sat around the fire, my father, before he opened his Bible, announced to us the Battle of Bunker Hill. I need not, I am sure, repeat how happy I shall be to see you here, and to thank you, face to face, for all I owe you. Ever, most sincerely yours, SAMUEL ROGERS. Tuesday Morning. MY DEAR SIR : I return your book with many thanks for the pleasure you have afforded me in its perusal in anticipa tion of its publication a kindness I assure you I duly appre ciate. I must however still hold you to your promise of a copy in due time ; it is a compliment and a prize I cannot consent to forego especially as my wife has not had an op portunity of enjoying the same gratification, owing to the sick ness of her little niece and her preparations for removing to Beech Hill, expecting to do so when the book is out. Much as I was pleased with " Swallow Barn, 1 yet in my opinion " Horse-Shoe Robinson" is a superior work, and will, I think, establish your reputation as an author, not only here, but abroad. Your story is full of interest, which never flags, and is well told. Your characters are full as well sustained as in your first work, and possess no extravagance or caricature in the delineation, while there is more continuity in it as a tale. " Horse-Shoe," your hero, is admirably drawn, and is always in action and language the same, without exaggeration, and has the rare merit of being from the very first page before the reader, and mixed up with nearly every transaction. This keeps your reader s attention always alive and on the alert, and he is not shocked by unexpected and unnatural exhibi tions of the man, for by the manner in which you relate his extraordinary exploits they never appear out of character. The battle of King s Mountain is spiritedly told, and remind ed me of that in Marmion ; coming in at the close of the story, and intimately connected with its winding up, it is ex tremely effective in leaving a strong impression, as well as a favorable one on the reader s mind, who becomes, as it were, reconciled to laying down the book, instead of looking out for further incident. It operates as a sedative. I wish, however, 171 you had not killed Philip Lindsay, though it was just retribu tion for his toryism. Yet you might have healed his wound, and made it auxilliary to open his eyes to the error of his judgment, both with regard to the cause of his country and Butler s merit winding up his story in domestic happiness. Your heroine is truly one, and I confess that you have contrived to blind your reader as to her real situation with regard to her apparent lover ; so much so that her exclamation when she sees him, after the battle, was the first announcement of her marriage, which came upon me by surprise. It justifies the firmness with which she opposed her father s wishes, and the boldness of her undertaking to visit the scene of war in search of him. Upon the whole, you have every reason to be satisfied with your book, and I have no doubt of its com plete success. You ought, therefore, to feel encouraged to pro ceed in your career of authorship in which you are now fairly embarked, and I am sure cannot want for materials for many future tales. There are so many episodes of interest in the history of our revolution, and also in the progress of settle ment of our western empire, which foreigners dare not meddle with, that you have as spacious a field for your harvest as a laborer could wish to put his sickle into ; and I know of no writer likely to interfere with you, especially in your peculiar manner of telling your story. It partakes at times of Irving and Paulding, but is better, for your purpose, than either. Go on, therefore, and prosper. Your obliged friend, ROBERT GILMOR. 172 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY CHAPTER VII. Political Lfe; The Protective System; Clay; Elected to Congress; Social Privileges ; Defence of the Whigs ; Reports ; Proposal of Webster; Complimentary Dinner ; Aids Morse s Telegraphic Ex periment; Again elected to the Maryland House of Delegates; Speech at llagerstown ; Political work and distaste therefor. SOME of the earliest of Mr. Kennedy s effective writings and speeches on public questions, were devoted to the cause of Protection. In 1830 a pamphlet from his pen signed Mephistopheles, in which he reviewed Mr. Cambreleng s some what celebrated report on Commerce, made a wide and lasting impression, and proved a timely and successful plea and pro test in behalf of the economical convictions he cherished. It still holds a place among the few really able memorabilia of a controversy which, under different names, and in various cir cumstances, continues to elicit arguments and illustrations from the votaries of political economy and practical states manship. The following year, as a member of the Convention of the Friends of American Industry held in New York, con jointly with Mr. Warren Button, of Massachusetts, and Mr. Charles J. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, he prepared the address which that body issued to the people of the United States. February i4th, 1832, he says, in a letter to his wife, from Washington : " I am busily employed in collecting the materials for a work both of usefulness and renown ; and now seriously in tend to carry my purpose into execution of writing a full view of the Protective question. My opportunities here for gather- FRIENDSHIP FOR CLAY. 173 ing the necessary elements of such a treatise are ample, and I do not permit the occasion to pass unprofitably." In the same month, while at Washington, assisting in the preparation and passage of the Tariff, he writes : " Mr. McLane wishes me to prepare a historical sketch of the manufactures of Maryland. I was introduced to Clay by Mr. Sergeant. He immediately asked me if my father was still living, and in vited me to dine with him to-day." This was the commence ment of a long political fraternity and intimate personal friend ship ; to the last Mr. Kennedy cherished the warmest regard for him who had won the admiration of his youth, through the fami ly attachment which made his affection a traditional as well as a personal allegiance. In common with so many of the ardent friends of the Kentucky Senator, Mr. Kennedy earnestly sought to secure his nomination for the Presidency. In Octo ber, 1834, he writes to Judge Bryan ; " Count me in, and I will tell you all I can of our friend Clay. Suffice it to say that we Whigs will do all we can for him here." And writing from Bos ton, in 1844, he describes the speeches and procession of the Clay Club, at which he assisted "Winthrop and myself inarch ing in a leading platoon to take the cars for Lynn and address five thousand people there." " I was near the President on the platform of the east por tico," he says, writing of Gen. Harrison s Inauguration" Mr. Clay presented himself in the group around the President, which the multitude perceiving, they began to shout, which com pelled him instantly to withdraw. He is now the man of the nation." And on the fifteenth of the same month, he writes : "I witnessed the reconciliation in the Senate between Mr. Clay and Mr. King, of Alabama ; a challenge had passed, but the intervention of friends, led by Preston, brought about a harmo nious conclusion." Under date of Jan. 2d, 1852, he writes: "Yesterday brought me a letter from our noble old friend Henry Clay. It is written by his secretary but signed by himself. They say he is very anxious to find strength enough to get once more into 174: LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. the Senate and make his final speech there. It would be a glorious consummation of his patriotic life to be brought, like Chatham, into the Senate and deliver his last word of warning to his country." Five days after, while in Washington, he saw his old friend for the last time, and thus describes his condition : " Called to see Mr. Clay ; he was lying on a sofa, greatly emaciated. He expressed earnest pleasure in seeing me ; thanked me very cordially for the invitation to come to our house, said he knew how well the ladies would nurse him, but that his case is past mending " In 1837 Mr. Kennedy was nominated for Congress with Mr. Sterret Ridgely, but was defeated, after a most arduous canvass, by Howard and McKim ; the latter died in the winter of 1838, and Mr. Kennedy was immediately renominated by the Whigs, on the Protection platform, to supply his place. His election, April 25th, 1838, was regarded as a great triumph. The ensuing winter passed off very agreeably at Washing ton. It was during the palmy days of the Whig party, when the legislative halls, as well as the social circles of the Capital, boasted a number of eminent men and attractive and accom plished women, many of whom have become historical ; the remembrance of whose society is still fondly cherished by those who have survived them ; and to be a favorite with whom, may justly be regarded as no common title to distinc tion and respect. Mr. Kennedy was the comrade and friend of many patriotic and gifted statesmen ; with whom his inter course was constant and full of interest, furnishing him with an inexhaustible fund of salient anecdotes and genial remin iscences. Their personal consideration and subsequent cor respondence indicate the highest confidence and the warmest regard. Thus, at Washington, his most active political career began when the first New Year s call was devoted to Mrs. Madison and Mrs. Hamilton ; when Webster s eloquence was the in tellectual treat of the day ; when the spectator in the gallery POLITICAL LIFE. 175 of the Senate looked down upon the noble heads of Clay and Calhoun, Benton, Webster, Crittenden and Preston. When such patriotic and capable men as John Quincy Adams, John Davis, Poinsett, Saltonstall, Jenifer, Ogden Hoffman, Gov- erneur Kemble, Bates and others, were members of the House of Representatives, and graced the reunions with LegarS and Everett ; and with Lord Morpeth, Miss Martineau and other distinguished strangers ; when Fanny Kemble illustrated the Shakspearean and Mrs. Wood the lyric drama ; when Washing ton Irving was in the hey-day of his fame ; the editorial fraterni ty boasted a Walsh, a Gales and a Seaton ; when social life was illustrated by Dr. Bethune and Professor Silliman, General Scott and Fennimore Cooper, and Chancellor Kent, Albert Gallatin, Gulian C. Verplanck, Prescott and Rush. The fact that Mr. Kennedy was the first Whig elected from the district, gave eclat to his presence in the House of Repre sentatives, where he was immediately hailed as one of the most capable and earnest of the new members, whom the transitions incident to the financial revulsion of the previous year, had brought into Congress. To none of his friends was his election more gratifying than to his uncle Philip, who thus writes on the occasion : " Albeit I am an old man, some what given to meditate on the vanity of all things, I am every now and then reminded that nature has not yet done with her emotions in me. When Boyd, on Thursday evening, brought into the room and threw me the American of that morning, exclaiming, " There, sir, is something for you Cou sin John is elected," I almost bounded from my chair. I re joice in this election in all its bearings personal and politi cal." And subsequently he writes : " I have read, with the most vivid gratification, your letter to your constituents. In my judgment it is throughout the soundest truth brought forth from recesses not before reached by the weak intellects of the country ; and very beautifully and forcibly illustrated." " I am in the centre of all kinds of congratulations," Mr. Kennedy writes from Washington in May, 1838 ; and in the 176 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. following month : " There is a suspicion that they mean to spring the Sub-Treasury bill on us in a day or two, and, if they can, to take the voters without warning. I hope to air my vo cabulary on that occasion, when I have no doubt I shall demean myself with most maidenly decorum. Jack Thomas has sent me a salmon, which cost me a dinner to Clay, Preston, Hoff man, Jenifer, Legare, Howard and Marcy." Upon his re-election, in 1841, Mr. Kennedy was appointed Chairman of the Committee on Commerce ; his report on our so-called Reciprocity Treaties, and their effects on the ship ping interests of the country, excited very general attention on account of its wise insight and practical suggestions. After the death of General Harrison, when President Tyler s de fection from the party that had elected him Vice-President, awakened such wide indignation, to Mr. Kennedy was ap pointed the task of preparing a manifesto in behalf of the Whig members, at the close of the extra session of Congress, exposing and denouncing the treachery of the Executive. Seldom has a political document served a better purpose or more ably represented the states of parties ; it was as effective as it was seasonable. " Rarely surpassed," wrote a distinguished critic, " in ability, perspicuity and scathing rig or. 1 Though its immediate significance has long since passed away, like all expressions of political faith based on intelli gence and probity, " A Defence of the Whigs" still retains an interest and utility, and is an essential part of the history of a great party, and a permanent illustration of a remarkable period and phase of our political history. In allusion to this subject, in his journal, he writes : "The task was committed singly to myself, and accordingly I went about the work, with some few hints from Mr. Clay, whom I consulted. I had the paper ready at the time proposed. It was read and unanimously adopted by all the Whig members in Washington." Mr. Kennedy served on the Select Committee on Currency ; and his speeches and reports on the subject were effective and POLITICAL LIFE. ITT perspicuous. The session of 1842 was the longest known, and he characterized it as remarkable for " the patriotic labor of the Whigs, the factious character of the opposition, and the folly, debasement and treachery of the President." They passed the Tariff bill ; and the N. W. Boundary Treaty was negotiated by Webster and Lord Ashburton. Mr. Kennedy made, besides this elaborate report from the Committee on Commerce, a counter report to Cushing s on the Currency ; and acted as Chairman of the Committee on an International Copyright Law. It is a striking evidence of the confidence felt in his ability and his friendship, that John Quincy Adams exacted from him a promise, in case of survival, and the political ex position in which the former had made two speeches was left by him unfinished, to conclude the argument if he, the venerable patriot, should not live to make a third. In the following let ter Mr. Clay refers to one of Mr. Kennedy s speeches : ASHLAND, April 17th, 1830. To THE HON. MR. KENNEDY. MY DEAR SIR : I very seldom read any speech made in Congress, not even my own ; but seeing one of yours in the Intelligencer of the nth, I was tempted to read it, and cannot refrain from expressing to you the high satisfaction which I have derived from its perusal. It sketches with a masterly pencil, the character of General Jackson, the dangerous principles of his administration, the forlorn condition of M. Van Buren, and the weakness of the Cabinet by which he is surrounded. It is a document for the historian to consult and follow, who shall undertake to record the transactions and events of the last ten years in these States. In one respect I differ from you, and that is in the com mendation which you bestow on the conduct of our foreign af fairs during General Jackson s administration. We had un doubtedly some success the result of good fortune rather than diplomatic skill in securing the payment of old claims upon foreign powers. But what else was achieved ? It was a leading principle in his policy to propitiate Great Britain ; and accordingly the Colonial carrying trade has been sacrificed, the foreign tonnage greatly increased, and of consequence, the American proportionately diminished, and the Protective policy 8* 178 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. crippled, the total destruction, which he no doubt meditated, only averted by the Compromise. Witness, too, the bungling management of the question of the N. E. Boundary. Then, how miserably have we been, and continue to be, represented abroad everywhere ! I congratulate you on our success in Connecticut. I hope I may add in the City of New York also, although the issue of that election, now known to you, has not yet reached me. Present my warm regards to Mrs. Kennedy and to Mr. Gray and family. I am, your friend and obd t servant, H. CLAY. Another voluminous and important Report to Congress, from the pen of Mr. Kennedy, was that on Colonization. The Palmas colony had first emigrated from Maryland ; and, from numerous authentic documents relating to the voyage and settlement, this copious statement of facts was prepared by the Chairman of the Committee on Commerce. It is one of the most complete Congressional papers of the session, and forms a valuable part of the history of negro Colonization. In 1840 Mr. Kennedy was chosen one of the electors by whom General Harrison was made President of the United States ; and, the following year, was again elected to Congress. On resuming his seat in the House of Representatives, he took a house in Washington with his friend, the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, for the winter. Some of the many personal friends of these gentlemen cannot but recall with pleasure the charm ing society of which their house was the scene ; the distin guished men whose conversation made memorable the two winters they and their respective families formed so con genial a household; many of the intimacies then and there originated, continued till the close of Mr. Kennedy s life ; and it is to be observed, in regard to every period of his residence in Washington, that the peculiar social charm of his character, and his constant attention to the claims of social duty and the opportunities for social privileges, enriched his life, extended his usefulness, and raised his official position, through the POLITICAL LIFE. 179 amenities and kindliness which refine political intercourse and dignify official life, by making it the occasion of manly, generous and honorable sympathies and services. In the campaign which resulted in the election of General Harrison, the ceremonies of his inauguration, and those which so soon followed in sorrow for his death and honor to his memory, Mr Kennedy took an active part ; and his descrip tion thereof and comments thereon are as graphic as they are just. His note-books and letters embody and illustrate the various events and tendencies of that period with fulness and discrimination. It was about this time that the desire to en list his abilities in the service of the Cabinet, became apparent. Mr. Webster, then Secretary of State, proposed to establish the office of Under Secretary, to whom should be submitted the charge of the diplomatic business ; and, before the design transpired, he confidentially offered the place to Mr. Kenne dy, whose views on the subject are expressed in a letter to Mr. Webster, dated February 28th, 1841. " In reflecting upon the conversation we had in Washing ton, I had some misgivings that I had not conveyed to your mind as distinctly as I wished, my sense of the kindness of your proposal and the gratification with which I received such a manifestation of your good opinion. Our friends here in tend to make another struggle for the representation of the city, and I believe it is understood that I am to be put forward for that contest. This expectation has drawn toward me, as a medium of communication with the government, nearly every application for office in this district ; and has compelled me to assume a ground of the utmost impartiality, a ground which I could only maintain by avoiding all suspicion of hav ing a personal interest in any appointment whatever. This will explain to you the readiness with which I was able to re ply to your very kind proposal." This project of " reorganiz ing the Department, creating an Under Secretaryship, with a high salary, to be charged with a general superintendance of the diplomacy of the government, and to take the place of the 180 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. secretary when requisite" was never carried out in the man ner Mr. Webster proposed, although his views, in a modified form, were practically adopted. Meantime, during the interval between his first and second election to Congress, Mr. Kennedy was the recipient of an unexpected testimony of the regard of his personal and political friends at Washington. Under date of December 6, 1840, he writes : " Having been at Washington during part of February, many friends of mine belonging to the House of Representatives as well as the Senate, took the op portunity to offer me the compliment of a dinner : WASHINGTON, Feb. 20th, 1840. JOHN P. KENNEDY, ESQ. DEAR SIR: A number of your friends here, originally ad mirers of your literary genius, but more recently close observ ers of your distinguished career in public life, would be grat ified to meet you sociably while at Washington. Among the signatures are those of Webster, Saltonstall, Levi Lincoln, John Sergeant, Crittenden, Conway, Campbell, etc. In 1843 ne was again elected to Congress, and that year joined a very pleasant mess on Capitol Hill. Winthrop and Bates of Massachusetts, Evans of Maine, Dayton of New Jer sey, and Grinnell of New York, formed the party with members of their families. In his eloquent tribute to Mr. Kennedy, Hon. Robert C. Winthrop says : " His services at Washington were of the highest value and importance. Having been associated with him as his second on the Committee of Com merce, as well as in the intimacies of a common table and of apartments under a common roof, I can bear personal testimony to the diligence and ability which he brought to the public business. His reports were elaborate and exhaustive ; and his speeches 4 were forcible and eloquent. I cannot forget that we were together, too, on that Committee, when, not with out hesitation and distrust, the first appropriation was reported to enable Mr. Morse to try the experiment between Washington POLITICAL LIFE. 1 S [ and Baltimore, of that magnetic telegraph, which now covers our continent and encircles the earth. Though that report was written and presented by another hand, it owed much of its success both in Committee and in the House to the earnest support of Mr. Kennedy."* In the record of proceedings of the House of Representa tives, February 2ist, 1841, it is stated that, " on motion of Mr. Kennedy, of Maryland, the Committee took up the bill to au thorize a series of experiments to be made in order to test the merits of the Morse electro-magnetic telegraph ; the bill appro priating thirty thousand dollars to be expended under the di rection of the Postmaster-General." The resolution was opposed and ridiculed. " To those," said Mr. Morse, in his speech at the memorable banquet given in his honor twenty-seven years after, in New York " to those who thus ridiculed the telegraph it was a chimera, a visionary dream rather to be a matter of merriment than seriously enter tained. Men of character, men of foresight, men of erudition, in ordinary affairs, were unable to forecast the future of the telegraph : motions disparaging to the invention were made, such as to appropriate part of the sum for a telegraph to the moon. The majority of Congress did not consent in this at tempt to defeat the measure by ridicule ; and the bill was pass ed by the close vote of eighty-nine to eighty-three. A change of three votes, however, would have consigned the invention to oblivion. That this was not its fate is mainly due to the per severance and foresight of the distinguished member from Maryland, Hon. J. P. Kennedy, co-operating with those from New York, New Jersey and Ohio." Defeated in 1845 as candidate for Congress on account of the partial transfer of the Whig vote to the Native American ticket, in the following year, to the astonishment of all parties, when the Whigs insisted upon having his name on the Assembly * Remarks of Hon. Robert C. Winthrop before the Massachusetts Historical Society, September 8th, 1870. 182 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. ticket, he was elected with two colleagues, in a city which gave heavy majorities against Henry Clay and still heavier against the Whig candidate for Governor. The party and the nation ac knowledged a debt of gratitude to Mr. Kennedy for his admir able speech an exposition of the contrasted pretensions and practices of the Jackson faction, delivered at Hagarstown, Pa., on the 27th of September, 1848. When reported in the Na tional Intelligencer of October i8th, it was recognized as a remarkably authentic and condensed history of the Whig and Locofoco parties. He was chosen Speaker of the Assembly in December, 1846, and soon became absorbed in his legislative duties ; " we have been in session," he writes on the twenty-ninth of that month, " every day this week, and I have been speaking on every subject." The following allusions to this period are from his jour nal : " November, 1846. When I came home I found the Whigs busy about a nomination for candidates for all the Fall elec tionsState Senator, Delegates and Mayor. I was a little surprised to receive an intimation that they intended to nomi nate me for the House of Delegates. They said if I served, I could carry the election for myself and the others ; that it was only for this winter, when I was unemployed, and that it would strengthen me for the Congressional contest next year. Now we had not carried the city for delegates more than once in ten years. The last time was in 1840, when Watson poor Watson, killed at Monterey was elected, and after wards made Speaker of the House. I did not believe we could carry the town, but still I couldn t refuse to serve. But we did carry it after a week s canvass. One Senator and two Delegates (myself and Patterson) out of five, the Senator elected by three votes I by fifty-nine out of the whole city ; Patterson by some twenty votes. And here am I, suddenly enough, a delegate of the State Legislature for this year. Many members talk of me for the speakership. I have re- POLITICAL LIFE. 183 ceived some letters asking if I will accept of it. I have an swered yes, and I suppose I shall be elected by the House. "Thursday, March, nth, 1847. The Legislature adjourn ed last night, or rather this morning at three o clock. I went to Annapolis on the day of my last entry, Sunday, 2yth De cember. " On Monday the Legislature met. That evening the Whigs had a caucus and unanimously determined to elect me Speak er of the House. This was accordingly done on Thursday. I made the House a tolerably fair address on taking the chair, and began my new career with very fair auspices. I suggested in my address the adoption of a new system of rules con formable to those of the House of Representatives in Con gress. The proposition was well received, and I accordingly prepared for the Committee on that subject the code of rules which was subsequently adopted. " My lodgings were at Mrs. Green s her house is the most comfortable, neat, and well-ordered establishment I have ever seen. Sam Hambleton, Dr. Williams and William Bowie (a Loco) of the Senate, are here, and Duckett and myself of the House. Besides these we have Meredith, occasionally John son and others, lawyers of the Court of Appeals, and Judge Martin, a permanent lodger, for the winter. Often we have been crowded. " The session went on very well, I mean with but little dis comfort to me, until business thickened towards the close and compelled me to give a very fatiguing application from ten in the morning sometimes until near midnight. " In making my Committees I took the cleverest young men with one or two exceptions for my chairmen. Tom Donaldson I put in the most responsible position, at the head of the Ways and Means, and most admirably has he acquitted himself. We owe the Resumption the great measure of the session chiefly to him. Dove I assigned to the Internal Im provements, Duckett the Judiciary, Jones a queer little fel low of excellent talent, I made Chairman of the Corporations ; LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. Turner, of Frederick, who is not a young man, I placed at the head of Federal Relations, Henry, of Dorset, a very respecta ble gentleman, I set at the head of the Committee on Educa tion, etc., etc. " With the exception of the Ways and Means, the Judiciary and the Internal Improvements, these committees are mere compliments. " Of the clever men of the House, I desire to remember hereafter, the following : " Donaldson, Wickes, Dove, Jones, Henry, Hopper, Lamar, Swan (a Loco) as the cleverest young men of the House in point of talent, and Turner and Duckett as the best of the more elderly members. " During the winter, I frequently took part in the debates of the Committee of the Whole House, and contrived to conquer, in a very great degree, that extraordinary trepidation with which I am so apt to be seized in public assemblages, when obliged to make a speech. This repugnance to speaking, I never felt in my younger days, but I have found it growing upon me of late to an extent that I feared might seriously im pair my capacity to take my proper place in public service. I had nothing of it this winter in the Legislature." Besides the official duties which found record from their importance, during all this period, Mr. Kennedy s time and talents were constantly enlisted for the advancement of the cause he had at heart ; and his letters often betray how irk some were some of his labors and how constantly his private tastes and personal comfort were sacrificed for what he believed to be the public welfare. Thus writing to Philip Pendleton he says : " Here have I been through all this red-hot, yea., white- heat weather, remasticating the stale food of a digested and forgotten speech the most supereminently flat bore of an occupation that ever man was condemned to. The good people here, my masters, have thought it my duty to them to publish my Remarks. I wish I may be teetotally ex- fhmctifled if I ever write another dribblet of my brain that POLITICAL LIFE. 185 is dropt in any public place again." In another letter he thus graphically describes the scene and the process of "addressing the House." "The Hall has a most unnatural vagueness in it for every sense ; you hear nothing distinctly ; you see nothing accurately. There is a great tomb-like, ill- timed, disconcerting reverberation over your^ own words from the vault above you ; a most diabolical buzzing from sundry cor ners as if fifty dead kings were mocking you. The speak er, in your eyes, is a little man in a distant perspective, envel oped in drapery ; you are perfectly sure he does not hear you ; and his great eyes, which for politeness sake he fixes upon you, glow like one of Fuseli s spectres from out of the damask curtains. Then, in the House itself, there is no sympathy ; no nod of approbation to say I understand you/ except from two or three civil Whig friends, who from respect to the cause and one of its advocates, sit by near at hand, either to be mortified at your proclamations of corruption or to laugh at your occasional attempt at a joke ; every Locofoco has left the House except one a grinning, malignant sentinel, to take notes and answer you. He sits close by, with a snaky eye fix ed upon you and a livid face, livid from hatred ; and every now and then laughs scornfully, seizes his pencil, ducks down and writes like the devil for thirty seconds, and rises up again with the most infernal smile, as much as to say, " I have got you." Describing a great mass meeting in Faneuil Hall, he says, " We marched in two and two, like handcuffed prisoners, and were ranged on the platform." His idea of the mission of the party with which he was so long and honorably iden tified, is well defined in a letter to the Whig Central Com mittee of Maryland, who had elected him chairman in the autumn of 1*853 " I concur with you in your opinion of the prospects of the Whig party. It seems to be their destiny to be reserved for those periodical conjunctions, in which their adversaries become incompetent to manage the public affairs. The signs indicate that the time is coming, and not 186 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. far off, when they will again be invoked, as they often have been of old, to resume their accustomed and appropriate duty of recalling the country to the path of its true progress." Mr. Kennedy keenly enjoyed his respite from official life and political work ; at Saratoga, July 3oth, 1853, occurs the fol lowing entry in his journal : " , of Frederick, came yester day ; he tells me the Whigs there and of the upper counties talk of nominating me for Governor. I tell him I have a great aversion to entering public life again ; that I don t wish to be Governor, and would not go through a personal canvass to be President of the United States." Upon leaving Congress, in 1845, Mr. Kennedy, soon after his return home, was attacked by typhoid fever, contracted in Washington ; his friend Bates fell a victim to the same disease at the same time ; and it was many weeks before Mr. Kennedy recovered. Alluding in his journal to the demise of his two ex cellent friends and political allies, Bates and Saltonstall, of Massachusetts, he says : " They were honest, truthful, ardent, impulsive and eloquent ; men full of love of country and love of friends ; faithful in every emergency ; generous and brave." When invited to stand for Senator, and canvass for the nomination, his refusal was characteristic : " Holding it to be a matter which deeply concerns my own character, and my desire to preserve the utmost personal independence as well as self-respect, I not only refused to take any steps directly in my own behalf, but also indirectly to engage the services of friends. I was content that the question, as far as I was concerned, should rest upon the uninfluenced suffrages of the Legislature." As the eminent men and the noble friends with whom he had been associated in public life, passed away, and the lower tone and less scrupulous standard of action which marked the years immediately preceding the Rebellion, began to en croach upon the integrity of our national councils, Mr. Ken nedy, like many of his fellow-citizens of kindred principles and character, became painfully conscious of the civic deca- POLITICAL LIFE. 1ST dence. " Do you remark," he writes to his uncle Pendleton, " how lamentably destitute the country is of men in public station of whom we may speak with any pride ? We have, with very few exceptions, no man of eminent ability, none of high accomplishment, none of lofty sentiment, in any con spicuous position. How completely has the conception and estimate of a gentleman been obliterated from the popular mind ! Whatever of that character we have seems almost banished from the stage. What a miserable array of charla tans and make-believe statesmen and little clap-trap dema gogues and mock gentlemen manufactured out of blackguards, are everywhere in the lead !" 190 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. the early history of the province, to the effects of jealousy in opinion on the local social life, he adds the dramatic charm of adventurous foray and illicit trade ; and both of these authentic agencies are ingeniously blended with the development of a love- suit and a careful and winsome picture of the domestic and offi cial life of the colony. The scenes thereof are characteristic ; the reader alternates from the tavern by the water side, resort of all the gossips of town and country, to the stately dwelling of the Lord Proprietary ; from the Fort to the Rose Croft, a charming rural home ; and from the meeting of the Council to the haunt of smuggling Corsairs that is guarded from intru sion by tricks which awaken the superstitious fears of the people. The holiday sport and the domestic ftte, the talk of soldier, priest, cavalier and vagrant, high dame and humble servitor, reveal the ways of the hour, the tone of the colonists, the faith, fancies and facts of local history and life. Nor are the char acters less wisely chosen or less skilfully drawn in order to complete and emphasize this pleasant and pensive picture of the past. The cripple, from whom the tale derives its name ; the " martinet and free companion" Captain Dauntress, bred in the wars of the cavaliers and under Monk and Turenne ; Weavel, the hen-pecked landlord, and his jolly dame Dorothy ; Arnold de la Grange, the faithful old Fleming wood-ranger ; the benign Father Pierre, the stately Lady Maria ; the hand some and accomplished Secretary of Lord Baltimore, convent- bred but knightly-born ; fair, pure and proud Blanche Warden ; lawless, vindictive Cocklescroft, skipper of the "Olive Branch ;" these and the many subordinate characters, serve to represent the social ranks and habitudes of the place and the period with authenticity and interest. Indeed the one critical objection made to " Rob of the Bowl," on its first appearance, was that the " characters are so various and strongly marked, several of them so elaborately finished, that the interest is much divid ed, and it has been remarked, with some reason, that the story wants a hero." " Dauntress," says the critical journal already quoted, "is a "KOB OF THE BOWL." 191 sort of melting together of Harry Percy and Fat Jack, the Lord Proprietory, Arnold de la Grange, of whom we have but a glimpse, but an original of great capabilities ; the landlord, the mountebank and his man, and Garret Weasel, the old priest the conspirators and the village tailor all capable of being made to stand out prominently from the narrative and made resting-places for the memory, but used as they are, remind us of a brilliant picture, but wanting concentration of effect." In this we recognize the highest praise ; the evident object of the author was to draw from fact and color from nature, the life of the time as a whole, and not to sacrifice this unity of pur pose to special characterization. In this design he has been re markably successful as the same critic observes, " the histor ical impression it conveys is as accurate as the most careful study of the temper and incidents .of the times enabled the author to render it ; the costume throughout is exact and in keep ing and the descriptions of scenery are spirited and picturesque in an eminent degree." Mr. Kennedy s familiarity with the phenomena of American politics, and especially his opportunities, on more than one oc casion, to observe the extravagancies of a Presidential election, suggested the idea of a political satire wherein many of these salient local traits and characteristic expedients and absurdities could be exhibited under an imaginary " local habitation and name," but with the incidents, characters and utterances drawn from real life. Accordingly, in 1840, he published a humorous chronicle entitled " Quodlibet : Containing some Annals thereof, by Solomon Secondthought, Schoolmaster." He describes, in a niiive and magniloquent style, the origin and growth of its aspiring leaders and mongrel architecture, the fun and fury of its political parties, with all the bombastic speeches, ingenious shifts and dogmatic egotism incident to provincial ambition in a new country. The supposed period included in the story ex tends from the time of the "Removal of the Deposits" by General Jackson, to the election of General Harrison. The Bank Ques tion is in the ascendant, and the financial experiment of the "Pa- 192 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. triotic Copper-plate Bank," the career of the Hon. Midclleton Flam the rise of the New Lights ; the editorial rivalry between the "Whole Team" and the " Whole Hog" newspapers; the Iron- railing Controversy ; Agamemnon Flag s nomination ; the great meeting at Sycamore Spring ; the proceedings of the Central Committee ; the quarrels, defections and suspensions of the different parties ; the wonderful modification of the " Dem ocratic principle" and the advent of the " True Grits" are all portrayed with a ludicrous solemnity, so as to bring into view the political hobbies born of circumstances, the rallying cries, extravagances, virulence, absurdities and impotent conclusions of partisan fanaticism. Although, from its very nature, political satire is ephemeral, there are so many facts and phases in this amusing caricature which renew, if they do not exactly repre sent, the normal incidents of a political campaign in our coun try, that a permanent significance attaches to this faithful though ironical illustration thereof. When the work was re- published, after a lapse of twenty years, Mr. Kennedy observes in the preface, " the youth who have grown up to manhood in the mean time, and have come to be conspicuous in the con duct of public affairs, compose a distinct generation, as uncon scious of the events, the interests and sentiments of twenty years ago, as of those of remote antiquity ; they inaugurate a new era of new principles, new purposes, new powers, new morals, and, alas ! new hatreds. May it not serve a good turn towards ar resting this torrent of innovation, to present to the leisure and meditation of those who are embarking upon its stream, a few memorials of a by-gone day? Is it not worth while to attempt, by these playful sketches of the past, to lure the angry com batants into a smile, by showing them the grotesque retribution which history inflicts upon distempered parties, after a few de cades of oblivion ? which represents the engrossment of parties, who fancied that the destinies of a great nation hung upon the plots and counterplots of their busy ferment which engros- ment twenty years have shrivelled into the dimensions of a pleas ant farce ? By some unexplained tidal law, parties would seem "ANNALS OF QUODLIBET." 193 to move through successive ebb and flow towards a final culmi nation of mischievous extreme, each refluent wave returning with heavier mass, until the accumulated weight of madness and folly overtopples, breaks, and dissolves in noisy foam." To exhibit, on a small scale, the process so graphically de scribed in this last sentence, and evolve therefrom, by contrast, the permanent principles of statesmanship, is the aim of Mr. Kennedy s " Annals of Quodlibet " The New York Review said of the work, on its first appearance, that although its inter est " daily becomes less because derived from the immediate ; yet, in its sound, shrewd and pungent remarks, as a satire, it has our strong recommendation ; the great names to which it was attributed, show the opinion entertained of it by the public ; we do not know a similar American work that is to be compared with it." This was the fifth regular book Mr. Ken nedy published ; and entirely diverse in aim and execution from those which preceded it. Indeed the versatility of his talent, as thus exhibited, is quite as remarkable as the average success of the several experiments. " Each of the works," says an eminent critic, " is marked by distinct and happy peculiarities ; and from internal evidence it would probably have never been surmised that they were by one author." When we remember how active that author was in political and social life, how constantly his favorite studies were interrupted by the claims of official duty and private friendship, this prosperous variety of his literary work, is the more re markable. In an elaborate criticism on his writings, to which we have already referred, this subject is aptly noticed. " He is mixed up with many things," says the New York Review, "besides the production of literary fiction. As a member of the Legislature of Maryland year after year, pro scribed at last because of his activity in promoting schemes of internal improvement that were not popular at the particu lar time ; a lawyer in active practice ; identifying himself with the exciting controversy that was carried on with reference to a tariff, before the Compromise Act ended it ; then a member 9 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. of Congress, left out with a change of parties, to be again elected, it is plain that he has had scant time to study, frame and perfect the novels which, during this busy life, he lias given to the public." This diversion from literature is to be regretted, because of the wholesome and humane tone of his mind, its patriotic spirit, and that sympathetic and catholic charm which made him, as a writer as well as a man, congenial to all classes. Such authorship is very desirable in our country. We have many writers of high finish and studied grace, who fail to en list popular sympathy. One who knew Mr. Kennedy thor oughly, and found more of the man in his books than less intimate and candid critics could discover, writes of him : " He does not seek to make too much of a thought. His muse has no wrinkle on her forehead ; her laugh is at the same time mellow and merry, the echo of a heart gentle and gay ; hers is a familiar spirit, and much as she delights in the sequestered haunts of nature, and fond as she is of loiter ing in her paths, she is still more at home in the warm and comfortable abodes of man ; she loves peculiarly to gather round the family hearth and warm herself by the affections that cluster there ; to preside at the social board and kin dle the genial fires of good-fellowship ; and she has a heart for still gentler things ; she is thoroughly conscientious and amiable ; she joins no company but to add to its enjoy ment."* In 1849 appeared the " Life of William Wirt," from the pen of Mr. Kennedy. This was alike a labor of love and a work of interest and utility. In many points of character and taste there existed a remarkable affinity between the bio grapher and his subject ; they possessed a kindred love of literature, and were endowed with social aptitudes and sym pathies at once endearing and characteristic. During Mr. Wirt s practice at the Baltimore bar, Mr. Kennedy had be- * Judge Bryan. "THE LIFE OF WIRT." 195 come familiar with his professional triumphs and his personal charm and worth. The principal sources of the memoir were drawn from the intimate correspondence of Wirt, from his official record, and the reminiscences of attached friends. The subject was one eminently desirable, as it gave scope to the delineation of a character and career thoroughly American and described the rise to fame, large usefulness and legal success, of a man of humble origin, without the advantages of a college education ; and who, by the wise exercise of his talents, patient study, noble ambition and the aid and encouragement of friends early won by the generosity of his heart and the grace of his manners, attained national distinction, and be came an ornament and an oracle in his profession. The circumstances under which the work was undertaken, are thus noted by the author : December 24, 1843. Some time ago, Mrs. Wirt deposited a large number of papers containing the correspondence, etc., of her late husband, Wm. Wirt, with Mr. J. Q. Adams, who had undertaken to write a biography and edit these papers. After retaining the collection for some time, Mr. Adams was obliged, very reluctantly, as he told me, to decline the enterprise. The family have since committed it to me, and I have accepted. The papers are all in my possession, and I have just began to to review them. I hope to make some volumes of good sturT. Mr. Wirt was a very intimate and kind friend of mine, which alone would prompt me to this duty. But he was a man of a very rich character, of various interesting qualities, and passed a life of attractive incident, out of which a most engaging biography may be made. My plan is not yet adjusted ; but if the correspondence and other remains will enable me to present a narrative in which these may be interwoven, I shall prefer that form. SomQ few hours labor a day ought to enable me .to get this work before the public in the course of the year. I shall try." Mr. Kennedy had delivered a Eulogy on Wirt, before the Maryland Bar, on the twentieth of May, 1834. Of this trib- 190 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. ute one of his most intelligent auditors wrote: "It not only gave play to the imagination, but distilled precious dews of thought and feeling, the memory of which is delightful." Mrs. Wirt, writing to him from Richmond, July ist, 1834, says: "I thank you from my heart, my dear sir, for the faithful and ad mirable delineation of my precious departed husband s charac ter received from you, in the form of an oration. It is much for the wife of such a husband to admit that simple justice has been rendered to his idolized memory ; the diction of the whole is so appropriate, so elaborately elegant, so feeling ! That heaven may reward you is my fervid prayer." Fifteen years after, when Mrs. Wirt was in straitened circumstances, and Mr. Kennedy s biography of her husband had become re munerative, he writes in his diary; "Dec.io, 1849. I shall remit half the proceeds of the Life of Wirt to Mrs. Wirt." Chief-Justice Marshall thus expresses his appreciation of the Eulogy : RICHMOND, October, 12, 1834. DEAR SIR : I cannot permit myself to express the gratifi cation I feel at the just tribute you pay to that tribunal before which the subject of your eulogy appeared so often, " entrusted with some of the most important controversies that ever inter ested the jurisprudence of a free country," without making my grateful acknowledgments for the flattering and partial terms in which you speak of its present presiding Judge. He is conscious of no other claim to the commendation thct.i that of endeavoring to merit the encomium you kindly bestow. Allow me to thank you for the pleasure the perusal of the " Discourse" has given me, and to assure you that I am, most respectfully, Your obedient, J. MARSHALL. The recollection of his early struggles and the difficulties which beset his path in youth, created in Mr. Wirt a life-long sympathy with those similarly situated ; he always sought to guide and encourage young and baffled aspirants for intellec tual distinction and social advancement ; and among his letters "THE LIFE OF WIRT." 197 not the least creditable to his judgment and his heart, are those addressed to youths commencing their studies or decid ing upon their course in life : accordingly, the " Life of Wirt" is most appropriately dedicated by the author, " To the Young Men of the United States who seek for Guidance to an Honor able Future." The first edition of the work was speedily exhausted, and, in the second, the author made desirable revisions. " In the prep aration of this work," observes a leading critical journal, " the author had the use of Mr. Wirt s papers, diaries and correspon dence. It throws light upon much of the political history of the times, and should be consulted by the historical student." "There is no action and little incident," says the London Athcnceum ; " but Mr. Kennedy has done what he had to do with great ability." By copious and judicious selections from the letters of Wirt, connected by a clear and candid narrative of the circumstances which inspired them, Mr. Kennedy has given us an authentic and attractive picture of a man who won honor and love by virtue of rare qualities and faithful work ; and who as frankly acknowledged his errors as he niiively confessed his ambition ; a man who based his happiness on domestic affection, and found his chief delight in literature and social pleasure ; mean while bravely devoting his time and energies to the discharge of professional duties ; and, in each sphere, attaining an honor able and happy experience due to his ardor of feeling, his rare powers of expression, his high sense of honor and a geniality and gayety of temper rarely combined with such industry and perseverance. There were in the details of his experience a les son and a law of success ; only by labor and probity could he have surmounted the limits and drawbacks of his early life ; only by consistent fidelity in his gratitude to his first benefac tors and his friendships of later life, could he have secured so rich a heritage of personal regard ; only by severe mental dis cipline could he have schooled his luxuriant imagination to sub serve the purposes of reason ; and only by religious convictions, 198 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. which gradually obtained a controlling influence over his mind and character, could he have so made his life lovely at home and honored in the world. It is noteworthy, now that educa tional theories are so warmly contested, that the Latin authors and English literature formed the discipline and the nutriment of Wirt s mind ; they sufficed to make his style effective and his illustrations emphatic. Horace and Livy, Hooker, Burke and Swift were his familiar companions ; and it is significant of the range of his intellectual sympathies, that in youth his attention vibrated between Coke and Sterne, and he equally mastered the dry acumen of the one and revelled in the quaint humor of the other. His letters exhibit every phase of his career, reveal his tastes and his aspirations, and make manifest his principles of action and habits of life ; probation and good-fellowship, rhe torical speculation and social hilarity, investigation, ideality, love, friendship and taste alternate in his candid communion with family and friends. We follow his legal career with keen interest from his first case in Virginia to the trial of Burr, with which latter memorable event his forensic eloquence is histor ically identified ; from the famous Cherokee Case to his appear ance at the bar of Boston, where he won the admiration of Webster and Otis and the hearts of the most cultured ; through out his official course as Attorney-General of the United States, among his professional comrades, in his happy home, as orator, statesman, advocate, companion, friend, husband and father, we are made to behold William Wirt as he lived and felt, with his faults and his virtues ; and such are the surroundings of the central figure,and so significant are the attending circumstances, that, with the portrait of Wirt, we have a picture of his times. As the lives of Chief-Justice Parsons and of Josiah Quincy by their sons, conserve vivid and true glimpses of the political and social life of New England in the years succeeding the Revolu tion, this " Life of Wirt" seems a connecting link between that epoch and subsequent times. As a boy he saw the troops has tening to join Gates ; as a youth he practised in the courts with Patrick Henry and John Marshall, and corresponded with PROVOST OF THE UNIVERSITY. 109 Adams and Jefferson ; and, later, was the professional compeer of Webster and Clay ; hence the men and events of the period all of special interest in the political and characteristic in the social life of the country, come into view in the course of Mr. Kennedy s biography; it is full of interesting details as to the state of the legal profession ; it celebrates the best exam ples of oratory and acumen at the bar and in Congress ; in dicates the state of parties and of public opinion, while its main object is never lost sight of and the individuality of William Wirt is frankly and faithfully illustrated, until the literary experiments, legal triumphs and private graces of the author, lawyer and man, are completely made known for the satisfaction and improvement of his countrymen. The work is a substantial contribution to standard American Bi ography. - In the spring of 1850 Mr. Kennedy was elected Provost of the University of Maryland, and the humorous manner in which he dilates upon the fact in the following letter is highly char acteristic : BALTIMORE, March 24, 1850. MY DEAR WINTHROP : I have been too busy to write even to Lizzie Tappan, but will do that very soon. I found myself one morning, by some process of which I was certainly ignorant, Provost of the University of Maryland. I learned afterwards that old Dr. Alexander, who has been a sort of locum tenens ever since the death of Bishop Kemp, had resigned this post, and that the Regents coming together to make a new election, first debated the point whether they would give it to Bishop Whittingham and decided thereupon unanimously in the negative ; holding that one layman was worth a dozen priests. Then came the question what layman ? or, as I suppose from what followed, the secretary must have written it what laud-man ? which question suggested the author of the memoirs of Wirt. So forthwith they went to work and made a unanimous job of it. Now, sir, think of Macaulay 200 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. Provost of Glasgow, and then you have one of Plutarch s paral lels quod notes. The election preceded the Commencement, which was to be held in a few days ; and this threw me into a vortex of business among the learned clerks of the college, where I had to sign some diplomas and do sundry other pro fessional things most strangely incongruous with all my habits, even to the breaking up of my billiards for two or three even ings. Think of a Provost with his coat off at billiards ! Then I had to meet the young gentlemen the evening before Commencement, to give them the light of my provostial or prefectial countenance at a social entertainment ; then, the next day, Tuesday last, a grand, glorious churchful of beauti ful girls, with the Germania band and a great array of Regents and Faculties, and seventy-two diplomas to distribute with suitable words of encouragement and sage advice delivered Provost-wise all of which I went through to the minutest point of customary observance, without flinching. In the midst of this public display, up rose a reverend clergy, to say that a most grateful duty had been assigned him ; and thereupon he began to expatiate upon the singular merits of some great unknown, whose incredible virtues had entitled him to a kind of College apotheosis, which was appropriately given in as a Resolution of the Regents, conferring the degree of Doctor of Laws upon John Pendleton Kennedy. There I sat all the time, expecting to hear the eulogy wound up with the name of Bishop Whittingham at least, if not Pius the Ninth. They had kept this part of the ceremony a dead secret from me, and seemed to enjoy very much my surprise, which I took occasion to express in " a neat and eloquent" response, as the papers have it ; and so ended that morning ; after which I took my dinner and went to billiards with an increased earnest ness, by way of disabusing my mind of the humbug I had been practising before the world. I don t know whether I have done right in accepting this post, which, in many respects, is incompatible with my char- LETTER TO WINTIIROP. 201 acter. There is a make-believe in all these masquerades which requires a better actor than I am to play off well before the world. That, however, I should not mind so much, because, by force of study, I may reach the art necessary ; but such a position, in some degree, binds me to the profession of some principles of conduct or deportment which I have been accus tomed all my life to hold in utter neglect. I have a Theo logical Faculty to look after as well as the Medical, and a Law Faculty and the Arts and Sciences, which again are connected with a College ; all of which puts upon me the necessity of a certain sobriety both of walk and opinion, which nature has utterly denied me, and which I shall not condescend to coun^ terfeit ; so that if you ever hear that I have brought scandal on the learned bodies, say that I made a protest early to you against the responsibility of it. I shall see how it works, and then determine how long to hold it. In the opposite scale from all this stateliness, I have a matter on hand now which partly concerns you. I have the charge of a public dinner of the Historical Society of which I am Vice-President and head of a committee of preparations. We are to have it (the dinner) in about ten days, and we want you and some other notables to come over from Washington. We have determined to invite Webster, Clay, Cass, Benton, Cor- win, Vinton and yourself. Now I want you to suggest to these gentlemen that they are to be invited as soon as we settle upon the day, which I think will be on the third of April ; and let me know whether they will be likely to come. I shall send their invitations most probably by Wednesday. The day de pends upon the Annual Address, which is to be delivered by one of our members, who is not yet quite ready, and we must suit ourselves to his convenience. We shall have the dinner late enough to allow you all to come over by the evening train, which gets here about seven. It will do us a great service and pleasure both, to have you here ; and what refreshment it will be to such a company of patriots to breathe the pure air 202 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. of our Union-loving city, you, jaded and corrupted by the quarrels and poisons of Washington, will duly acknowledge. It is sufficient to say, by way of inducement, that you shall have an agreeable party to meet you and a most enthusiastic greeting." INTEREST IN THE YOUNG. 203 CHAPTER IX. Mr. Kennedy s Interest in the Young ; Anecdotes ; His Godson. \ REMARKABLE and prevalent trait of Mr. Kennedy, was /\ his love of the young ; a feeling warmly shared by the affectionate family of which his marriage had made him so endeared a member. Even Charles Lamb s " Dream-Chil dren" did not suffice to gratify the paternal instinct, ideal as he W as, but Isola, the adopted daughter of the lonely broth er and sister, blest their quiet home. Young people were at tracted to Mr. Kennedy by his sympathetic recognition ; in this regard even fond parents are often deficient ; he inspired them with confidence, and became their friend by virtue of a certain childlike truth and playfulness in his own nature. The fair daughters of his friends were his constant guests in town and country, the companions of his journeys at home and abroad, his cherished proteges, in whose improvement and welfare he felt and exhibited the most affectionate interest ; while the young men, among his kindred, the sons of his neighbors and political and personal friends, came frankly and fondly to him, not only for counsel and sympathy, but for companionship. Even the chance acquaintances on journeys and at watering-places, among the juvenile aspirants, sought his friendship and cherished his society ; some became exact ing correspondents and many the favorite recipients of his kindness. He was a fond observer of the young, and yet, like Lamb, always " squeamish in his women and children." "I hate boys," he writes, " if they come any thing short of para gons ; there is but one slip between the paragon and the imp." On the eve of a voyage to Europe, he gives a clay to helping one LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. of his juvenile favorites rig a miniature ship ; and makes time between a host of business and social engagements, to visit a young girl who had become his pet at Sharon. He notes the character and fortunes of his young friends, with the pride and sympathy of a father ; and herein we find another and striking evidence of the possible scope and grace of a warm and fine social character, in vindicating the instincts whose natural gratification has been frustrated ; how strange is the anomaly that, while, in some natures, paternity narrows the sympathies, in others its absence creates a spontaneous affection and a self-imposed duty, as disinterested as conscientious ! While at Sharon, in the summer of 1864, he notes the favorable impres sion made by a fair young cousin, whom, however, he had adopted as a niece : " S. P has been received with distinguished favor, and her time has been made delightful to her by the most flattering at tentions ; she has been surrounded by admirers, and has con ducted herself so well as greatly to enhance her character in my estimation. The novelty of a pretty, intelligent and grace ful young girl, noted for her stanch loyalty to the Union, and coming from Virginia, where she has faced all the danger and trouble of the border war, has given an interest to her appear ance here, which has been largely increased by the amenity and beauty of her deportment. I especially note this impres sion made by her, because it is really noteworthy for the ex tent and earnestness of the favor she has elicited from old and young." And when the belle became a bride and a mother, Mr. Kennedy s affectionate interest, which had been manifest ed, all through her childhood, was only the more fondly identi fied with her life and bestowed on her children, whose artless companionship soothed his last days. In illustration of this trait, the following letter in reply to one of inquiry as to the prospects of a youth in this country, is suggestive : INTEREST IN THE YOUNG. 2 05 BALTIMORE, January 4, 1851. MY DEAR Miss DOUGLASS : Elizabeth has just given me your letter which she received yesterday, and I lose no time in complying with your request in reference to your young friend Mr. . It is very difficult to predict the fortunes of any man in our country, and most difficult when it concerns professional men. Success depends so much upon personal manners and tact in the affairs of life, and often so little upon scholarship and acquirement, that I can only, after the manner of a Yankee, make a guess in the case of Mr. H. The high character you give him, certainly ought to place him upon van tage ground in the start. But you know how many mischances are likely to beset the path of those who in this country de vote themselves to a literary career as the means of a liveli hood. Some of the cleverest men I have met are the most helpless. Our schools and colleges are open to all kinds of competi tion among the candidates for employment, and as alienage is no impediment either in law, or in public opinion, Mr. H. s opportunities of employment in that field, would be as good as those of any one else ; and from what you say of his accom plishment for such service, might be better than most appli cants. But we have so many to look for these places, and so few to vacate them, that the door is not often open at the time when a good man takes his seat before it. There is apt to be long delay and faint-heartedness to the poor scholar before he gets in. The law is a better resource when the candidate is ready for it, that is to say, when he has studied our laws : I mean our Statute law, and our modification of the English common law. Eloquent speech and elegant scholarship hardly ever fail to make that career profitable, and the means of high repute and public honors. It has, however, a long probation of hard work and patient expectation before it yields its fruit This espe cially in the cities! Our great v/estern county often furnishes 206 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. the means of sudden exaltation, and always sure and easy livelihood. California just now attracts the greatest share of this kind of adventure, and as nothing is old there, a new man may claim all the honors of "the oldest inhabitant." So, weighing all these -pros and cons together, I can only suggest to your young friend that he should make an experi mental trip to this country and survey the ground for himself, resting here upon the Atlantic, and studying from this point, all behind us. He may find a lucky stepping-stone at once, and have no further trouble. At all events, he will learn some thing that may turn out to be worth knowing. A good parlia mentary reporter, is almost always sure of employment, and a clever reviewer may make his bread, or help to make it, with his pen, which is often as good as a rolling-pin in that service. I am quite rejoiced to find, my dear Miss Douglass, that you belong to that rare class, whom I ought to value in both hemispheres, wherever they are found, my "constant read ers," and being proud of such appreciation, I have set aside a volume of my new illustrated edition of " Swallow Barn" to send you, and you shall also have a neat pamphlet copy of the address you speak of. You may expect both of these as soon as we can find an opportunity to transmit them to you. With kindest remembrance, believe me, Very truly yours, J. P. KENNEDY. A few random extracts from his journal indicate, in a casu al but significant manner, his habitual observation of and inter est in the young : " Among the visitors at Sharon was little Fanny , the daughter of a merchant in New York. Fanny is about eleven years of -age, a graceful, talented, fine-tempered child, who attracted the regard of every one at the Springs. This child has taken a great fancy to me. It is my lot to win kind affec tions from many children in my travels, and Fanny seems to have formed a stronger attachment than most of them. Pet- INTEREST IN THE YOUN O. 207 ling her a great deal, as I did, may account for this. When Elizabeth and I left Sharon, we went to Saratoga. Here, in a few days, I received a purse which my little friend had work ed for me, and which she sent with a letter of remembrance. I returned this civility by a pretty copy of Scott s Poems, which I found ; when E and I again visited Sharon in the follow ing week, she had carefully read it nearly all through. Since my arrival at home, Fanny has been a regular correspondent, and she and I are now in the habit of an orderly and grave exchange of all advices by letter. I have just sent her this day, the 3 ist Dec., 1845. a little New Year s present, in the name of Mrs. K , " Tales from Shakspeare," by Miss Lamb. " Road to Capon, Aug. 7, 1855. As we came out of Win chester we took up a lad about twelve or fourteen, I should think, son of a gentleman in Winchester, and whom we leave at this house. I mention him, because I was greatly struck by his intelligence, and discreet and sensible characler. I can hardly doubt the success of that boy in life, and would not hesitate, if I had occasion for a trusty agent in almost any employment, to take him without further knowledge of him than this ride gave me." In reply to a youthful application for an autograph, he writes : ELLICOTT S MILLS, MARYLAND, July 3d, 1852. MY DEAR YOUNG SIR : To one so early in the field as yourself "a boy of fifteen" in pursuit of autographs, there is an assurance of, at least, a full harvest, if not a rich one. In giving my name to your collection my chief motive is to teach you, by the example, the duty of obliging others, even in so small a matter as this ; and to express to you the hope, that in your pursuit of names more worthy, you may find some to inspire your ambition towards the achievement of a life which shall render your own autograph the most valuable in your catalogue. Very truly, my young friend, Yours, J. P. KENNEDY. 208 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. This interest in the young soon found a more systematic gratification. In an entry of his journal dated May 4^/2, 1853, he writes: " I find a letter from Bryan, of South Carolina, inform ing me that his boy has just been christened John P. K. ; I am entered as sponsor, of which he sends me a certificate ; he has succeeded in obtaining a daguerreotype of my godson, which he sends me, with a pleasant description of him ;" and he replies thus to his friend. " Thanks, my dear Bryan, for the double offering of your letter and the boy. Consider me from this time forth, sworn bottle-holder for the young pilgrim in all the rounds he may have occasion hereafter to fight with Satan, whether in pitched battle or secret ambuscade." Playful as is this promise, it was conscientiously fulfilled ; Mr. Kennedy assumed the care and expense of his godson s education, and, before he died, en- . joyed the satisfaction of seeing him well advanced, with high class rank, in his college course at Princeton. Two letters to the father and three to the lad are here given as characteristic alike of his genial humor and fidelity to the trust he had ac cepted. WASHINGTON, Sunday, Oct, 10, 1852. MY DF.AR BRYAN : In the matter of the name that has been already discussed by half the council, Miss Gray and her father being absent ; and Mrs. Kennedy being somewhat au thoritative and knowing in such questions, undertakes to say, that the whole appellation being the only distinctive sign where by the lad may be traced through a whole clan of ancient cat- tle-stealers and blackmail-lifters, up to the veritable bottle- holder aforesaid, she holds that he is entitled to the three letters of the alphabet besides his cv/n patronymic. And what especial ly weighs with her, is a point of luck which she supposes to exist in the combination, inasmuch as there was once a jolly little parson in our hemisphere who signed his name J. P. K. Hen- shaw, whereby that is by the J. P. K. prefix he became a bishop, and went off in an apoplexy, owing more it is supposed, however, to the shortness of his neck than the length of his name, which ought to have saved him from it, if the blood of his HIS GODSON. 200 body had had the slightest respect to that condition. For my own part, I think four letters a great disparagement to a man, and a most serious discomfiture if he should come to be secre tary of the navy and be obliged, as such animals are, to write his name in a hurry a hundred times a day, But if the luck holds out and he should be a bishop, that will make a different case, and the longitude may be a perfect delight for these people have leisure, and find pleasure in tagging on prefixes, and suf fixes and surplusages and pluralities ad infinitum, as a positive luxury. Tristram Shandy is a warning on this point which ought to be historically considered in the debate of the question ; as it is well known that all his misfortunes, from beginning to end, were clearly traceable to the effect of that accident which de feated the family hopes and deprived him of the stately and protracted Trismegistus, which is fully equal to J. P. K. And with these hints I leave the subject to further advisement be tween you and your wife, with such aid as I can get hereafter from a consultation in full council. We are here I mean Mrs. K. and myselfjust planted in our own home quite a comfort able one, and I add, especially for your edification, with an abundance of room in it for a friend which insinuation I hope you will turn some day to our mutual benefit. ELLIOTT S MILLS, June 1G, 1853. MY DEAR BRYAN : Upon opening the parcel there was your letter of the 8th with a very pleasant announcement of our boy, and with it the boy himself "in little," as Hamlet says a most delicious, juicy, Bryan pulp, lustrous with all the delightful ra diance of infancy. A truly exquisite gem of the ebony and to paz compound, so life-like and so jocund that it set Mrs. K. and her sister and a bevy of young girls here, when I opened it to them, into a laugh of merry rapture. Accept, my dear Bryan, our combined, multitudinous, and tumultuary, for that was the ruling sentiment of the moment acknowledg ments of the pleasure of this missive. It is a fac-simile that 210 LIFE OF JOHN I\ KENNEDY. speaks for itself, true as the sun ; in fact, no counterfeit or copy at all, but actual emanations from the boy all and sundry, little radiating atoms emitted from his own surface, borrowing a phantasmic and spectral other self, z anoaoraai^ as the metaphysical Fathers of the Church call it being an actual eon, or real emanation of the identical J. P. K. B. himself, as au thentic as the figure called up by the Witch of Endor, and a thousand times more true as a revelation, than John C. Cal- houn s performance on Tallmadge s guitar, or those exhibitions of the great Nullifico in campanology wherein he made a dent in the breakfast-table with a dinner bell. I hold this daguer reotype, therefore, as an alter ego sent me by my vicarious pro geny, only second in value to the consummate flower itself. In deed, I don t know, considering the whooping-cough, croups, measles, mumps, and tooth cuttings, with their necessary con comitants of midnight squalls and mid-day squeals ; the watch- ings, wearyings, and monotonous drumming of forced lullabies j the squills, lotions, pills and potions, and all that congrega ted series of fretful and peevish categorical contingencies of human progress in its first attempts to earn a diploma as a citizen of the United States, and the inevitable prescription of pounds of prevention to secure an exemption from the many more pounds of cure, before a boy is fairly guaranteed as a safe commodity and has won a title to breeches I say, consider ing all these things with due and proper amplification and my in experience in them, and fortunate or unfortunate (for that is a debatable point) immunity hitherto in regard to them I say again, considering all this, it admits good scope for argument whether I, with this aTroaa-aaig on plated steel, have not the best of the boy for at least the next five years. There he is, a mild, decorous, genial and unchangeable little beauty, lying qui etly, without noise, ailment or ache, upon the centre-table, a veritable cynosure for neighboring eyes, untouched by the frail ties of human condition whilst you have him in Carolina, in per petual metamorphosis, sprawling, floundering, and topsy-turvy- ing his bodv and limbs into similitudes of all the letters of the HIS GODSON. 211 alphabet, and demonstrating all sorts of natural problems in a succession of figures and angles on the carpet, that would make old Euclid think he had but half-way come to the bottom of his geometry. These antics, my dear Bryan, I have no doubt you have found already, if not, you will find it have topics of study in them which will mate and perhaps overmatch all the philosophy you can muster. Mrs. B. will think otherwise and will a thousand times make me welcome to my phantasm, while she has the ducking, rinsing, drying and curling of the young cupid as the pleasantest of her daily cares or rather, not to offend her by a word so inappropriate to her perception of it her daily delights. Well, God speed you and her in this new vocation, and bring the little transaction to the highest round of honor, glory and happiness both in this world and the next ! BALTIMORE, March 10, 1859. MY DEAR NAMESAKE AND GODSON: What are you about ? Have you read Sandford and Merton, and wouldn t you like to pitch into Robinson Crusoe ? If you say yes, let me know it by letter, and I will send you Robinson Crusoe by the first opportunity. Is not that a hard word for a boy of your age to swallow? Do you believe that the Pope of Rome wouldn t let me write to you ? He looked very hard at me one day out of the corner of his left eye, but I can t say he intended by that to let me understand that he thought you a dangerous person, although I am quite sure if he had seen your letter to me, he would have been anxious to know some thing about you. He is very fond of little Jews, and takes great care that neither their fathers nor godfathers shall write to them, if he can help it. But as he does not know that you are a Jew, which I should tell him in a moment, if he were to ask me, you are NOT I think he will let you alone. When you grow up to be a man you can go to Rome yourself and look into this business. What I want to know particularly is, how do you get on with your studies ? Can you write without the 212 .LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. lines ruled on your paper, and when you do write, do you put your left cheek on the table and shut one eye and put your tongue out of your mouth ? If you do these things, it is a proof that you will want lines to keep you straight. But never mind that, you will get all right by and by, and so, I beg you, to go on reading and writing and ciphering like fun, until you can do all these as well as your father. I hope some of these days your father and mother will bring you and the other boys and girls here to Maryland to see us, and help to get the Whig party on its legs once more. You can make a speech which I know will have a good effect in our family, and I advise you now to write one out as soon as pos sible, and send it to me that I may show it to Mrs. Kennedy and her sister, and keep them posted up. I have no room now to write you more, but will send you Robinson Crusoe, and Sandford and Merton, too, if you say the word. You must give our love to mamma and pa, and all the girls and boys of the family. Your loving godfather, JOHN P. KENNEDY. BALTIMORE, May 16, 1859. To JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY BRYAN, ESQ. MY DEAR GODSON : I dare say you think I am a very slow coach for being so long in bringing you the books I promised you last winter. And I think I am. But if I was your age, and had nothing more to do than you have, I should drive faster and take things along quicker. Here I have had Robinson Crusoe and Sandford and Merton ready for you more than a month, and have not sent them yet. I ought to be ashamed of myself; and so I would be if I hadn t the rheumatism, and so cannot walk about town to get the express to carry the books to you. But now I am determined they shall go very soon, and therefore I write you this to keep a sharp look-out. I have no doubt that they will come to you some morning before you are up, and will catch you napping. When you get them you must first look at the pictures, and LETTERS TO HIS GODSON". 213 then go manfully to work and read them straight through. You will find Tommy Merton and Harry Sandford two very nice boys ; and old Robinson Crusoe I want you to know very well, for he is a fine fellow and an old friend of mine ; so do you shake hands with him every morning. You must tell me, after you have read these books, what you think of them,which I hope you will do in a long letter. BALTIMORE, October 17, 1860. MY DEAR GODSON : You are a fine boy ; and as every body knows you are one, I think it is a great shame that I should have two of your letters on my table, one of them more than six months old, to answer at the same time. You wrote to me on the 3oth of March last, and I dare say have been scolding at me like fun all the time I haven t been an swering it. But as I judge from your sending the poppinachy (what did you put in that_y for after the /$? Did you suppose I could pronounce such a jaw-breaker ?) you intended to sig nify that you forgave me, and wanted to heap coals of fire on my head. Well, I gave the poppinachy to Mrs. Kennedy, and when she took it she asked me what it was, and I told her it was a poppinachy, which I did with a screw of my mouth, and she thought it a very strange sort of a name for such a sweet scented flower. But she took it and went right off last night to Miss Kate Pennington s wedding, which was a great affair, with lots of eating and drinking, and flounces and ruffles and hoops. I guess we had fun, and I as lame all the time as a crippled duck. The doctor has told me I must lie down and keep still for two months, and here I am beginning it to-day, feeling as if I was an old ship sent into dock for repairs. I tell you I don t like it. Your father, after he left poor George, who is going some of these days to be a commodore, and wears a sword now, with a gold band round his cap, went down to Richmond, and got to be a great man by going to church with the Prince and afterwards taking tea with the Duke of Newcastle. I tell you what, it isn t every boy who has a LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. father that touches elbows with boy kings and old dukes. I am glad you liked the pictures, and sorry you had the break- bone fever. Ain t the pictures real smashers? Those fel lows running races down hill and tumbling over each other, first-rate. Don t you see how they hurrah and dash on and send the other fellows head over heels into the pond ? Isn t that prime ? Tell your father to keep that little State of yours cool, and make her mind her eye and not be so waspish, or some of these fine days George will be coming round there in the Constitution and give her Jessy which means fits ; for next year George will belong to old Abe, and will have to cock his beaver and look as fine as a bantam if old Abe tells him to go down to Fort Moultrie and let fly, which George will do, you may depend, if he gets his dander up. Now I have told you all I have to say, except to give my love and Mrs. K. s to your mother and father, and Arthur and Rebecca, and all the rest of the clan. You must read your books, and learn to cipher, and study geography, and stand up to your lessons like a hero. Tell me all about that poppin- achy how they plant it, and when it blossoms, and every thing else, and then send me some of the seed. Your affectionate godfather, JOHN P. KENNEDY. PARIS, HOTEL DE WESTMINSTER,) 11 Rue de la Paix, Monday, November 12, 18GO. ) MY DEAR KENNY : I dare say you think I am no great shakes of a godfather when I don t write you a single line in reply to the kind messages you send me in your letters. 1 Well, I acknowledge the corn, and am entirely at your mercy. I wouldn t be surprised if you had come to the conclusion that I couldn t write. If that was true, what an excellent ex cuse it would give me for not doing it. But the fact is, my dear boy, I have grown to be a terrible delinquent in this matter of leaving undone the things I ought to do, although I LETTERS .TO HIS GODSOX. 215 have a pretty fair set-off against that sin in the improvement I have made in not doing so many things that I ought not to do. Such old fogies as your father and I grow more vigorous and virtuous, every clay in not doing, which is rather my forte just now, my real excuse for not writing. I will confess it confidentially to you, and you may tell it in the same confi dence to your father for I owe him half a dozen letters my real excuse is that until 1 had travelled over all Switzerland and one half of Germany I hadn t time enough to write more than one letter a month, and as that was not equal to one tenth of what I wanted to write, I gave up the business alto gether giving up the whole matter to Mrs. K., who has writ ten to you and to your mother two or three times since we left home. So now you have the whole case before you, and you must make up your verdict. I have always been greatly pleased with your letters, because in every one I see how steadily you go upward on the inclined plane of your educa tion, and ho w v noble your aspirations are towards an honorable fame. Excelsior Excelsior is the true word to wear upon your breast. Take your staff in your hand and push forward up the hill with a sturdy step. Drive onward till the sweat pours down your cheek wipe it away and go on. You have a grand prize waiting for you at the top if you get there and get there you will, if you step out and go ahead when the lazy or the light fellows with -you, sit down to enjoy the roadside. Sweat and muscle are sure to win the day. That is as old a truth as Horace, and much older. Qiii studet optatam cursu contingere metam, sudavit ct alsit et abstinuit vino. That is the recipe for making Washingtons and Hamiltons and Lin- coins. "Work while it is called day: for the time cometh when no man can work." Be very careful, my boy, also to remember while you give your heart to your studies, that there is no help for you so constantly at hand, so cheering and so certain to lift you up day by day to a better life, as the love of your Creator. Be- 216 LIFE OF JOHN T. KENNEDY. seech Him, on your knees, night and morning, to be your friend study his commandments as he has sent them to us by his Son, and faithfully obey them and you may be sure you will want no good thing. Let me hear from you when you receive this. I hope you have every thing comfortable around you. If any thing is wanting let me know. I shall feel very proud to learn that you are at the head of your class and able to keep the lead. We have had a very pleasant summer in wandering through the Alps, in which my health has been greatly strengthened. Mrs. K. is at present just recovering from a severe illness that has confined her to her bed for a fortnight. We think it is well over, and that she will soon be out again. We all talk of you very often and with great inter est in your welfare. The ladies send their love, and desire you to remember them most kindly to your father and mother. In all of which I unite, and am very affectionately, Your godfather, JOHN. P. KENNEDY. SECRETARY OF THE NAVY. 217 CHAPTER X. Mr. Kennedy appointed Secretary of the Navy; Enters upon his duties ; Naval Expeditions ; Dr. Kane s search for Sir John Frank lin ; Ericsson s trial trip ; Irving s Visit ; Departure from Wash ington ; Death of Mrs. Fillmore ; Visit to Green way Court ; Jour ney to the Southwest. FROM the time Mr. Fillmore succeeded General Taylor in the Presidential office, the desire and intention of in viting Mr. Kennedy to become a member of the Cabinet, were frequently announced. Indeed, these reports found their way into the newspapers, and his appointment, first as Secretary of the Interior, and then of the Navy, were so confidently stated that he was subjected to some official visits, in anticipation, which would have been annoying to a man not inclined to take a humorous view of such attentions. His friends, too, offered premature congratulations ; and were somewhat puz zled that no definite information on the subject had reached him. At one time it seemed as if political animosity inter fered with the avowed purpose of the Executive. , " I care very little for the appointment," he writes in the autumn of 1850 ; "but I am not willing to be disparaged by men who are working against me in private. I suspect the Baltimore faction, who have always been enemies of mine, of interfering on this occasion." It appeared in the sequel, that the Cabinet were a unit in their desire to associate Mr. Ken nedy with their councils, and that Mr. Webster, especially, was urgent therefor ; the delay seems to have arisen from the fact that it had been decided to await Mr. Graham^s voluntary resignation. Meanwhile, Mr. Kennedy was occupied with his 10 218 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. private affairs ; and when the news of his appointment reached him at midsummer, while at Saratoga, it took him by surprise. The promptness with which he entered upon his new duties, and the facility with which he discharged them, is alike char acteristic of the man and the country. Under date of August 26th, 1850, he writes : " My determination to accept the ap pointment if offered, I have adopted,- after a conversation with Mr. Gray and the family, who, I find, are warmly bent upon my doing so, if occasion should offer. Mr. Gray not only makes no objection, but simply entreats that I will not refuse." This deference to the wishes of his household is accordant with the uniform precedence he gave to domestic over per sonal considerations ; home was the first, as it was the most precious sphere of his life ; and he had hesitated, in this in stance, as to the expediency of assuming official duties, be cause of the precarious health of Mr. Gray. The following correspondence and extracts from his diary, relate all the circumstances of his entrance upon new official duties : Saratoga, July 20, 1852. After breakfast the maid brings me the following letter : EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, ) WASHINGTON, July 16th, 1852. j HON. JOHN P. KENNEDY. MY DEAR SIR : Mr. Graham has tendered his resignation of the office of Secretary of the Navy, and I take great pleasure in offering the place to you. In soliciting your acceptance of this I feel that I am not only acting in accordance with my own judgment and wishes, but those of my entire Cabinet, and, if I may credit the pul}lic press, which has anticipated me on this subject, of the whole country. Mr. Graham s desire to be released at the earliest possible moment, induces me to ask a response at your earliest convenience. I am, your ob t serv t, MlLLARD FlLLMORE. I immediately wrote, the following answer. SEC11KTARY OF THE NAVY. 219 SARATOGA SPRINGS, July 20th, 1852. TO MlLLARD FlLLMORE, President of the United States. MY DEAR SIR : Your letter of the i6th has only reached me this morning, having followed me from Baltimore to this place, where I have been with my family for some days past. I need not assure you, my dear sir, with what sincere pleas ure I receive this proof of your good opinion, coming to me, as it does, not only from a Chief Magistrate in whose adminis tration the country has found so much to admire and applaud, but also from a friend with whose public and private life I have had so many cherished associations. I very cordially accept the honor you have tendered me in the offer of the control of the Navy Department, and will ap ply myself to the discharge of its duties with an earnest pur pose to merit the confidence you have reposed in me. As soon as I can make the arrangements necessary to my journey, which may detain me here till day after to-morrow, I shall repair to Washington to make my respects in person, and to relieve Mr. Graham from his present position. By Sun day or Monday next, at the latest, I hope to be with you. In the mean time, I beg to repeat my grateful acknowledgments of your kind consideration, and to express my gratification at the unanimity with which the Cabinet has approved your selec tion ; and to assure you, my dear sir, of the respect and esteem with which I am, very truly, Your obd t serv t, JOHN P. KENNEDY. SARATOGA SPRINGS, July 20, 1852. MRS. NANCY C. KENNEDY. My DEAR MOTHER : I know you will like to hear that after all the reports and denials of the papers, which have been very full of puffs of my many hitherto undiscovered virtues I have received Mr. Fillmore s invitation to take the control of the Navy Department, and that I have accepted it. I am not 220 LIFE OF JOHN r. KENNEDY. much versed in this Executive business, but I suppose I shall learn that as I have done other things, and get on without much trouble. I have the consolation to know that I shall not be required to serve more than some seven or eight months, when a new administration will call on new men. I found the papers so peremptory on the subject in New York, where we staid two days on our way hither, that I had official calls tendered to me by officers in command, and was obliged to beg them to reserve their ceremonies for those bet ter entitled, for I had received no notice from any quarter which could leave me reason to believe tMt the President contemplated offering me a seat in the Cabinet. I ought to except a communication in Baltimore from a friend, who I thought was guessing, although it turns out that he spoke cor rectly. The result of it all is that I must get to Washington immediately and go to work, which I shall do as soon as I can." Washington, July 24, 1852. Call on the President at eight; find Mrs. Fillmore and her daughter in the drawing-room. Mr. Fillmore comes in, and, after a very kind reception, tells me that he is holding a Cabinet Council, and says I may as well begin at once and join them in consultation. I go with him to the Council Chamber, where I find Conrad, the Secreta ry of War, Stuart of the Interior, and Postmaster-General Hall. Presently Crittenden came in. The subject is the difficulty with England on the subject of the Fisheries. The Ministry in England have sent several armed vessels to the coast of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland with orders to seize all Amer ican fishing vessels which may be found fishing within the limits interdicted by the treaty of 1818. They have recently seized some two or three in the Bay of Fundy, which has caused immense excitement in New England. Mason and others, opposed to the Administration, in the Senate,have made violent speeches, treating the seizures as a great outrage, and demand ing that the Government send cruisers there to protect our fishermen. Mr. Webster, who is in Boston, has issued a kind of manifesto on the subject, warning our fishermen against any SECRETARY OF THE NAVY. 221 real infringement of the treaty, and rather intimating a doubt as to the lawfulness of the seizure. Crampton, the British Minister, has followed him to Boston with a view to some dis cussion of the subject. Mr. W. has asked the President by telegraph this evening whether he shall give notice to the Colonial authorities to warn them against any seizures. This despatch is the subject of debate. It is decided that this Gov ernment should not discuss the question with the Colonial Government, but with the British Minister ; and it is thought Mr. W. ought to come here to Washington and consult with the President. We read Lord Aberdeen s letter to Mr. Ever ett, in 1845, in which the Ministry consent to a relaxation of the restrictions of the treaty so far as to allow our people to fish in the Bay of Fundy. The English interpretation of the treaty seems to be clearly correct : and all that we can com plain of is the rather brusque manner in which they have so suddenly determined to enforce their restrictions. We, how ever, have no authentic statement of facts, and all judgment may be now premature. July 26, 1852. Mr. Graham, my predecessor, calls, and we have a full and confidential conference on the affairs of the Navy Department. July 27, 1852. At eleven the President sends for me, to say that it has become necessary to send a ship of war to the fishing grounds to examine into the subjects of complaint and excitement there, and wants to know how soon I can have one. I tell him the steamer Mississippi, Captain McCluney, is now ready for sea in New York. She is prepared for the Japan Expedition. He directs me to telegraph McCluney to have the ship in sailing trim and ready for orders. He tells me that it is necessary to prepare a letter of instructions for the officer who is to take charge of the cruise, in which he desires me to make a review of the fishing question, and the respective rights of England and the United States under the treaties of 1783 and 1818, and then to give such instructions as may be ne cessary to protect our people against illegal seizure by the British 222 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. force, and also to warn such of our people as may have viola ted the treaty of 1818 against the consequences of their con duct. The President suggests that Commodore Perry, who is commander of the Japan squadron, had better be sent in the Mississippi. I send on orders by telegraph to have the ship ready. See Perry, and advise him that he will have to set out perhaps to-morrow. Then to my office to write the instruc tions, which I find very difficult to do, amidst the thousand in terruptions I have there. I throw together the outlines. I shut myself up and write till twelve. With an exhausted brain and a disturbed nervous system, I go to bed, and get but little sleep j my head with a dull weight in it and dream of the trea ties, Lord Aberdeen, and the codfish." Mr. Fillmore s administration, in a calm and candid retro spect, must be recognized as having been guided by motives of genuine patriotism ; given proofs of real ability and use fulness, and, while his own character for probity and faithfulness has never been doubted, every member of his Cabinet was more or less a public favorite. Many important measures signalized their term of office ; among them the reduction of inland post age ; the establishment of an agricultural bureau ; the opening of commercial transit between the Mississippi and the Pacific ; the institution of marine and military hospitals ; the triumph of the non-intervention principle over the popular excitement in cident to the visit of Kossuth ; reform of the land laws ; the en actment of a moderate tariff; the extension of the Capitol and the introduction of water into Washington ; the initiation of tel egraphic communication, and several memorable and successful expeditions by the Navy of the United States. These great public benefits were well fitted to engage the sympathies and co-operation of Mr. Kennedy s liberal mind ; and with those, especially connected with or emanating from his own depart ment, his name will always be honorably identified. " Crittenden tells me," he writes, " that my debut in the Cabinet was quite brilliant, and quite gratifying to the Presi dent ; and that I might not have found in a whole year, a more SECRETARY OF THE NAVY. 223 delicate and difficult piece of business than was committed to me." Although he undertook his new duties at a season of the year and in a state of health which would have discouraged a less buoyant nature, he entered upon them with a zeal and in telligence which surprised even his most intimate friends. The old officers of the navy were astonished at his immediate recog nition of the need of certain reforms, especially in the medical department, which he, at once, advocated and carried out. His reports, correspondence, plans, attention to details, sym pathy with official enterprise ; his methodical industry and the care with which he made himself acquainted with ships, offi cers, claims, and every thing connected with the honor and util ity of the service, won him the confidence and respect, and, in many instances, the strong personal affection of the best men in the navy. His journal, at this time, indicates the greatest activity, and he notes, with obvious zest, his arrangements for the different exploring expeditions ; his conversations with the officers, his plans and purposes for the advancement of the ser vice, and his visits to the principal navy yards in the country. It is pleasant to observe the national pride and pleasure where with he engages in all this work. The expeditions either initia ted or carried out during his brief service as Secretary of the Navy, are those of Commodore Perry to Japan ; of Lieutenant Lynch to the interior of Africa, of Captain Ringold to the China Sea, and of the Water Witch to the La Platte. The outfit, man ning, and instructions were both liberal and sagacious, and the respective commanders warmly acknowledge their obligations to the Secretary for his scientific zeal as well as his official cour tesy. One of Ringold s ships was named for him ; and in no ting his visit to the little squadron before she sailed, he says : " his ship is in beautiful order, with the finest company of young officers the country can supply." Among Mr. Kennedy s let ters of this period is an elaborate and exact description of Cap tain Ericsson s ship and a strong plea in behalf of a fair trial of his new motive power ; an experiment which was tried, at last, 22-1 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. mainly through the patient intervention of the Secretary, who secured, in its behalf, the scientific endorsement of Professors Bache and Henry. He thus mentions a trial trip with a party of friends : Washington, Feb. 27, 1853. Meantime I told Ericsson to have the vessel ready on Thursday morning, the 24th, and that I would visit her with a party of friends. I accordingly di rected the Vixen to be ready at the navy yard at eleven, on Thursday, and I invited the President and the Cabinet, Mr. Pierce, who had recently arrived, the heads of my Bureau, and several officers of the navy. At the appointed hour we all met at the yard, and embarking on the Vixen, we ran down to Alexandria, and then got on board the caloric vessel. Captain Ericsson and his friends were on board. She is a very beautiful vessel, rigged as a brig, 1900 tons, and superbly fitted up for the accommodation of passengers. Her engine occupied one sixth of the deck. It was kept in motion all the time we were on board. Captain E. was very minute in his explanations. We had Mr. President Fillmore and his elect successor, Mr. Pierce, Captain E. and myself, and Mr. Everett, all riding together up and down on the piston, rather an amusing and rare inauguration of a new invention. Washington Irving and Thackeray were also with me at my invitation. Everybody was delighted with the beauty of the vessel and the operation of the engine. After some time spent in the survey, we returned to the saloon, where we had a sumptuous collation, beautifully served. An hour was spent here, and at near three o clock we re-embarked in the Vixen and returned to Washington." How fully occupied he was officially and socially is sug gested in this note to his father-in-law : NAVY DEPARTMENT, Jan. 25tli, 1853. To EDWARD GRAY, ESQ. MY DEAR GOOD FRIEND : I would have written sooner but for the constant dogging at my heels of the hosts who SECRETARY OF THE NAVY. 225 come for business, and the high-steam pressure of the young girls staying with us, to keep pace with them in the pursuit of what they call pleasure. Irving, too, is such a lion that I am kept at a gallop to overtake the engagements he puts upon me. On the whole, I am a hard driven man. We have dinners every day, and sometimes have to refuse two for the same day. Irving was invited to dine next Wednesday at the Post- Master General s ; the invitation came ten days ahead, and he has accepted, as he says, " if he is spared." Love to Mart. God bless you, my dear friend. J. P. KENNEDY. To Mr. Kennedy s warm personal interest in his enterprise, Dr. Kane owed the association of the Grinnell Expedition in search of Sir John Franklin, with government aid and author ity. By an order issued on the twenty-seventh of November, 1852, Dr. Kane was placed on special duty, and directed to re port to the Department. Ten men belonging to the navy were attached to his command under government pay ; ap paratus from the Medical Bureau, rations, and other requisites for the voyage, were selected ; and every facility given within the power of the Secretary to bestow. Dr. Kane s letters to Mr. Kennedy testify his grateful sense of this substantial aid and timely encouragement. Amid the lonely icebergs of the Arctic Sea the intrepid ex plorer was mindful of his friend, and Kennedy Channel pre serves his name on the charts ; while on a piece of jasper brought from the farthest point of his exploration, the father of Kane, after the latter s death, had an appropriate design carved and set in a ring, which he sent to Mr. Kennedy as a memorial of his son. But more distant associations sprung from this disin terested sympathy with the object of the Expedition. It was the cause of much pleasant intercourse with Lady Franklin and some of the lords of the Admiralty. The following letters belong to this period : 10* 226 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. HON. JOHN P. KENNEDY, Secretary of the Navy. MY DEAR SIR : If any thing can move our national body to co-operate with the scientific ends of our little expedition, it will be your eloquent exposition of its claims. * I am, faithfully, your servant, E. K. KANE. PHILADELPHIA, Dec, 9, 1852. BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, UNITED STATES, ) May 7, 1853. \ To LADY FRANKLIN. MY DEAR MADAM : I owe you an apology for this delay in acknowledging the receipt of your kind notes of the nth of February and 4th of March ; but I am sure you will excuse me when I tell you that the extreme pressure of my official business during the last month of Mr. Fillmore s administration, absolutely denied me the leisure necessary to so agreeable a duty ; and that ill health, since my resignation, has forbidden, until now, even the light application to my desk that would en able me to thank you for your attention. I am, after this long rest, restored to health, and happy to make amends for my in voluntary neglect. I duly received the document of the House of Commons, the communications of the Admiralty on the Arctic Expedition under the Command of Sir Edward Belcher, and sent the ad ditional copy to Dr. Kane. After this also came the very gratifying note from the Admiralty which you were so good as to transmit with your last letter, and the copies of Mr. Kenne dy s narrative of the second voyage of the Prince Albert, of which I sent the two directed to Mr. Grinnell to him in New York. Allow me, my dear madam, to repeat my thanks for thy last favor, which is most gratefully received. Mr. Grinnell s present expedition, I am sorry to tell you, is temporarily delayed by the illness of our excellent friend Dr. Kane, whose labors during the winter, extremely severe and of a nature to confine him too much to his study, have brought him an attack of inflammatory rheumatism, most inop- SECRETARY OF THE NAVY. 227 portunely just now. But I understand he is getting better, and Mr. Grinnell has hopes that his expedition which, in all other respects is entirely ready will be able to sail by the 2oth of this month. I fervently hope that it may not be longer detained, and that it will soon be actively engaged in the benevolent service to which it is destined. Great interest is felt through- O out this country in its departure, and it will be attended with the prayers of the nation for its success. May I beg you to present my respects to the gentlemen of the Admiralty for the liberal sentiment, in favor of Mr. Grin nell, conveyed in the letter you did me the honor to send to me, and to say that we have the most entire confidence that, when opportunity and means may serve, they will do full justice to the claims of Lieutenant De Haven in his Arctic discovery. It will always give me great pleasure to promote any wish you may have in reference to co-operation on this side of the Atlantic, and to receive from you a continuation of such favors as you have already done me. With sentiments of the highest respect, I am, my dear madam, Very truly, your ob t serv t, JOHN P. KENNEDY. BALTIMORE, May 17, 1853. HON. JOHN P. KENNEDY. MY DEAR MR. KENNEDY : After a cruel attack of inflam matory rheumatism, and three weeks of complete helplessness on my beam ends, I find myself ready to start. We leave next week. You will be glad to hear that my delay has not as yet inter fered with our piospects. My late letter from Lady Franklin speaks of Inglefield as not yet leaving, and the Baffin Bay ice as probably still fast. Your successor, Dobbin, has given me the kind assurance that he will not undo your work, an assurance which, while it showed very clearly that he was indisposed to add to it, at least enables Mr. Grinnell and myself to recognize you alone as the centre of obligation. In fact, locofoco as I am, I can not but feel that my little party belongs to another administra tion ; and I hope that you will not be bored if I show my rec- 228 LIFE OF JOHN P. KILXNEDY. ognition of your personal agency by a regular bulletin from the land of ice. My father was much mortified that you should have pass ed through our city without seeing us. Dr. Dunglison s intima tion of your presence arrived too late for a call. Would you do me the favor to loan me, for a few days, the "Reports on Grinnell Land." I am obliged to tax my father with the revision of my book, and he wants the notes as material for a chapter. My dislike to say good-by, has made me garrulous. May I, my dear sir, thank you for your many courtesies, and ask you to join me in the hope that a creditable return will enable me to do justice to your liberality. With my best regards to Mrs. Kennedy, I am, faithfully, your friend, E. K. KANE. HALL OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,} Dec. 17, 1852. F SIR : I have the honor to transmit to you, by direction of the American Philosophical Society, a copy of the following resolutions, which were passed unanimously at a meeting held this evening. I am, sir, with great respect, Your obed t, humble servant, R. DUNGLISON, Sec. of the Am. Phil. Society. Resolved, That the American Philosophical Society highly appreciates the enlightened zeal exhibited by the Hon. John P. Kennedy, Secretary of the Navy, in the furtherance of scientif ic inquiry, and in the declaration contained in his recent An nual Report, " that constant employment of ships and men, in the promotion of valuable public interests, whether in defence of the honor of our flag or the exploration of the field of dis covery and the opening of new channels of trade, or in the en larging of the boundaries of science, will, he is convinced, be recognized both by the government and the people, as the true and proper vocation of the Navy ; and as the means best calculated to nurse and strengthen the gallant devotion to duty, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY. 229 which is so essential to the character of accomplished officers and so indispensable to the effectiveness of the Naval organi zation. 7 Resolved, That while this Society experiences the deepest interest in the scientific and other advantages to be derived from the various exploratory expeditions that have been recently in stituted, and some of which are in progress, its sympathies are especially enlisted in the success of one emanating from the phi lanthropy and munificence of two individuals of our country, and which is to be under the guidance of an enterprising and ac complished member of this Society, already celebrated for his adventurous energy in the same cause, and whose services have been especially enlisted by the distinguished lady whose per severing efforts for the discovery of her lost husband, will trans mit her name to all times as that of a model of energetic and affectionate devotion ; and, that it has been a source of grati fication to this Society, that the Secretary of the Navy should have sanctioned, with so much promptness, the new expedition by granting the necessary permission to Dr. Kane to be on special service, as well as by the liberal and appropriate recom mendation to Congress, that should it become requisite in the field of operations to which he is destined "to provide him with means for the prosecution of scientific discovery beyond those which may be afforded by the Department, and the lib erality of the distinguished gentlemen who have assumed the charge of this expedition, that that body will respond to the suggestions of this necessity with a prompt appreciation and generous support of an undertaking so honorable to humanity, and so useful to the enlargement of liberal science." NAVY DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, Jan. 2, 1853. To R. DUNGLISON, ESQ. SIR : I have to ask the indulgence of the American Phi losophical Society for this delay in acknowledging the receipt of their resolutions passed on the i;th ult. I beg you to im- 230 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. pute it only to the constant occupation which my official duties impose upon me. It is with the most lively gratitude I receive this high tes timonial of the approbation with which that learned body has regarded my efforts in the administration of this Department towards " the furtherance of scientific inquiries," and their ap preciation of the opinion I have expressed in respect to the employment of the Navy in that service. It is most gratifying to me also to learn that the Society so fully concurs with me in the propriety of the co-operation of this Department in the new expedition to the Arctic circle which is about to set forth under the auspices of two of our country men, whose names are already honorably illustrated by their philanthropy and munificence. In affording Dr. Kane the opportunity to join that expedi tion, I feel that I have done no more than justice to the expec tations of the country in contributing to this interesting and brave enterprise the aid of a gentleman whose past labors in the same service have shown how appropriately the pursuit of practical science is graced and sustained by the intrepidity and perseverance of an accomplished naval officer. The Society of which he is a member, I hope will find upon his safe return from the voyage he is about to undertake, new motives to hon or his zeal in the exploration of the field of philosophical ob servation ; to applaud his generous industry, I would also add, and to celebrate his success in a noble and world-renowned un dertaking of humanity. I beg to assure the Society I shall lose no opportunity my station may afford me, to urge upon Congress the most liberal consideration of the cause in which he is engaged. In return ing my thanks for the very distinguished compliment I have re ceived from the Society in the resolutions with which they have honored me, allow me to add my acknowledgment of the kind ness with which you have communicated them, and believe me, with the highest consideration and respect, Your ob d t serv t, J. P. KENNEDY. SECRETARY OF THE NAVY. 231 Dr. Kane s, last word before sailing, was to ask the Secre tary of the Navy to send for them if no news came after a cer tain period had elapsed ; and the letter announcing his safety was hailed with delight ; he therein begged Mr. Kennedy to explain to Lady Franklin why he did not undertake another voyage in search of Sir John. When his funeral rites were celebrated at Baltimore, and the citizens convened to do hon or to his memory, Mr. Kennedy, in the course of an eloquent tribute, said : " A gentler spirit and a braver were never united in one bosom. He possessed the modest reserve of the stu dent with the ardent love of adventure and daring, which dis tinguished the most romantic sons of chivalry. With equal zeal and ability he pursued the attainment of science and the hardest toil of experience." His sympathy for the bereaved family found expression in the following letter : BALTIMORE, April 20, 1857. JUDGE KANF. MY DEAR SIR : I had hoped for the gratification of meet ing you on that sad occasion when I was called to unite in the public manifestation of. the grief of this city, upon the death of your admirable and gallant son. I had hoped to be able then to express to you personally my own profound sympathy with you in a bereavement which brought to you an anguish incom parably more acute than that which touched the heart of this community, and which their profuse public honors to the dead, could only serfe to increase by the painful excitement they produced. Now that these rites have been performed, and time has been allowed for reflection, I trust that the remembrance of them will bring solace to your sufferings and help to reconcile your household to a loss which, greatly as it may afflict your family circle, is not without many persuasions of resignation and content. It was the happy fortune of your son to achieve in youth a fame which the oldest and the best would be proud 232 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. to win, and which the noblest natures might envy even at the price at which it has been secured. For his personal endowments of mind and disposition, I have never found a man more worthy of esteem and friend ship than he ; for his public service, and the brave and devout spirit of duty in which it was rendered, through perils and hard ships the most appalling, he has scarcely an equal, and, cer tainly, no superior in the age in which he lived. A finer union of the gentle virtues of the heart with a na ture that never shrank before the terrors of the hardiest enter prise, and that was animated by the highest sense of humanity, I believe is not to be found in the lives of men whom the world has most delighted to honor. In recalling these traits of your heroic son, and in witness ing the eager and universal appreciation of them by the whole country, both in the honors accorded to his memory, and in the applause with which his career has been distinguished, you will, I hope, find the poignancy of your grief tempered and sub dued. As one who had some claim to be his friend, and which I am proud to know was earnestly recognized by him, I have thought myself entitled to approach you in your period of mourning, and. by suggesting what I have found to be a relief to my own feelings, pray you to receive it as some assuagement of your own. With kindest regards and condolence, I am, my dear sir, Very truly yours, JOHN P. KENNEDY. While fully occupied with the specific duties of his Depart ment, as usual, Mr. Kennedy s services were constantly in de mand beyond the range of his official obligations. Many pa pers emanating from the Executive were drafted by him and his aid was enlisted in the attempt to arrange an International Copyright Treaty. His social relations with the officers of the Navy, the Cabinet, members of Congress and foreign society SECRETARY OF TTIE NAVY. 233 at Washington, were now of the most agreeable nature. His house was their favorite resort. His old friend Washington Irving was his guest during the last weeks of his official career. During Mr. Irving s later years, his life was comparatively se cluded ; but, while collecting the materials for his : Life of Washington." he passed some time at the capital for that pur pose, happily domesticated with Mr. Kennedy s family. The charms of this home, where he was surrounded with affection ate sympathy and care, the eminent men and interesting wo men whom he met, and the constant evidences of personal re gard which our pioneer author then and there received, made this period of unwonted social excitement memorable as the last which his failing health permitted him to enjoy. He al ludes with much feeling, in some of his letters, to this genial experience, and gives us glimpses of a pleasant domestic in terior. On his arrival he wrote to Sunnyside, " I am most com fortably fixed at Mr. K. s ; Mrs. K. received me in her own frank and kind manner she could not treat me better even if she were a niece. I am in the midst of terrible dissipation ; I have three young belles in the house, on a visit ; they are very pretty, very amiable, very lady-like, and one of them very musi cal ; and I could make myself very happy at home with them, if Tom, Dick and Harry out of doors, would only leave me alone." " Saturday," he remarks in another letter, " I made a delightful excursion, with some of our household and some of the young folks of the President s family, down the Potomac, in a steamer, to Mount Vernon .;" he also describes levees, balls, dinner-parties, meetings with old friends and the making of new ones, with great relish ; " I should have a heart like a pebble," he adds, " if I was insensible to the very cordial treat ment I experience wherever I go. The only fault is that I am likely to be killed by kindness. I work all the morning in the State Department, and meet pleasant people at every turn." It is obvious, however, that the chief cause and source of Mr. Irving s enjoyment was the pleasant home which his friend s fam ily made for him ; and, whfin he returned to Sunnyside in the 231 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. Spring, he thus expressed his appreciation thereof: " I was real ly sad at heart, my dear Mrs. Kennedy, at parting with you and Mary K. at Washington. Indeed had not your establishment fallen to pieces around me, I hardly know -when I should have gotten away. I could almost have clung to the wreck, so long as there was a three-legged stool and a horn spoon to make shift with. You see what danger there is in domesticating me. I am sadly prone to take root where I find myself hap py. It was some consolation to me, in parting, that I had Mr. H. and the gentle Horse-Shoe for fellow-travellers. With out their company I should have been completely down hearted/ " The expedition to Japan so successfully executed by Com modore Perry," writes an officer of our navy, " the expedition to the Polar Sea by Dr. Kane, the surveying expedition of Ringold to the East Indies, the examination of the Paraguay waters by the Water Witch, were either inceptions of Mr. Ken nedy, or received from him such intelligent recognition and sup port, as to have made its impress not only on our own history, but upon that of all nations ; he stimulated and brought about a healthy activity and a useful employment of our vessels of war." The change in the political horizon, the advent of a new administration, and the close of his official career, are noted by Mr. Kennedy with his usual good-humor ; and he records, with true feeling, the bereavement which saddened the Presi dent s retirement. Baltimore, Nov. 2, 1852. The day of the Presidential elec tion. It begins with cloudy skies. I go and vote for Scott. Bad accounts of the defection of our friends. I still have some hope that it will turn out better than it promises. Upon the whole, although we may lose Maryland, we are confident of the large States; as we have good tidings from them. After tea Mr. Barney sent for me. I go to his house. Here I find Hubbard and Crittenden waiting the returns by telegraph. They have already got them from Baltimore, over SECRETARY OF THE NAVY. 4000 majority for Pierce ! ! A shocking beginning. General Scott and his son-in-law, Colonel Scott, call in, and sit the rest of the evening. More returns still more overwhelming. A Waterloo defeat a perfect hurricane that has upturned every thing. Poor Scott bears it well. We laugh at the extravagance of the vote against him. It is ludicrous to see how we are beaten. We have an oyster supper. The general eats heartily and brews us a pitcher of whiskey punch. He talks a great deal, in good-humor, and we make the best of our misfortunes. What a total defeat in our arithmetic ! Not one expectation has been realized. I stay till twelve, and having heard enough, for we have the returns from Buffalo, Detroit, Sandusky, from Vermont, from Boston, a great many others and all telling the same story of thorough overthrow. I go home to bed and sleep very soundly till morning. Nov. 3. Beautiful weather again. The papers full of the fragments of the whirlwind sweep of yesterday. Washington, Tuesday, March 8,1853. The officers of the Navy, some forty in number, call to make me their adieus. I appoint 1 1 o clock to introduce them to the new Secretary, Mr. Dobbin, who comes at half past eleven. I present the heads of Bureaus and the officers assembled, to him. I then accompa ny the officers to take leave of Mr. Fillmore at Willard s. Thence the whole corps comes to my house to make their re spects to Mrs. Kennedy. We have quite a painful leave-taking. They are very kind to me, and express great and, I have no doubt, honest regret. Irving is present, and says they are fine fellows. He is quite taken with the Navy Department. There is so much poetry, he says, in its material and incidents. I regard it as much the most interesting portion of the Execu tive Government. Mrs. Hare and my niece are present at this leave-taking. Mary is quite affected by it. She is a favorite with the officers. After this, it being one o clock, we call on Pres ident Pierce with the new secretary, and he introduces the corps to the President. Mr. Pierce has invited Mr. Fillmore and his family and the old Cabinet to dine with him to-morrow, 23 C) LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. to meet the new Cabinet, in exchange for Mr. Fillmore s hospitality to him. I tell Mr. Pierce to-day that I am obliged to go to Baltimore this afternoon, and cannot be back in time for his dinner ; " You imist come," he tells me, but I say it is impossible. " But your wife she will come ?" " Yes." Then he said, " Tell her I will take care of her. I will send my carriage for her, and Chief-Justice Gilchrist, of New Hamp shire, to conduct her. Remember to tell her that." " Cer tainly," I replied, " she will be greatly flattered by your kindness." I took my leave, and having all my officers still around me, we determined to call and make our respects to the new Secretary of War, which we did. After that I took my final leave of the corps, with a few kind words at the door of the War Department, then hurried on to the avenue. I was still followed, however, by some dozen officers, who accompanied me to the corner of F Street, opposite the Treasury, where I had business, and at that point, with a hearty God bless you, gentlemen ! we parted. Thus ends my official career. At three, having dined, Irving and Mrs. Hare get with me into the carriage Irving on his return to New York, Mrs. H. to go to Ellicott s Mills. Poor Irving is very sad at parting with the family, and sheds tears. But we are soon at the de- put, and then off for Baltimore by the train at half past three. We part with Mrs. Hare at the Relay House, and reach Balti more at half past five. Drive to our house in Calvert Street, where I have a room for Irving. Mr. Gray and Martha are expecting us. Mr. G. quite well again. We have a delightful evening at home. Washington, March 3oth, 1853. E and I determine to go down by the late train at seven o clock to see the family. We do so, and arrive at Willard s at nine. I address a note to Mr. Fillmore, and E and I are admitted. He and his son and daughter receive us with a sad welcome. They are calm, but in great distress. Mr. F talks very freely to us about this melancholy event. Mrs. F was greatly oppressed with DEATH OF MRS. FILLMORE. 237 water on the lungs. She suffered much pain until last night, when she grew easier. Her cough ceased, and they thought she was better, but the signs were more dangerous than the family supposed. She expired at nine o clock this morning, without pain, and perfectly composed. She was a kind, un pretending, good woman, full of the most sterling virtues greatly beloved in her family, and respected by everybody. There was no member of the late Cabinet in Washington but myself. Washington, March 31, 1853. How strange that the de parting President should be borne from the field of his high la bors with this heavy load of grief upon him, while the new President, Mr. Pierce, should arrive to assume the same du ties, under a similar affliction, in the loss of his son ! The Vice-President, too, Mr. King, is irrecoverably ill at this mo ment in Cuba his case utterly hopeless. It is a subject of curious note, that General Harrison came to the Presidency in 1840, died soon after the commencement of his term ; that the Vice-President, Tyler, succeeded to his place, and that he lost his wife during the term ; that the next Whig President, General Taylor, elected in 1848, presented the same succes sion of facts, a death, the elevation of the Vice-President, and now just at the close (instead of during the term), the death of his wife. One might almost gather from these inci dents a philosophy that embraces the idea of a sacrifice as the necessary price of power. If indeed, death be sacrifice. May it not be reward and a token of favor ?" During the following autumn, Mr. Kennedy thus describes an interesting excursion. Jefferson, Clarke Co., October, 1853. Irving being anx ious to visit Greenway Court, the old seat of Lord Fairfax, in Clarke County, Andrew and I proposed to set out with him on Monday. We accordingly took the railroad at one for Winches ter. Just before starting I found Governor Brown, the late Gov ernor of Florida, at the cL pot in Charlestown, and had some conversation with him on the present condition of the political 238 LIFE OF JOHN P. KEXXEDY. world. He is a good Whig, and was much amused with the perplexities of Mr. Pierce s administration in the affairs of their friends in New York. We reached Winchester at half past three. Hired a car riage, and were off at four, intending to go down to Hugh Neil- son s (Long Branch), in Clarke County, to spend the night. Our road was for the most part very good, being a plank road for eight miles and a turnpike for two more, to White Post. Thence to Neilson s was three miles over a country roacl. We reached his house between seven and eight. We found Mrs. Holkar the mother of Mrs. N. at home, Neilson and his wife were on a visit to a neighbor, and expected to be back about this time. They came in soon after us, and gave us a most hos pitable reception. Neilson s house is a fine, spacious and com fortable establishment, and we were most pleasantly disposed of for the night. After breakfast the next day (Tuesday, i8th Oct.), Neilson had his horses and a little barouche with a pair of ponies at the door, to take us into the neighborhood. I drove Irving in the barouche Andrew and Neilson went on horse back. The weather continued extremely fine ; the landscape of this region, especially at this season, is magnificent. We first drove over by Millwood, to the residence of the widow of Phil. Cooke about three miles. Here we saw her and her children. I brought away a volume of Cook s poems to show it to Irving. It belonged to Miss Page, who was there. I have determined to get it handsomely bound before I return it to her. Leaving Mrs. Cook s, Neilson proposed to guide Irving and myself to Greenway Court, which lies about three miles from Long Branch in the opposite direction from where we then were. Andrew, not wishing to make so long a ride, re turned to the house to wait for us at dinner. Neilson rode rapidly on a fine horse, and I drove as quickly after him. It was near two when we arrived at the old remnant of Lord Fair fax s dwelling. The road is rough and crooked, passing by the farm and dwelling of Bishop Meade. Greenway Court is about a mile from White Post. This latter point is now a lit- GKEEXWAY COURT. tie ham]et. It was, in Lord Fairfax s day, a cross-road, at which he had set up a bridge post, which being painted white, thus acquired its name. The people now keep up a more fin ished structure, somewhat resembling a tall pump, with a green ornament an arm, I think, upon the top of it, by way of mon ument of the old finger-post, which once directed the traveller to Green way Court. Greenway Court is now owned by Mr. Kennerly, the son of the clergyman who purchased it. We found here the broth er-in-law of Mr. Kennerly, Mr. Massie, who was very kind to us in showing us what we desired to see. The principal building, erected by Lord Fairfax, is still standing, though very much broken down and decayed. It is a long, one-storied structure, nearly one hundred feet in length, with a heavy, beetling porch, of which the floor is guarded by close panel-work instead of railing. It has dormer windows in the roof, two belfries, in one of which is the original. bell. There are earthen-ware vessels, made like bottles, for martens or swallows to make their nests in, built in each chimney three in each. These chimneys stand one in each gable. The roof in the rear falls within eight feet of the ground, thus giving double rooms through from the front ; and from what re mains of the masonry, as the building is of stone, it seems that it was stuccoed, laid off in squares, and filled with small bits of limestone, the composition now being very hard, and its appearance rather ornamental. This house is now a negro quarter. It was originally appropriated by Lord Fairfax to the entertainment of his guests. He did not live in it himself, preferring a small cabin of the simplest structure, made of clapboards, as Mr. Massie told us, and not above twenty feet square, which stood immediately in front of the present brick dwelling-house, which the former Mr. Kennerly built about twenty years ago. This cabin stood some twenty or thirty yards from the old mansion with the belfries. There is a large grass-plot or court, around the buildings, on which is built many out-houses, for kitchens, offices and so forth, forming MO LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. part of the original establishment, now very much dilapida ted. Among these, in tolerable good preservation, is the old land-office in which Lord Fairfax transacted his business. There is also the old coach-house, which tradition says his lordship built around and over a superb English coach, which he imported from London and never used. Several fine old trees, evidently his cotemporaries, yet remain ; one of these, a majestic oak, under which the boyhood of Washington, who spent a great deal of his time here, was sheltered from the sun. A row of locusts, very old, and probably planted by Lord Fair fax, still shade the front of the old mansion. We could trace the foundation of the stone chimney to Fairfax s cabin ; and a growth of sweet brier yet remains, which it is said shaded the window of this little structure. The ruins of the cabin were removed by Mr. Kennedy when he built the brick mansion, all the rest of these relics of Lord Fairfax s establishment are left without any apparent effort at repair, to moulder away under the hand of time. Mr. Kennedy s servants some years ago, about ten, I think, in opening a quarry of limestone near the house, discovered a depository of gold, old pieces valued at about four hundred dollars, which was probably contained in a box which had rotted away, as an iron clasp was found with them. These were exchanged for modern money in Alexandria, and a portion of the proceeds distributed among the negroes who had found them, as Mr. Massie told us, and gave rise to some ludicrous exhibitions of finery. Mr. Massie showed us one of these pieces. It was a good deal abraded, and appeared to be a very old coin, worth, I should think from its weight, about six dollars. It had a shield with royal quarterings on one side, and a cross, apparently in a rose, on the other. It was too much obliterated to enable us to make out any inscription. Irving thought it might be a rose noble. Mr. M. also showed us a snuff-box of mother-of-pearl, bound with silver, which was carried by Lord Fairfax." It is characteristic of Mr.. Kennedy s social sympathies and fealty, that his interest in and communion with those NOVELS. brought into intimate contact by offic al relations, continued long after the latter had ceased ; they often induced permanent friendships. Thus he noted the fortunes of the naval officers and corresponded with them, in some instances, to the end of his life. " I am greatly disturbed," he writes, " to hear that Commander Ringold, of the North Pacific Squadron, is com ing home in a state of mental aberration. We have a rumor that he has had a fever at Hong Kong." He wrote a letter from Nice to an officer on certain proposed reforms, which was deemed so important that it was printed for circulation. His first visit to Washington, -as we have seen, after his retire ment, was to condole with Mr. Fillmore on a sudden domestic bereavement ; and he continued on intimate terms with the Ex-President to the last. They consulted, by letter, on pub lic affairs both when at home and abroad. " I am gratified to learn," writes Mr. Fillmore from Buffalo, " that Mr. Irving is restored to health, and that you are mutually in the enjoy ment of each other s society. Your circle must now be com plete, and it is difficult for me to imagine any thing more invit ing. How happy should I be if I could drop in and pass an evening in listening to your conversation !" In the spring of 1854 the long-purposed journey to the Southwest was made by the Ex-President, Mr. Kennedy, and other friends. They were everywhere greeted with cordiality ; and the tour was a long political ovation. In all the princi pal cities, and especially at Harrisburgh, Pittsburgh, Dayton, Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio, Madison, Louisville, Nash ville, Macon, Savannah and Charleston, their reception was enthusiastic ; dinners, speeches, and expeditions to view what ever scene of interest the country afforded, were the order of the day. Mr. Kennedy gained much useful local informa tion during this tour ; and carefully noted the results of his observations, and the salient points of his experience. He ad dressed large audiences at every place where they sojourned. The following letters refer to their excursion : ii 24:2 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. LEXINGTON, KY, March 13tli, 18J4. MY DEAR E.: The oratory, so long pent up, has broken out. Here we are in all the noise and confusion which are known to be so serviceable to politicians and so distressing to simple-minded and quiet-loving secretaries. We left Frankfort at half after nine, on the loveliest of Spring mornings, and ar- ived here at a little after eleven twenty-six miles. We had a beautiful, peaceful, and unsuspecting ride. The country was in sunshiny repose, growing green as fast as it could; and inno cent young frogs were tuning their spring-tide flageolets in the swamps. Nature was decidedly pastoral. The country was rich and enchanting. A few handsome seats showed we were approaching an old town. We were already in the depot of Lexington boom ! went a gun, and we saw a set of commoners hurrahing and tossing up their caps. BATTLE HOUSE, MOBILE, April 11, 1854. MY DEAR E. : I was summoned immediately after I had sealed my letter, to attend M to the august ceremonies of the Combellian and Decaillon Society, of which, it seems, though I did not know it till then, I was to be initiated a mem ber as well as himself. We were conducted with much mys tery into a silent part of the town, and we walked in the clear moonlight, the only moving beings to be seen. We were con ducted by two of the brotherhood, and only spoke to each other in whispers. We were taken to the den up a staircase, pitch dark, and then all the rest is a secret. We are members of the ancient mystical order of the Combellians, which are only known here by certain grotesque ceremonies and inde scribable masquerades on the New Year s eve, when the public see the figures but know nothing of the men. The illustrious X and I are fully installed in the First Degree, and are not permitted to tell you any more about it. We had an hour s reception at Odd Fellows Hall. I was struck with one man s (a countryman s) admiration of the Hon- VISIT TO THE SOUTHWEST. 243 ored Guest. He shook hands with him and said very gravely, " that s lively arid lovely. I like your face it is kind, feeling and touching ;" and then he was introduced to me, and said, " lively and lovely," which I take it he considers to be a particu larly polite form of salutation. BALTIMORE, June 4, 1854. To HON. R. C. WINTHROP. My DEAR WINTHROP : It is three weeks to-day since I got home from my Southern tour with the honorable and particu larly honored X.* Here are three letters of yours to be ac knowledged, ist, one to me, which came here soon after I left Baltimore ; one to Mrs. K., written before I got back, and which was received by her during her illness, and the last of the 220! of May, on yellow paper, which reached me in due course of mail. I am particular in stating my obligations numerically, because your case is an example of many, and comes into the category of the causing causes which have piled upon my table in a monstrous accumulation of things "to be done," that has frightened me, first, into incapable apathy, and then, as reason revived, into heroic defiance, in the paroxysms of which I have taken my hat and cane, for six mornings successively, and walked out of my library at ten o clock, whistling and twirling my stick as I went down stairs, with such a jaunty swagger as to make the family think I was quite happy. " I will not write a line to-day," said I on each morning, " for any living man or woman, not even for Winthrop ;" and I didn t. I have circumscribed this heroism within the term of the last six days, because they were the only writable days I have had, the previous fifteen having been exclusively devoted to the reaction. Seventy-five days of constant propulsion by steam ; one hun dred and ten collations ; thirty-four dinners nineteen balls ; one hundred and sixty-one committee-men, seven thousand bou quets three thousand six hundred and forty volunteer infantry ; * Ex-President Fillmore. LIFE OF JOHN T. KENNEDY. twenty-six bands of music ; twenty-three salutes of artillery in full complement of guns ; with a vast number of attempts at the same performance on single instruments and several times on six-barrelled revolvers ; thirty-nine orations in reply to set en counters by mayors and councils, and forty-after dinner effu sions in response to toasts ; eighteen progresses in barouches and six white horses ; a like number with four bays with flags eight inches square stuck in their throat stalls j twenty two excursions to see the peculiar wonders of peculiar neighborhoods ; a limit ed quantity of miscellaneous kissing, with a decorous though rather ungracious struggle to prevent its extension ; one tre mendous, overwhelming, unique and unrepeatable salutation by twenty-six steam-whistles in full, consentaneous ejaculation from twenty-six locomotives covered with flowers ; and one thousand other assaults upon my nervous system during the two months and a half of rotary progression in the tour. You will per ceive, in this hasty summing up of excitements, how inevitable and how absolute must have been the reaction. I went tc work at it in good earnest, and slept out full fifteen days and nights, my waking hours being but an equivocal somnambu lism even more helpless than sleep. Then came the six days of normal activity, with that basket of appeals to duty upon which I turned my back so cavalierly, and now, as every body is at church, I take heart of grace to look at what I have to do. We have had a grand time down among the magnolias and rjalmettoes, and every thing went so prosperously with us, that not a screw was loose in the whole circuit, with the single exception that when we reached Columbia, in South Carolina, on our homeward route, I got a telegram to say that Mrs. K was ill, and summoning me home ; upon which we came so quickly as to prevent me from receiving another message that she was better. You supposed it was Mr. Gray s illness. Mrs. K was prostrated by a nervous fever, which was quite serious for a few days, and which disabled her for three weeks. It was in that interval your letter reached her, and her condition would VISIT TO THE SOUTHWARD. 245 not allow her to write to you. Upon my arrival I found her nearly well again, though still weak, and she is not yet what she was before her attack. Our excursion northward, which we hoped to make, is at least postponed by her late illness ; and now, we have Mr. Gray so very feeble, for he is failing visibly from week to week, that any journey from home this summer is most uncertain. Unless he gets much stronger than he is, and I scarcely can expect it, we shall not vahture out of our own precinct. To add to my engagements, I am building a library, with some other additions, to our house in the country, and the workmen are two months behind their promise, and will keep me supervising them till July. So you see how it is as to the prospect of our meeting you and Mrs. W , unless you come this way and take the initiative upon yourself." 24:6 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. CHAPTER XL Mr. Kennedy s Fatlier-in-Law ; Life and Character of Edward Gray ; Visit to Europe. NO attempt to portray Mr. Kennedy s domestic environ ment and home, would be adequate, which omitted the venerable figure and magnetic presence of his father-in-law a man as remarkable for his ardent and sensitive feelings as for his probity and intelligence. Edward Gray combined, in a sin gular degree, a sagacious mind with an aesthetic temperament. He was energetic and wise in the management of affairs ; and, at the same time, delighted in art, literature and society. He loved to read poetry to his children, and music was his unfail ing resource and favorite recreation. A successful man of bus iness, he was keenly alive to the claims of humanity, and could not bear to witness suffering or hear of privation without in stantly seeking to relieve them. His charities were incessant, and he turned from industrial enterprise to revel in the compo sitions of Pergolese and Cherubini, or listen to the warbling of some fair neighbor, whose delight it was to minister to his love of music ; hospitable, frank, impulsive, generous and genial, he was honored and beloved as few men are, in social and domes tic life. Mr. Gray was born in the parish of Bovera, near Lon donderry, Ireland, July 16, 1776. His mother came of an old Welsh stock the Edwards family ; and his father was of an cient Irish descent, a clergyman whose memory is still held in love and reverence where he so long and faithfully ministered. While a mere lad, Edward Gray had become warmly interested in the American war ; he followed its course with deep sympa- EDWARD GRAY. 2iT thy for the colonists, and knew its heroes by heart. Determined to seek his fortune in the New World, soon after the inaugu ration of the Republic, he embarked for Philadelphia. One of his fondest and highest anticipations was to behold Wash ington, for whose character and career he cherished an en thusiastic admiration ; while his political sympathies were identified with the eminent founders of the Federal party. He used to relate, as a remarkable and auspicious coincidence, that he arrived at Philadelphia on a beautiful Sunday morning; and, on landing, walked up Chestnut Street in search of accom modations ; he was but eighteen years of age, and his entr e into the city of brotherly love, reminds us of Dr. Franklin s ; after a short walk, he saw a tall and singularly dignified man approach ing, and, when near enough to examine his features, felt con vinced he could be no other than General Washington ; to con firm his conjecture he followed, until the object of his reverent curiosity entered a house ; inquiring whose it was, of a passer by, he was answered " the President s." Nor was this all ; in the house where he engaged a lodging, he found Alexander Hamilton a temporary inmate, with whom he became intimate ly acquainted, and the commercial house where he was soon after engaged, happened to be that with which Washington transacted his private business ; so that, immediately upon reaching our shores, the ardent boy had seen and soon came to know personally the two great republican patriots and states men so long the objects of his juvenile idolatry. It was his duty every month, to take the General his bank-book; and Washington soon conceived a high regard for the bright and genial young clerk, and subsequently invited him to Mount Vernon. Mr. Gray, at an early age, established himself in Philadel phia ; for two years he was Mr. Girard s agent in Europe ; and, having largely engaged in the China trade, became a success ful merchant as well as a great favorite in society. The finan cial reverses incident to the war in Europe, and the capture of his largest and most richly-laden ship, by privateers, brought 248 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. on a great reverse of fortune; and Mr. Gray, with so many others, had to succumb to the tide of disaster. His personal popularity and his sanguine temper now became recuperative resources ; for his friends, including some of the most honored names in the city, united in the formation of a manufacturing company of which Mr. Gray was appointed the agent and factor. In 1812 he removed to Maryland, and a mill was erected un der his supervision, on the Patapsco, three leagues from Balti more. The adaptation of this region for industrial enterprise, had long before been recognized. In 1763, Joseph Ellicott and John Hugh Burgess, of Bucks County, Pa., purchased a mill there which had been erected by a Mr. Moore ; soon after, Mr. Ellicott sold out his share to his partner ; but, ten years later, he returned with his two brothers John and Andrew, who built the mills which still give their name to the post- vil lage and township in Howard and Baltimore counties, on the Patapsco. Numerous flouring mills and other manufacturing establishments were subsequently erected ; and the town now boasts a newspaper office, a bank, churches, schools and over a thousand inhabitants. The company s mill, of which Mr. Gray had charge, was destroyed by fire ; but, by his own energy and good judgment, he succeeded in re-build ing it on a larger scale and on his own account. For some years it was not very profitable; but, after the tariff of 1823, it became largely remunerative ; and enjoyed an exceptional reputation for the manufacture of a fabric for which there was constant demand. Thus prosperously occupied, Mr. Gray em bellished his grounds and improved his homestead, in the im mediate vicinity of the mill ; and yet secluded and rural enough to charm the eyes and enlist the pencils of English tourists, who found something in the scene at once picturesque ancj home-like. Here, this noble specimen of the Irish gentle man passed the greater part of the year ; his time divided be tween the methodical oversight of his employees, and the enjoy ment of a domestic and social life rarely equalled for its gen erous scope, its cordial sympathy, and its refined taste. EDWARD GRAY. 249 Of the wife of this estimable and interesting man, we gain a clear idea from Mr. Kennedy s reference to her death : "On the 28th day of June, 1845, Mrs. Gray, my wife s mother, died at our seat at Patapsco, of a most severe and protracted illness, which, for some months, had doomed her to a course of suffering such as I have seldom witnessed. Her body was consigned to Green Mount. Always meek, humble, gentle and patient, the trials of her long illness only brought forth those qualities into continual observation, and she met death almost as one transfigured and lifted out of this world to a better, made welcome to her as a reward for the virtue of her patience. She was unostentatiously pious, and died with the courage which the consciousness of a religious life and a long practised Christian faith usually give. Mr. Gray, now in his seventieth year, bears his loss, not without grief, but with the resignation of a sensible and good man. For the first month that followed he was greatly cast down, but has since begun to assume a more cheerful tone of spirits. His daughters watch and serve him, more like ministering an gels than children. They leave him nothing to desire but their happiness. God bless them for their filial piety !" The benevolence of Mr. Gray was habitual ; after his death many evidences were discovered of benefactions of which even his family knew nothing ; by his door, during the long months of his last illness, there sat a woman eager to serve, grateful and devoted, whom he had encountered, years before, in the cars, a poor slave girl, about to be sold and sent south ; he bought her and then gave her her freedom. His temperament was impressionable and impulsive ; easily moved to tears of sympathy or words of self-assertion, his heart rebounded ever in the direction of generous emotion. He had the sensibility of Goldsmith without his vanity ; all the warm, social instincts of his nation, with a good sense and prudence which, in practical matters, kept him wise and firm. He was fond of the drama, of literary companionship, and much given to hospitality. One evening, at least, in the week was devoted to music, and he n* 250 LIFE OF JOHN P. KEXXEDY. always succeeded in enlisting the best talent, amateur and pro fessional, on these occasions ; and found scope for his own in spiration in playing the violin. Blessed with an adequate for tune and the object of the most devoted affection to his daugh ters, his old age was singularly happy ; and although a martyr to asthma, his spirits rose at once during every respite from the obstinate malady ; and he became cheerful and ea/nest with all the freshness of feeling that belongs to a heart never hard ened or perverted by the world. When dying, he said to his daughters ; " Do as you like with your money ; but comfort the aged and educate the young" And this sentiment, so character istic of their father, they placed, as the most appropriate epi taph, on his tomb. A charming union of sensibility and will, of bonhomie and intelligence, is discernible in the features and expression of Mr. Gray; and it is interesting to observe the predominance of these qualities as they were modified by time ; a beautiful miniature taken about the period of his marriage, is replete with youthful glow and grace ; an oil painting executed when its subject was fifty years of age, has the same expression, mel lowed and benign ; and the last a likeness painted by a for eign artist, from an excellent photograph, with the aid of sug gestions from his daughters, is a noble representation of wise and kindly old age. Of the character and personal impression of the man, the off-hand notes of his son-in-law s journal give us the most au thentic glimpses: Thus he writes on Christmas day, 1843: " My good friend Mr. Gray, who is constantly heaping kind ness upon me, steps into my" library, this morning, where I am writing, and puts a check into my hand ; " a Christmas gift," he says : I thanked him most heartily, meaning more than I say, for I would not say to his face what I think of him the tenderest, lovingest, most considerate man, full of the finest impulses and most generous qualities I have ever found. God bless him and grant him many happy clays yet !" And again, on the sixth of February, 1848, he writes : " I EDWARD GRAY. 251 ought to say that my good father-in-law, some ten days ago, purchased a splendid copy of all Hogarth s pictures, in the very large folio volume, which he presented to me as a New Year s gift. It is a most acceptable addition to my library, and will be preseived by me in most grateful memory of the thousand acts of kindness which I am constantly receiving from this excellent man. I cannot repay him by any assidui ty of mine, a tithe of the benefactions I owe him." " I am busy in my study," says the journal, Jan. 29th, 1851. " Mr. Gray comes in to talk with me about his affairs, and to give me a written statement of their condition ; to apprise me, as he says, of these particulars for my guidance in case of his death, which he tells me must soon occur. He is extremely kind and affectionate and confiding in his intercourse with me ; and certainly the most calm, composed and cheerful man, in the contemplation of death, I have ever seen. And I have never met a man who had arrived at his time of life, whose character had remained so pure from the taint of selfishness. He is as gen erous, as self-sacrificing and as kindly in his feelings as in the best days of his manhood." Soon after the last date Mr. Gray s health began visibly to decline ; for years he was a con stant sufferer from asthma, which, at last, became complicated with more alarming symptoms ; yet he often rallied ; his te nacity of life was remarkable ; and in mind and heart he was clear and strong till within a few days of his death. During this long period of illness he was the object of incessant and tender filial devotion ; and Mr. Kennedy, from time to time, noted the phases of his long decline with affectionate solicitude. Thus, on the eleventh of July, 1854, at Patapsco, he writes : " Mr. Gray is very feeble, and does not come down stairs to day. His birth-day occurs on the sixteenth of this month, when he will be seventy-eight. I find he is strongly impressed with the idea or presentiment, that he will not live beyond that day. I would not be surprised if this strong feeling, and I be lieve wish, should operate upon his debilitated state of body so as to bring about the event." Yet he not only survived the LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY,, attack, but was not again so thoroughly prostrated until the following Spring having passed the winter, as usual, in Balti more, where on the sixth of April, Mr. Kennedy writes : " Poor Mr. Gray suffers shockingly with asthma. This has been a winter of agony to him. He can get but little sleep at night, the paroxysms of his disease constantly returning when he lies down. He is thus kept, during the greater part of the time, in his chair, and his moaning is heard sorrowfully all over the house. He prays fervently for release. I was struck with his mild, gentle, and resigned deportment. Natu rally of an irritable temperament, he seemed to have lost all restlessness, and to have brought himself into a patient and calm state of expectation of that close of life which wise men look to without alarm and even with complacent welcome." In September of the same year, he was not only alive but able to think and act with considerate purpose, for, on the twenty- second of that month, his son-in-law writes : " He sent for me on Sunday last, and had his little box of papers taken out. He showed me his will. It was sealed up in a packet. He asked me to take it, break the seal, and tell him if there was any thing I desired to have altered. I refused ; saying I had no suggestion to make, and if it suited him it was all that was necessary to look to." The partial estimate of kindred did no more than justice to Mr. Gray s noble and attractive qualities ; he was regarded in the same manner, though, of course, in a less degree, by friends and acquaintance. Mr. Gray," writes Washington Irving, is a capital specimen of the old Irish gentlemen- warm-hearted, benevolent, well-informed, and, like myself, very fond of music and pretty faces, so that our humors jump togeth er completely." In another letter from Baltimore, Jan. i;th, 1853, where he tarried awhile on his way to Washington, he de scribes to his niece the characteristic reception of his old friend : " I had to inquire my way to Kennedy s, or rather Mr. Gray s, as he shares the house of his father-in-law; the door was opened by Mr. G. s factotum and valley de sham Phil, an old EDWARD GRAY. 253 negro, who formed a great friendship for me at Saratoga last summer, and, I am told, rather values himself on our intimacy. The moment he recognized me, he seized me by the hand, with such exclamations of joy, that he brought out Mr. and then Miss Gray into the hall ; and then a scene took place worthy of forming a companion-piece to the Return of the Prod igal Son. In a moment I felt myself in my paternal home ; and ever since have been a favored child of the house. To be sure, there was no fatted calf killed ; but there was a glorious tea-table with broiled oysters and other accessories worthy of a traveller s appetite." In a letter to Mr. Gray, dated at Sunnyside, April 24th, 1853, after acknowledging a present of some fine hams, Mr. Irving writes : " I have celebrated my seventieth birth-day and passed that boundary beyond which a man lives by special privilege. Your example shows me, however, that a man may live on be yond that term, and retain his sensibilities alive to every thing noble and good and pleasant and beautiful ; and enjoy the so ciety of his friends and diffuse special happiness around him. On such conditions old age is lovable. I shall endeavor to follow your example." Writing to Mrs. Kennedy in April, 1853, Mr. Irving says, " It gives me sincere pleasure to hear that your father contin ues in his usual health. I trust that he has his musical even ings and his pet minstrels to play and sing for him. There will never be any wrinkles in his mind as long as he can enjoy music and have youth and beauty to administer to him." And when, in the autumn of the next year, his old friend began to fail, the same genial correspondent writes to Mr. Kennedy from Sunnyside : " I am concerned to learn that Mr. Gray s health has been feeble of late, and that he has had days of suffering and nights of prolonged nervous distress. Your account of his firm presentiment that he was to close his earthly career on his birth-day ; of his business arrangements for the event, and the calm serenity with which he awaited it, is really touch ing and beautiful. It only proves how worthy he is of length 254: LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. of days, for no one is so fitted to live as he who is well prepared to die. God send him many more years, with a body as free from pain as his mind is from evil and his heart from unkind- ness. He has every thing that should accompany old age * as honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, and he is an in stance of how lovable old age may render itself." All the details of the closing scenes of such a life have a pathetic charm and a gracious lesson ; they are given with all simplicity and truth, in the following extracts from Mr. Ken nedy s journal : Baltimore, Dec. 16, 1855. Warm, misty day. Mr. Gray continues as heretofore, very low, but without any actual sign of death. His mind is wholly gone, so that during a part of the day he does not know what he is saying. The constant attendance which he requires from his daughters, is making a sad inroad upon their health. They get very little rest in the twenty-four hours. Mr. G. tells Martha he wishes her to die with him, says he knows she will, and seems to take pleasure in the thought of it. I go to my office. After dinner sit a few moments with Mr. Gray, who continues in the same condition as for the last week. His mind at times and now the greater portion of his time is quite obscured and wandering. It was very clear day before yesterday for some hours. During these he sent for me, and gave me some very kind words. " God bless you, my good son-in-law ; an honorable gentleman ; as just a man as God is good." Here his voice failed him, and as I perceived that my presence was exciting him somewhat, I withdrew. It is not often that he is inclined to speak to any one but his daughters as it costs him an effort to say more than a few words. Baltimore, March 21, 1856. Here is Good Friday, a pleas ant day though a little damp. Lizzie at breakfast tells me her father is sinking. I go up to see him about 10 o clock. His breathing is short and oppressed, though apparently not painful. I speak to him, but he makes no recognition. His EDWARD GRAY. 255 eyes are shut, and he takes no notice of any one. I return to his chamber at 12. The moment I opened the door was his last, he had just parted with life so gently and calmly that it was scarcely distinguishable to those around his bed. All were in tears. I sat awhile looking at the serene features which I was accustomed to see so racked with pain. There he lay, blessed at last with a repose for which he has .never ceased to pray for years past. This is the end here of the habitation on earth of a brave, warm-hearted, generous and upright man, whose path in life he took care to strew with bounties to the poor and the weak, and to lighten with the gratitude of his friends for constant service rendered to them. Baltimore, March 23, 1856. I take a little sprig of haw thorn which Mr. Gray gave me ten years ago, with an injunc tion to keep it. and to place it on his breast at his death. I have had it locked up ever since. It was gathered from the grounds of his native dwelling-place in Ireland, and his fancy was to have it buried with him. It is a sprig of leaves and blossoms. I gave it to Martha, and this evening, I go to his chamber and arrange it on his breast. " The sight of your letter, just received," writes Mr. Irving to Mr. Kennedy, " with its black seal and edgings, gave me a severe shock, though I thought I was prepared for the event it communicated. The death of my most dear and valued friend Mr. Gray, is a relief to himself and to the affectionate hearts around him, who witnessed his prolonged sufferings ; but I, who have been out of hearing of his groans, can only remem ber him as he was in his genial moments the generous and kind-hearted centre of a loving circle, dispensing happiness around him. My intimacy with him, in recent years, had fully opened to me the varied excellence of his character and most heartily attached me to him. To be under his roof at Baltimore or at Ellicott s Mills, was to be in a constant state of quiet en joyment. Every thing that I saw in him and in those about him ; in his tastes, habits, modes of life ; in his domestic rela tions and chosen intimacies, continually struck upon some hap- LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. py chord in my own bosom, and put me in tune with the world and with human nature. I cannot expect, in my brief remnant of existence, to replace such a friend and such a domestic cir cle rallying round him ; but the remembrance will ever be most dear to me." The physical prostration incident to so long and anxious a vigil of love, added to the keenest filial grief, had so affected the health of his daughters, that the family physician advised an entire change of life and scene as the best means of recu peration. " Elizabeth and Martha," writes Mr. Kennedy (Bal timore, March 27, 1856), " are so wretchedly broken up by their long attendance upon their father s sick-bed, having been five months without ever having gone out of the front door, that I am advised by Buckler, to take them away from here as soon as I can. We have been talking over the matter to-day, and have concluded to make a short trip to Charleston and Savan nah, to return about the first of May, and, after that, to go to England and Ireland to spend the summer months, and get back here in October. The only difficulty I have in this is the inconvenience of leaving here during the Presidential can vass, in which I may be of service to Mr. Fillmore. If I can make arrangements to obviate this, I shall feel no hesitation in going." Accordingly, on the tenth of May, 1856, Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy and Miss Gray embarked on their first visit to Europe. The companion of their tour was a lovely young neigh bor, the child of Mr. Kennedy s oldest friend Miss Sophy Pennington, who accompanied him everywhere, like a daugh ter, and added the charm of beauty to the social attractions of the party. The early summer was passed in England, and their stay in London was rendered attractive by the acquaintance, hospital ity, and, in several instances, the friendship of prominent mem bers of the learned professions and men of political and literary eminence. Many old and not a few new friends enlivened the season for them ; Mr. Kennedy alludes warmly to the hospital ities and the companionship of the Bishop of Oxford, Deans VISIT TO EUROPE. 257 Milman and Trench, Professor Whewell, Lord Aberdeen, Ar thur Gordon, Mr. Grote, Miss Coutts, Sir H. Bulwer, Lord Houghton, Thackeray, Charles Kean, Sir Francis Beaufort, the Earl of Stanhope, the Duke of Argyle, the Earl of Elgin, Sir Henry and Lady Holland, and many others. At Lord Carlisle s, in Dublin, whom he had known so well in America, then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he had the pleasure of meet ing Sir Philip Crampton, the father of his old friend the British Minister at Washington ; and there also he saw some gallant army officers fresh from the Crimean war ; he made a delight ful tour in Ireland and visited Sir Richard Pakenham, with whom he had travelled in Canada, when that gentleman repre sented Great Britain in the United States. And, returning to England, he explored Stratford, Warwick, Leamington and Ox ford, and reached London again at midsummer ; here he found several of his countrymen and women with whom he had long been on terms of friendship ; and together they made excursions in the environs and enjoyed social reunions. Then his party made a trip through Germany to Switzerland, of which journey his account is complete and interesting, but the experience is one very familiar to continental tourists. They returned to England by the way of Holland, and lingered at Amsterdam, the Hague, Rotterdam and Antwerp, to examine Flemish art and the scenes of the memorable history of the Netherlands. An amusing occurrence is recorded in his journal during his visit to Sir Richard Pakenham : Coolure House, July 6, 1856. I have a curious incident this morning. The weather is cloudy and windy, and I am awake at what I suppose to be a very early hour, reckoning it about four. I hear a rapping at a door which I believe to be one leading out of the house down stairs. The raps are re peated at intervals with increasing vehemence. I think some out-of-door servant wishing to get in, has come so early that nobody in the house is awake ; more rapping : more still through half an hour. I wonder no one answers. I get up and look out at the window, but can see no one. Rapping 258 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. again, quite violent. I propose to myself to get up and go down stairs and let the man in, but reflect, it is no business of mine, so I lie still. Bang ! goes a gun, I jump up and run to the window, but see no one. Finally, growing insensible to rapping, I fall asleep thinking it must now be near eight o clock. Charles will be in presently to attend to me. The next I know is the entrance of Sir Richard and Charles into my room, with an anxious salutation what is the matter with me? Am I ill ? I am quite confounded with the stir of this accost. Sir Richard tells me it is ten o clock, that Charles came to my door at eight and found it locked, and that he rapped to waken me so long, without effect, that the family became alarmed ; that he, Sir Richard, tried to wake me by rapping, and then firing a gun ; and that as all had failed, they had spliced two ladders together and Charles had got in at my window quite a perilous adventure. I was utterly amazed ; it never oc curred to me that I was the subject of these efforts, supposing that my door was unlocked ; I had no consciousness of having locked it. It was another door to a dressing-room, which was an ante-chamber to where I slept, and the inner door being closed, I could not recognize the origin of the noise as being so near me. We have a laugh at this absurd termination of a fright. I dress rapidly, and get to breakfast somewhat before eleven, where I find Miss Pakenham kindly and anxiously waiting for me." Mr. Kennedy also briefly mentions two characteristic scenes of his familiar tour : Altorf, Aug, 1 2th, 1856. We see the two fountains from one to the other of which Tell shot the apple. On the foun tain near which the boy stood there is a statute of Tell and his son. While we are looking at this place a singular scene presents itself. There is a crowd of the inhabitants, mostly children and women, standing around the front of a large building, a man in a cloak quartered with black and yellow stands near the building, and at a short distance off, another in the same strange dress. A man decently clad is standing on VISIT TO EUROPE. 259 a stone block, with a large placard hung over his breast, on which is printed to word "etriigera" to us quite incompre hensible. The man s expression is one of great pain. We find that he has been convicted of cheating in a lottery, and is standing in disgrace before the town. While we are look ing at him, the officer in the cloak walks up to him and takes off the placard. The man immediately strips his jacket and shirt from the shoulders, and the officer gives him on the bare back, thirty stripes with a kind of birch broom, which apparently gave but little pain. The whipping is over in about a minute, and the man dresses himself and walks off. This is the high place of Altorf just where Tell defied Gesler. Paris, Sept. 5, 1856. I was amused yesterday in the Ca thedral of Notre Dame with a characteristic trait. There is a special altar and chapel to the Virgin in one of the angles of the Cathedral, where fifty little candles, offerings of devotees, were burning, several persons on their knees, and a number of chairs placed, fronting towards the shrine. Two gentlemen, English or American, had taken two of these chairs, and were sitting with their backs to the Virgin. An official in uniform approached them, and ordered them to rise, which they did. He then turned their chairs to front the image, saying " Mess ieurs, Prenez votres chaises comme Us sont. C est plus convena- ble" Of course his idea was that they were guilty of impolite ness in sitting with their backs to the Virgin. He could con ceive of it in no other way than that the Virgin was actually present, that the image was the Virgin" One of the first and dearest objects of the travellers was to visit the birth-place of Mr. Gray, of which the following de scription is recorded in Mr. Kennedy s journal : Newton, Limaraddy, June 27, 1856. We take the train to Newton Limaraddy, with a view to visit Mr. Gray s birth-place near Dungiven, on the river Roe. Mr. Haslett goes with us. Reach Newton at n, get a couple of jaunting cars, and set out for Dungiven, a beautiful road, and through a beautiful, well 260 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. cultivated country. We see Ben Bradagh, the mountain Mr. Gray t?lked so much about. It lies just upon our road, which follows the course of the Roe. It is a bald, steep hill, some five hundred feet high. About two miles from Dungiven is the old Presbyterian Church of Mr. Gray s father, where he was pastor ; within a quarter of a mile of it the house in which he lived and where Mr. Gray was born. It is now en larged into two stories and modernized. It was formerly a long, low, one-storied stone cottage, with thatched roof. It is the res idence of the present pastor, Mr. .Macgill, who with his wife receives us very kindly. The river Roe washes the foot of the old garden, now converted into lawn. The shrubbery remains, and particularly we notice the old hawthorn tree, of which we had heard so much. The situation is one of fine ru ral beauty, and the country around very pretty. The ladies are greatly affected by this visit, and a sad hour is spent here. We find some beggars near the gate and give them several shillings. We now set off to Dungiven, where we arrive in a short time, having passed some beautiful enclosed grounds belonging to a Mr. Ogilvy. Before going to Dungiven we drive to the house of the Misses Kyles, a mile back, where it seems Mr. Haslett had stopped on the way to advise them of our drive, and who, through him, invited us to lunch there. The father of the ladies was an old friend of Mr. Gray s, and member of his father s church. They give us a good re past with fine preserved plums, raspberries, beef, etc., and par ticularly good butter and cream, which abound through this country. Dungiven is a village with a long-winding street of thatched cottages, and an untenanted castle at the upper end, some beautiful old trees and a fine mountain view. Here the ladies propose to return for a day or two, to order some matters touching a memorial of their father in the old church, and to give something to the poor of the parish." The manner in which this act of filial piety was accomplish ed, we learn from a letter of the present pastor of the old church where Mr. Gray s father once ministered : VISIT TO EUROPE. 261 BOVERA MANSE, Near Londonderry, i Ireland, Sept. llth, 1856. DEAR MRS. KENNEDY : I now write to inform you that Mr. Kirk has completed the tablet and sent one of his workmen to erect it. We placed it on the left side of the pulpit, where it is visible to nearly all the congregation. It is exceedingly hand some and chaste, and the inscription very appropriate. On the Sabbath after its erection, I explained from the pulpit to the congregation, that it was erected to the memory of one of their late ministers, the Rev. Francis Gray, and also to his son, who, through life, cherished a fond attachment to the place of his birth. Many of the old members of the congregation have told me how distinctly they remember your late revered father. This tablet will tell their children s children that there was one noble heart, though far away, which clung to the spot where he was baptized and was first taught to worship the God of his fathers. " May we all mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace." Your family name is very dear to all the people in this neighborhood. May you and your sister be long spared to do good, and to be called blessed as your fathers have been. I am, very sincerely, yours, A. MACGILL. The following is the inscription on the tablet : "!N MEMOBIAM: TO EDWARD GRAY: Who died in the city of Baltimore, in the United States of America, on the twenty-first of March, 185 6, in the eightieth year of his age. He was a native of this parish, the son of the Rev. Francis Gray, who for forty years held the station of pastor of this congregation. He emigrated to America in his early youth, and through a long and prosperous career, crowned with the honor of a virtuous life, in which his benevolence and charities 262 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. kept pace with his success, his heart ever throbbed with fresh affection towards the persons and scenes which were associated in the memory of his childhood with this humble house of God. " As a tribute most appropriate to that affection, and as an expression of their own sympathy with its object, his two daugh ters, his only children, while on a visit from America to this spot, have caused this tablet to be erected on the ist of July, 1856." Mr. Kennedy and the ladies returned home in improved health ; and he thus sums up the programme of their excursion : Baltimore, Tuesday, October 21, 185^* I have been ab sent from home five months and ten d^ys. We arrived here last night. During this interval I have* seen a very interest ing portion of the Old World, and have had an opportunity to see many interesting objects in the cities and countries of Eu rope, and many interesting and eminent persons in England ; in regard to which latter country I have a most agreeable disappointment. I have found it a beautiful, cultivated and embellished land, full of generous, kind-hearted and hospitable people, enriched with the highest intellectual accomplishment, the noblest virtues, and the most liberal sentiment. I have no memory or association relating to England, Ireland and Scot land but such as fill me with respect and esteem, and the warmest regard for the people. Our travels may be described as a voyage to Liverpool in the finest ship of the ocean j from Liverpool to Chester and back ; to London a sojourn there of over three weeks, with excursions to Sandhurst, to Rich mond, to Albury and other places ; then to Shrewsbury, Bangor, Holyhood, Dublin, Londonderry, Dungiven, Ennis- killen to Mulligan, and Castle Pollard to Wicklow, to Kil- larny and back to Dublin ; then to London, to France by Dover and Calais, to Lisle, to Ghent, to Brussels, to Antwerp, to Cologne, then up the Rhine to Coblentz, to Mayence, to VISIT TO EUROPE. Frankfort, to Baden Baden, Strasbourg, Basle, Zurich, Lucerne, Interlaken, Thun, Berne, Frieburg, Avey, Martigny, Chamouni, Geneva, Lyons, Dijon to Paris ; to England again by Calais and Dover, to London, Windsor, Oxford, Cheltenham, Car lisle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Melrose, York, and so to Liverpool and back to the United States." LIFE OF JOHN T. KENNEDY. CHAPTER XII. Ill-Health ; Lameness ; Clieerf ul endurance thereof ; Literary Pro jects ; Notes for Essays ; Miscellaneous Writings ; Autograph Leaves ; Occasional Addresses ; Taste in Literature ; Advice to a Young Author ; Adieu to his Library ; Social Honoas. EXCEPT his immediate family none of Mr. Kennedy s intimate associates were aware how great and frequent were his physical sufferings. The cheerfulness of his temper and his self-abnegation, made him appear well at times when less buoyant and more querulous invalids would appeal to sympa thy or take refuge in morbid discontent. With a fine nervous organization he was never robust, and the least exposure or ir regularity brought on either feverish symptoms, debility, or lo cal pain ; while atmospheric changes induced attacks of eczema. Of the course, causes and character of this malady he kept notes that enabled him to draw up a singularly lucid statement, which has all the precision of a medical report ; this he did because the professional advice he received at home and abroad, indicated that the case was an obscure one ; and his remarks as to the effects of different mineral springs remind one of Montaigne s, in his continental tour, wherein the philosophical invalid and the cosmopolitan traveller are co- evident. For more than twenty years Mr. Kennedy was sub ject to attacks of this tormenting cutaneous disorder ; its worst effect was upon his eyes, which were often so weakened there by, that he was obliged to refrain, for weeks, from reading or writing. He bore this trial with heroic patience, and, as usual, made light of it in his correspondence ; " the foul fiend," he says in a letter to his uncle Phil, " has got hold of me. I am sore with a peeling soreness, like an onion, every day stripping ILL-HEALTH. 265 a coat and sometimes many coats, like the grave-digger in Hamlet." In addition to this occasional ailment, his lameness was a severe trial ; two falls had permanently injured the sci atic nerve, and besides the obstacle to walking, entailed visita tions of severe pain. When exempt therefrom, his spirits rose and his enjoyment of physical existence was intense ; and when hampered and secluded thereby, he kept complaint and de pression in abeyance, and treated his trials with determined good humor and playful defiance, as the following extracts from his letters illustrate : " My dear uncle, after a week of anti-lumbago discipline I begin to be somewhat easy ; lucky it was I suspended my trip to your region. The day I had appointed to set out was spent in great pain, and for some days after I was unable to move. By the aid of mustard, ros in, belladonna and I don t know what, laid on as plasters, I was at length tinkered in to convalescence, leaving a square of about eight inches over the lumbar region welted into a semi-blister and giving to the eye the impression of having been thrashed with a waffle-iron. These I presume may be considered as my certificates of admission into the Horn Gate of 50 ; let us see your back ; all right, walk in : when a man is passing that gate his friends must not expect him to be punctual to railroad appointments ; that is the moral." And at an earlier period, when on sick leave from Washington, he writes : " The good luck of the thing is that I thus get the privileges of home, which, even with the accompaniment of the physic, is so much better than the Capital without it. We are on the lookout for a pair of canvas-backs in return for your wild turkey. As the harvest is cut, garnered and thrashed, we may indulge in a little respite for social purposes. We are all here in a semi- salubrious state, that is, seasoning a somewhat meagre stock of health with as much grumbling as is calculated to render it spicy." During his convalescence from a more acute disorder, he thus writes : 12 266 LIFE OF JOHN T. KENNEDY. BALTIMORE, May 9, 1845. To THE HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP. MY DEAR WINTHROP : I can scarcely guide my pen now at the thirty-seventh day since I was assailed by what the doc tors consider a mild typhoid fever. I am exceedingly weak, though gaining something every day in the way of re-establish ment. I am tempted to this effort, however, by the desire I have to thank you for your letters, so long unanswered, and also to show you how far in the process of re-integration I have advanced. I have been truly, as the sailors say, reduced to bare poles, and being now in such a primordial state of mere frame-work, I have hopes, if there be any really good material extant for the making up of a new man, to be able to supply myself with a complete re-assortment of elements altogether more worthy of respect than the castings-off which my fever took for its own aliment. Don t be surprised, therefore, if you should see at this summer, a much more reputable image or phantasm of your friend than you have seen before. I am clearly a candidate for the best fashions and under less impediments than most men who are concerned for the repair of their tenements of clay. I have ridden out once, and mean to repeat the experiment to-day. My appetite is beginning to take a slight savor of that of the shark though, in this matter of eating, I am yet a man forbid. We shall get to the country in a fortnight, after which I go to my niece Annie s wedding, and then I hope, about the last days of June, to set out with Mrs. K. for New Bedford, to keep our appointment for the fourth of July, This may depend upon Mr. Gray s health, which, at present, is very bad, and may become critical. I hope otherwise, and count on seeing you as proposed. Remember me kindly to Grinnell and his family, and present Mrs. K. and myself, with the kindest regards, to your sister and Dr. Warren, to Miss Tappan and other good friends of your circle. Weak in hand but strong in all man ner of esteem, I am, my dear friend, truly yours, J. P. KENNEDY. LAMENESS. 267 In the following letter reference is made to the lameness before noted, as having increased ; thenceforth it interfered with active habits, and had a serious effect upon his general health : BALTIMORE, OCT. 23, 1860. To HENRY T. TUCKERMAN. MY DEAR TUCKERMAN : On passing through Philadelphia I stopped long enough to make a visit to Mr. Lippincott, to whom I gave directions to send you a copy of all my books, and I made an inscription to you on the fly leaf of " Swallow Barn," the first in the series. It is more than a month since I gave this order, and I hope they have long since reached you, as Mr. L. promised to send them to you without delay. I beg you to accept them as a remembrance of the pleasant hours we have spent together, and as a token of my regard, which I hope you will allow me an opportunity to testify to you in my own house, here in Baltimore, whenever your wanderings may bring you to this State. My lameness, which was painful enough when I was in New port, has so much increased as to attract the attention of my physician, who has ordered me into a state of rest, which prom ises to confine me to my study the greater part of the coining winter. This is one of the experiences of life, to which I have learn ed to submit with a good grace. It turns my thoughts very nat urally to the cultivation of the society of my friends, among whom I am particularly happy to consider you one. With kindest regard, I am, Very truly yours, JOHN P. KENNEDY. Nearly twenty years had elapsed since the original accident occurred which caused this infirmity ; and it is alluded to with the same cheerful patience in the letter which thus describes its origin : 268 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. ELLICOTT S MILLS, Oct. 13, 1843. To HON. R. C. WINTHROP. MY DEAR WINTHROP : Mrs. Kennedy has just received your kind letter, and as I am able to speak for myself, I. take upon me to answer. I was thrown on the first day of this month, from my horse, while riding in the neighborhood, not near Baltimore, as the papers had it, by a very culpable piece of carelessness, which I fear will seriously disparage my preten sions to horsemanship. Mr. Gray has a pony of many virtues, but tarnished, as too often happens with other accomplished beings, with one most censurable vice. It is this ; a peculiar en joyment of the surprise which he fancies he raises in your breast by unexpectedly throwing you to the ground. This is quite a passion with him. He is always on the qui vive to get this ad vantage of you, and his mode of accomplishing it is to take a moment when he thinks you are off your guard, and, by the sud den describing of a quadrant of a circle with his body, upon the pivot of his hind legs, towards the right or left of his path, to drop you exactly plumb beneath the position which you occu pied at the commencement of the feat. The story went in the family, that he was scary ; but I have found that this is a mis conception. He does the thing as a good joke. It was mis taking this fact that led to my accident. I had been riding through a thicket, from which I had just emerged covered with down and cobwebs ; and entering upon a common which was sprinkled over with stones, and going at a slow walk, with nothing in view that was likely to frighten the little beast, I dropped the reins carelessly upon his neck, and was shaking the lappels of my coat with both hands, when he made the math ematical digressions I have referred to ; he reared back a little at a time and lowered his head, so as to bring my right leg very quickly and cleanly over the pommel, and then to drop me with a very severe concussion on the stony field. The point of contact with the ground was my left hip, and the effect of the blow was to keep me, when I fell, incapable of motion about LAMENESS. 209 an hour and a half, within which time I was able to obtain the aid of persons in the neighborhood. I was borne to a farm house, which was fortunately within three or four hundred yards, on a litter, and thence transported in a cart, upon which my litter was deposited, to my home here, about two miles. A surgical examination has shown some severe laceration of the muscles and tendons of the hip, though luckily no broken bone. I have been on my back ever since, and have suffered a great deal of pain, especially through the night. I am, however, im proving slowly ; the pain has nearly left me, and I have some hopes that, in a week or ten days, I may at least be permitted to change my position in bed, which has grown very irksome to me. Perhaps with the aid of crutches I may wander a little about the house. But such mischiefs are slow of repair, and need philosophy as well as medicine. I am glad to hear that you will be at Washington next winter again. I think we are likely to find a session of the highest political interest. Mrs. Kennedy wishes me to leave her space for a few lines to send some kind remembrance to the ladies of your family. I desire in advance to join her in tendering them the warmest sentiments of esteem, and to beg their good wishes. Very truly, your friend, J. P. KENNEDY. To the same friend he thus comments on the later aggrava tion of his infirmity. BALTIMOKE, Oct. 20tli, 1860. MY DEAR WINTHROP : * * * I am now a prisoner in my study, scratching another and desperate notch in the tally-stick of my life, to mark the stage of my down-hill journey. My leg is rising to the dignity of an institution, and is organ izing a government of its own. It has already a privy council of doctors, three in number, who are to be here presently to hold a session upon the question, " What is it ?" which may or may not settle the point, now doubtful in my constitution, whether my leg is to be free or slave, extension or non exten- 270 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. siori being the direct issue. The lameness has increased to that point that I am ordered to abstain from walking for the next two or three months, and the council to day is to deter mine whether my rest is to be horizontal or angular, couchant or seclant. My suspicion is that I shall be sentenced to be burnt twice a week in a circumference of spots around my left hip, lightly laid on, with a central fire more fiercely applied to make a deep sore which shall be fed once a week by a fresh, sharp contact of hot iron. The spots of the circumference I should not object to " non ego offmdar paucis maculis" but that centre ! They might as well make John Huss of me at once and for all, instead of giving me Huss in dribblets once a week. The actual state of the case is that my lameness has been increasing from day to day, with certain manifestations that lead to a surmise of the possibility of some injury to the bone of the ball and socket, in which case horizontal rest will be come indispensable to a cure. Another conjecture is, that the disturbance may be in the muscular tissues or of the integu ments, and then the fire comes in as the instrument of a re vulsive action ; and the case will not prove so bad. Thus, you see, my hopes, at present, alternate between my bed with books and an immense increase to my erudition, and my arm chair with fire, crutches, pen and ink and a chance of writing now and then to you and other friends, in the interim be tween those central and periodical diversions of the doctors. I suppose in an hour they will be here, and I shall know all about it. Very truly, my dear Winthrop, Yours, JOHN P. KENNEDY. Not long before his death, Mr. Kennedy said to his wife " What a happy life I have had !" " But, how much illness and pain !" She replied: " Not more than was good for me," he answered ; " physical suffering, patiently borne, is beneficial to every one." CASUAL WRITINGS. 271 Mr. Kennedy, during the intervals of official life, planned many literary works, some of which he commenced and for others made copious notes. They indicate the varied scope of his mind, and suggest how productive it would have been, in this regard, had time, health and encouragement favored his tastes and purposes. "A book," he writes, "of great value might be written or compiled on a Plan of Popular Instruction, in illustration of What is Education ? " He proposes to write a " chapter to show that the only democratic portion of our Constitution is the House of Representatives ;" an essay on " the Instinct of Society, and the difference it produces in the Old World and the New !" a paper on " Dupery" " show it up in a sketch of a great, successful leader of the Locofocos." He left fragments of Ethical and Theological essays ; on " Repent ance," " Charity," " The Mystery of Opinion," " Scoundrelism in Politics," etc. "A fine subject for an essay," he writes, " would be Memories of Music. Without possessing any thing like an accurate ear for music, and knowing nothing of it as a science, I have still a most vivid pleasure in listening to it." Under date of Nov. 14, 1853, he writes: "I commence to-day my prepar atory course of investigation and notes for a work I have long thought of writing, on the State of Society, principles and polit ical events of this country, during the ten years preceding the Revolution." Again, while at Virginia Springs, in August, 1857, he writes: "Thinking over the tale of the Dragon, I might make it a continuation of Quodlibet ; the Dragon should be a symbol or personation of nullification, disunion, seces sion, an element in the social and political life of Quodlibet which makes discord." In December of the same year he writes : "I am meditating a lecture for the Maryland Institute, and I think I have a good subject and one which might be in teresting " Peace, the true conservator of the balance of Pow er ;" I would show that the intellectual culture of the present age, in the arts of peace, is necessarily educating nations for free government government by force of protective laws, and that we best conserve the cause of human rights by lasting peace." 272 LIFE OF JOHN T. KENNEDY Among the subjects of fragments of essays, in his note-books, often in the highest degree suggestive, but too incomplete for publication ; are " Immortality," " Longevity," " Ceremonies," "Parties," "English Society," "Slavery as regarded by the Constitution and its Founders ;" " War the Great Abolitionist," " Free and Slave States Contrasted." Some of the thoughts herein expressed, he afterward wove into his published argu ments on the questions of the day. A series of papers from his pen appeared in the Baltimore papers, many years ago, called the " Man in the Mask ;" and another was commenced under the title of " Confessions of an Office-Holder." Other oc casional contributions, both effective and seasonable, are his letter on Imprisonment for Debt (Baltimore Patriot, 1821;) on the Public School System (1824) ; speech on releasing Mr. Jefferson from the pressure of debt (.Baltimore American 1826) ; The Brown Papers (Baltimore Patriot, Sept. 1839). To these may be added his appeal to the Whigs of Baltimore (1844) ; remarks in the House of Representatives on the Pres ervation of Washington s camp chest ; letter on the Annexa tion of Texas (1844); Letter to Campbell (1844); speech at the Webster festival in Philadelphia ; letter to the citizens of the Second District in the canvass of 1847 ; on the Mexican War; speech at the Whig meeting at Hagerstown (Sept. 21, 1848); speech at a meeting of the Old Defenders (war of 1812) to cel ebrate Washington s birth-day Feb. 22, 1852 ; Address to the Mechanics and Workingmen of Baltimore ; two papers on the Experience of a Middle-aged Gentleman (Baltimore Ameri can, 1827) ; " To the Young Whigs of New York." We note these incidental writings and speeches because they evidence the public spirit and seasonable advocacy of Mr. Ken nedy on questions of importance to the welfare of the country, its culture and progress, as well as to the success of his party. After his first experiments in addressing the masses, his style and method became practical as well as eloquent. In the glow of his patriotic feelings, when, in early youth, he volunteered to defend the city menaced by the British, he wrote anony- OCCASIONAL WRITINGS. 273 mously in the local journals, appealing to his fellow-citizens to rally for the protection of their homes ; but finding that his ar ticles excited no attention, he remarks : " I have since learned that fine writing fajls on the business world like water on a duck s back. 1 While promptly meeting with his pen or voice the occasional calls of society and political exigencies, he yet, as we have seen, constantly meditated more purely literary under takings ; he observes, after writing a programme of this kind, " These are the principal undertakings on my hands and which I may reasonably hope to accomplish in a few years." One of his latest enterprises of a literary kind, was the com pilation of a volume of fac-simile " Autograph Leaves of American authors ;" it was a felicitous expedient in aid of the Fair held in Baltimore for the benefit of the wounded sol diers during the war for the Union. The design included a characteristic manuscript from all the leading authors of the country, with their signatures. Assisted by Colonel Alexander Bliss, who was assiduous in the work, Mr. Kennedy succeeded, in a few weeks, in obtaining autograph leaves of about ninety native poets and prose writers, living and dead. The volume is unique, and is very scarce the limited edition having been very soon exhausted. The exact transcript, in lithograph, of choice selections from favorite works, in the handwriting of the authors, collected in an appropriately bound volume, form a curious and interesting literary memorial. Its preparation agreeably renewed Mr. Kennedy s association with his old friends among American authors ; and brought him into pleasant relations with those with whom he was previous ly unacquainted. In the preface to the " Autograph Leaves," dated Baltimore, April iQth, 1864, he says : " It is not often that circumstances concur to produce a volume like this. Nothing less than the stimulus of some extraordinary impulse stirring the heart of the nation to a beneficent enterprise, could enlist the service of such a company as have contributed to the composition of this book. The havoc of this ferocious war, so madly hurled upon our peaceful land, has filled our 12* 27tt LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. hospitals with sick and wounded soldiers. Looking to this stricken host now languishing in pain, every community with in the boundary of the loyal States, has, with singular accord, addressed itself to the duty of the day, and is giving its thought and its means to the dispensation of present and provision of future relief, with a generosity never surpassed. When it was suggested to the authors of the country that the compilation of a volume like this would be esteemed an acceptable contri bution to this charity, the response was made with prompt approval from every quarter, and with abundant supply of the desired material." The Occasional Addresses of Mr. Kennedy have a more than incidental value, either on account of the historical interest of their subjects or their felicity of style and treatment. The most noteworthy of these are : An Address before the Horticultural Society of Maryland (1834); a Discourse on the Life and Character of William Wirt, delivered at the request of the Baltimore Bar (1834); the Annual Address before the American Institute, New York (1835); Address before the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of the University of Maryland, after his appointment as Pro fessor of History (1835) ; Address at the Consecration of Green Mount Cemetery (1839); Address before the Maryland Historical Society on the Life and Character of George Cal- vert (1845); Lecture on Thorn (1846). To give a general idea of Mr. Kennedy s taste in letters, liberal curiosity as a reader, and love of intellectual occupa tion, we here insert a few extracts from his diary and corres pondence illustrative of this phase of his life and mind : Saturday, December 14, 1839. I want the following books from London : "Lord Baltimore s Tour of the East," " Browne s Vulgar Errors," "Euphne s Anatomic of Wit," "Euphne and his England," "Mintluc s Commentaries," "World in a Maze," "Pasquil Palisnodia," "Taylor s Old Man," "Peacham s Com plete Gentleman," "Regimen Sanitatis," " Ritson s Ancient Songs," "Ritson s Ancient Garlands (Northern)," "The Area- LITERARY OPINIONS. % I > dia of Sir Philip Sidney," "The Simple Cobbler," " Sterline s Recreations," " Sir John Suckling s Fragmenta Aurea." ELLICOTT S MILLS, Oct. 1, 1854. MY DEAR BRYAN : I have read the verses again and again, and, with such a foretaste, have a longing hope for the rest. I should like to know the poet, for he is assuredly a good fellow as well as a rare workman. The versification is pecu liarly melodious, and its music is that of a gentle heart and a sunny temper. The tribute is as graceful as if it had come from the pen of Pope, and as genial as that of Goldsmith. The rural pictures have the flavor of the reign of Queen Anne and it is really a pleasant thing to find, in this day, a student with the capacity and the taste to refresh his spirit with the waters of those old wells of poesy. We have so much intensifi cation of late, such gushing emotions in such excruciating words, such a distillation of wonderful quintessences in such incom prehensible alembics of thought, and such a rattle and roar of poetical locomotives, that the man who will recall the art back to the domain of common sense, and restore the human heart to its old place in the human economy, and render it, once more an honest and intelligible viscus, will be, I think, entitled to a general vote of thanks, and, if he get his deserts, be made Vice-President, at least, in the Republic of letters. BALTIMORE, April 18, 1851. MY DEAR : I have just finished a reviewal and a revi- sal of your article. I like it in the main, very well. The ar gument is good, and the execution in parts very good, in parts not very good. First, let me say to you, as a brother author, you have a vil lainous practice of writing the page so full as to leave one to in fer that it was the last page you expected to find upon earth. You have no margin no top no bottom. Is paper scarce in this world that a man should deny his manuscript an inch of uncovered territory ? I ll subscribe for a ream, or send you 27t) LIFE OF JOHN P. one, if you will promise not to stuff it from N. E. corner to S. W. so full of ink that a friend can t make a marginal note. Then again, you write too close. Your lines should be more open, and, then again, brother author, you don t write plain enough. You should write as if you were printing, making every word so plain that the compositor cannot possibly mistake it. You should also particularly remember that length is a word that has a g in it, and is a different thing from lenth. Another thing the / j, which are a very respectable letter in the alphabet, have not yet got into the fashion which you want then to adopt, of flying their crosses in the air, thus 77 tis essentially a cross letter, and can t get rid of that temper. I wish you would bear in mind, also, that written speech is very usefully broken into paragraphs, now and then ; and that sentences ought not to be written five miles long before you come to a period. So much for externals and matters of shape. As to the interior qualities, I object to your stopping, in the midst of a grave argument, and laying down your pen and then cutting a few somersets on the carpet and afterwards writing them down, as somersets can be written in the hiatus which this freak produces. What s the meaning of " Ha ! old True penny, etc. ?" and " now for it," and forty other Merry An- drewisms which I find ? And what is the use of saying, when you have stated an argument, "this is the argument." Well, it is the argument, whether you say it or not, particularly when you have said before, "here is the argument." As a man of veracity, I believe you on the first assertion, and have no doubt that / / is the argument. I have another remark to make in regard to your style. It is too distressingly intense. What new caprice has taken hold of you ? You formerly wrote in a fine, clear, transparent style, that was particularly good ; but recently you have so bedevilled and bemystified and transcendentalized your style with such cracking of heart-strings, subjectivity of emotion, and with such penetration into metaphysical in ill- stones, and are in SMCFAL HONORS. 277 such evident tortures from unnatural retention of great, wal loping sentimentalities, that require great walloping words to deliver them, that I sometimes don t know you. Pray write like J. P. K., and let Walter Savage Landor and De Quincey go their own gait, without having you at their heels." Washington, July. 1852. I sighed to leave my library and its associations to come here. On Saturday last, I sat there till the hour for parting arrived, and as I took my hat and cane in my hand, there was a recognizable melancholy in the assumed cheerfulness with which I turned to my dear old books so quiet and so decent in their repose and said, " Good-by, lads ; I m going to leave you. Take care of yourselves, and be as happy as you can though that can t be much in my ab sence till I return. We will have a bout together again, olcl fellows. Good-by." I said this so jauntily that there was not one of them that didn t see I was acting." Recognition of his usefulness and good repute flowed in upon him in honorary memberships and academic degrees from his Baccalaureate as graduate of the College of Baltimore, in 1812 : in January, 1840, he was elected an honorary member of the Historical Society of New Mexico ; in 1846, member of the Maryland Historical Society; in 1853, of the American Philo sophical Society ; in 1856, of the American Geographical and Statistical Society ; in 1842, Corresponding Member of the National Institute ; in 1852, Honorary member of the U. S. Naval Lyceum ; in 1859, Corresponding Member of the His torical Society of Iowa ; 1858, Corresponding Member of the Massachusetts Historical Society; 1863, Fellow of the Acade my of Arts and Sciences ; the same year he received from Harvard University the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws ; and 1866 was appointed U. S. Commissioner to the Paris Exhibition. 278 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. CHAPTER XIII. Second visit to Europe ; Extracts from Journal ; Letters to Hon. R. 0. Winthrop and Judge Bryan. IN August, 1857, Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy embarked from New York in the Steamer Baltic. Miss Gray had sailed the previous May and awaited their arrival. They were accom panied on this occasion by another beautiful daughter of Mr. Pennington ; who, wherever they went, excited the interest which American female beauty invariably awakens in Europe. Friends on Staten Island waved them adieus as they passed down the harbor ; after a pleasant voyage they landed in good health, and immediately began a tour through Great Britain ; Mr. Kennedy only lingered in Liverpool to attend the courts, whose character and proceedings he notes with profes sional insight. They then proceeded at once to Edinburgh, and many pages of his journal are devoted to that picturesque and historical city, with its endeared memories of Burns and Scott, legal and medical worthies, and literary associations. Thence they went castle-hunting, and, with infinite relish, ex plored those of Stirling and Roslyn ; visited the lakes, made the usual tour of the Trosachs ; passed a few days in Glas gow, and then went to the English lakes and revelled in the beautiful scenery so familiar to Wordsworth, Coleridge, South- ey and De Quincey ; this rural experience was succeeded by some delightful weeks fondly bestowed upon the most celebra ted old Abbeys and finest Cathedrals, until they reached Man chester just in time to enjoy the Art Exhibition which, then and there, called together, for months, so many lovers of the beau tiful and historic. Having visited several famous hereditary SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE. 279 seats of the nobility, especially Haddon Hall and Chatsworth, they reached London all the more able to appreciate its social privileges from this previous acquaintance with the country, its scenery, traits and antiquities ; on their way thither Derby, Rugby and Oxford were visited ; and upon their arrival, Mr. Kennedy s old diplomatic and travelling friends, whom he had first known in America and afterwards corresponded with, promptly and gladly renewed their intercourse with him and made the party immediately at home in London society ; where they were the recipients of constant hospitality. The record of this experience of English social life, and especially of inter views with men eminent in literature and science, church and state, is full of grateful zest ; but it was on his later and longer sojourns in London that these friendships yielded their most satisfactory fruit. On the present occasion want of time obliged him to tear himself from a round of charming engage ments and hasten to the Continent. Like all Americans on their early and brief visits to Paris, Mr. Kennedy and his com panions were then exclusively occupied in sight-seeing ; his im pressions of the superficial life, the local phenomena, the insti tutions and resources of the French capital, are written with full and fresh details ; he thus described the routine of daily life, its panorama and its traits, the theatres, churches, bridges, quays, squares, operas, fites, with the eye of an artist and the thoughtfulness of a philosopher ; but laments that he has nei ther the leisure or the facilities requisite to examine the interi or life and realize the social, scientific and professional experi ence so significant and unique ; an opportunity for which was amply afforded him a few years later. Meantime, however, he visited the south of France ; and after a brief sojourn at Avig non, Nismes, Cannes, and Antibes, went over the Cornice road to Nice ; and, by Genoa to Florence, and thence to Naples and Rome. This tour in southern Europe was full of interest to the travellers, and very candid and constant notes of routes and scenery, paintings and relics, churches and characters, ceremo nies and encounters, indicate how assiduous, intelligent and SO LIFE OF JOHN T. KENNEDY. sympathetic was Mr. Kennedy s observation of life, nature and art. But he often breaks off, when giving the details -of some work or scene which fascinates him, with the exclamation " beautiful, beautiful ! but is it not all described in the Book of Murray ?" For the same reason we forbear following a beat en track even when so genially illustrated ; now and then, how ever, in his journal and correspondence, occurs an inkling of adventure or a bit of description,, so characteristic that they ap peal strongly to the " pleasures of memory," and make indi vidual and attractive even the familiar experience of foreign travel : and of these memorials of his tour, we cannot forbear giving a few examples : PATTERSDALE, ULLSWATER, Sept. 21, 183*. To HON. R. C. WTNTHROP. J MY DEAR WINTHROP : We were eleven days and some hours making our change from the New World to the Old, a longer voyage than was predicted for our good ship, the Bal tic. But she was got off from her repair dock in a hurry, which left much unfinished that was necessary to her complete equipment; and so, "the more haste the less speed," was de monstrated in our experience as a true proverb. Yet the voy age was sufficiently comfortable to make the extra day or two a delay not to be complained of; for the weather was good, the sea complacent, the fare excellent, and the ship a master piece of elegant accommodation to say nothing of her higher virtues of steadfastness, fidelity, uprightness and temperance, by which last virtue, you will understand that she behaved so berly indulging in none of those staggerings, lurchings, and heavings-up which you are sometimes annoyed with in fast ships and fast men. Mrs. K. rather piques herself upon the fact that she was only three days below, that being just eight days less than she expected ; and she has grown in conse quence somewhat conceited, and talks of a voyage from Na ples to Egypt, and of "fetching a compass" by the isle of Cyprus, by way of following St. Paul, which she has been do- SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE. 281 ing very sedulously for the last twenty-five years. Our first serious occupation was to go to Manchester to see the Art- Treasures, as they say here, by way of making the Treasures of Art more conformable to the Germanized tone of the man ners of the Court. And, there, such a show ! beginning with Cimabue s angels done up in gold-leaf, and ending in pewter medals of the Exhibition, struck off, fifty in a minute price, twopence, and comprehending within the series, about a mile and a half of pictures, among which I observed your great grandmother, Godiva ; a quarter of a mile of statues, and about fifty crates of old china the whole valued at seven millions sterling. It is a splendid study, which one might work in for a month, and for which our five hours of toilsome perambulation was but a wasted labor. Such a collection was never made before upon the earth, and, I fancy, never will be made again, as they say it has turned out to be, as a pecun iary speculation, a failure. The complaint I read in the news papers is, that the popular English ecstasy for Art is not in tense enough to pay, which is but a translation of their per ception of the fact that they have been throwing their pearls before swine. It is exquisitely rich, and, to an artist like George (tell him this), is worth a voyage over the far-resound ing sea. We are going back there in a few days to spend our equinoctial storm which ought to set in on Wednesday next in the Exhibition rooms, hoping, if the gales should be vio lent, to have a smaller number of persons to interrupt our studies. From Manchester we returned to Liverpool and went to Edinburgh to make a reconnoissance of the Highlands. A terrible cold I took on the top of Carlisle Castle, listening to a rigmarole about Queen Mary s confinement (how often that woman was confined!), laid me up here for nine days; after which we set out for Stirling and succeeded in getting to the Trosachs, and after having rowed the whole length of Loch Katrine on a pleasant morning, crossed to Loch Lo mond, at Inverness, where we found a steamer to take us up 232 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. the middle, then down again to Balloch and so over to Stir ling again, Edinburgh, Glasgow and here, to this delightful little inn Gelderd s Family Hotel, at Pattersdale, at the head of Ullswater. What an exquisite place it is ! The weather is like our finest October ; and the country all around us made of crag and mountain, " tarn and fell," green field and limpid brook, and constantly suggesting to us the idea that it has been recently swept up, wiped and polished for the accommo dation of company. Our hotel is full of visitors, generally consisting, as they appear to me through our window, of groups of five, exceedingly respectable people, to wit : one old gentleman with whitish whiskers and a new hat ; one lady with flowers, of a certain age ; two young ladies with prominent noses, short cloaks, brown straw hats, sharp at both ends and turned up at the sides, giving a kind of Spanish, pickaxey keenness of profile, in which the Spanish element is consider ably heightened by a brown feather which lies along the whole length of the pickaxe. This is a stereotype picture of all the travelling families we meet. The fifth one in these parties is either a young fellow with a tweed sack and a round-topped hat or a flunkey with a cockade and a coat-tail full of but tons. What a remarkable stock of propriety and circumspec tion there is in all true English ! I am not yet got into the region of my letter, and, therefore, am as yet, in respect to the people here, a dumb man, for you know these people never commit the indecorum of even a cheerful glance at a stranger, or, indeed, at any one who is not an acquaintance. To-mor row we go to Keswich, then to Ambleside and so southward. I will write to you often in our progress. We all send love, and remembrance to our good friends of Pemberton Square. Ever yours, J. P. KENNEDY. San Lorenzo, April 8, 1858. To San Lorenzo, some five or six miles up in the highlands, then to Aqua Pendente a dirty town full of beggars. Here travellers generally stop for SECOND VISIT TO EUKOPE. 283 lunch, but we drive on five miles further to a miserable little inn called Parte Centini, where the Custom House of the Papal Frontier is established. We have sliced ham, cured with garlic, which makes it so repulsive we cannot eat it, but a tolerable quarter of lamb helps out. We take two additional horses, which we have done twice before to-day, and drive up along a tortuous, exceedingly steep road to an immense height. It grows cold and blustering, with wintry winds, as we rise, to Radicofaui, a moss-grown old town beneath a high rock, which is crowned with the ruins of a castle once famous as the fortress of a "great robber who spoiled the unlucky travellers of the mountain. The road on both sides has yet a strange repute for its dangers from banditti. Our hotel is outside of the town, and somewhat below it, an immense, old, dark, damp, and awful building, which was once the hunting-lodge of some grand Duke of Tuscany. The winds roar and howl and whistle around and through it, with the noise of the ocean. There are a few military men lounging on the pavement un der the arcades, and several coaches standing under this same corner, show that the house is abounding in custom to-night. What dismal, dark stone steps we go up to the story of our chamber ! and there the broad, square, lofty, brick-paved hall or common ante-chamber, opens to our several bed-rooms, in one of which we find a fire already burning and a table set, to be used by us for a parlor. We have a pretty fair meal, half din ner, half supper. I go to my cold, dark bed-room, well tired, and am soon asleep. Florence, April 14, 1858. I find something curious in the Piazza Grand Duca where a large crowd is assembled around a mountebank who is kept as busy as possible draw ing teeth. He has a carriage with a good pair of horses har nessed to it standing in the middle of the square. The car riage is furnished with compartments of physics, and a large case of dental instruments, which are displayed on the top. There is a servant in livery within the carriage, and a negro in a small cart close to the operator. The negro is gorgeously 284: LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. ly dressed in a scarlet jacket richly embroidered with gold, and a cap of the same character. It seems to be his business to hold the basin and napkin. The dentist has a fanciful vel vet cap on his head, the rest of his dress being of the pre vailing fashion. There are several crowding around the car riage and a constant succession of applicants for the extrac tion of their teeth, who are despatched with an expedition al most incredible. Henry, my courier, who is with me, tells me that one man has had eight of his taken out, and that during the short period of our delay in this vicinity the dentist has operated twenty-seven times. I happened to encounter this crowd on my drive to Fe.nzi & Co., the bankers, whose house is on this piazza, passing by the professor slowly, to see him at work, and stoping at the bankers about half an hour. It was in this interval Henry amused himself with counting the patients o: the dentist. I stop again among the crowd on my return. The hero of the scene was delivering a valuable lecture, which I suppose is a commendation of his skill and beneficence, with much gesticulation, and with the flowing speech of this sweet Italian tongue. Turin, May 9, 1858. The ladies were shown into the La dies Gallery, I got admission to the Diplomatic box upon mak ing known to the Secretary of the Chamber my former connec tion with our own government. A member was addressing the House in French, and was followed by another also in the same language. I was told they were members from some district in Savoy, and that the House debated in French as well as in Italian. The proceedings were decorous and quiet. The first speech was long, on some local business ; and the members generally read their newspapers and letters and appeared to give as little attention to the speaker, as if it had been our own House of Representatives. Count Cavour, with one of his col leagues in the ministry, sat at a table in front of the President, the ministerial seats. He is a stout, tall man, wearing his age, which I should take to be fifty-five, well, with a pleasant eye and an agreeable, good-humored face, showing little weight SECOND VISIT TO EUEOPE. 285 of care, and not indicating the thoughtful ness and study for which I knew him to be distinguished. The chamber of Dep uties as well as Senate Chamber is small. The Senators are between 40 and 50 in number. The House has 204 members. They are rather crowded together in something like pews rising above each other in a semi-circle, and with a desk and drawer before each member. The general aspect of these Houses re minded me of the Legislature Chambers at Harrisburg, in Penn sylvania. Lago Maggiore, May n, 1858. We come to Luino, on the Lombardy side of the lake, where we land once more in the Austrian dominions. There is a party of English tourists with us. They take a carnage from one of the several waiting on the shore. We engage the coupe zcn&banquette of the diligence, and, after the usual ceremony of the passport and the dogana, we set off for Lucerne. I am on the top of the diligence the banquet with Henry and William, the ladies are in the coupe. What a delightful ride of three hours from four to seven, through that splendid piece of country ! What mountain scenes, and what a beautiful river the Strev ! I have never seen any thing more stimulating to the fancy than this afternoon drive. At a village, I think the village of Stresa, we come to a series of low arches under the houses which overarch the road. They are so low that we are obliged to get down from the top, and even the trunks there have to be taken down, to allow the dil igence to pass. In walking through the village we see troops of children, with caprecin shoes, that is, a mere wooden sole with straps, who run after us in an excited state of wonder and amusement at seeing William, the uomo nero, as they shout. On the road to Padua, May 14, 1858. At the railway sta tion we meet our German travellers again, and are put into the same carriage with them. We are not long in making an ac quaintance, and find them to be very intelligent, pleasant peo ple. Upon an exchange of cards, I am apprised that the gen tleman is le Baron de Holsten Carisius j that the younger 2 SO LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. of the two ladies is his daughter, la Baronne Emilie de Hol- sten Carisius, chanoinesse de la Chapitre Royale de Vallo, the other, the old gentleman s niece, with the same name and title except that the addition is Stampe, instead of Carisius. They are Danes, and live on an island in The Belt The fa ther tells me he was a Secretary of Legation once in Sweden, and there became well acquainted with Christopher Hughes, and knew his daughter Margaret when she was quite a child. He was quite surprised when I told him how well I knew Hughes, and that Margaret was my brother s wife. Padua, May 15, 1858. We come to St. Antonio. This church is exceedingly rich in objects of interest. St. Antonio is the patron of Padua, and the people here render him a pecu liarly zealous worship. His chapel is most sumptuous. We find one or two hundred persons on their knees before it. The marble of the altar under which the saint is buried, is rough with the constant attrition of fingers the people are touching it, the guide says, from daylight until dark. Here in this chapel, are beautiful bas-reliefs in marble, of the same subjects and pret ty much the same design as the frescoes in the senola. In one of them Saint Anthony appears to be something of a wag. He is represented cutting open the body of an old miser who had died in Florence, to prove that he had no heart. The sur gical operation establishes the fact that the heart was missing, and upon examination it is found in his money-chest, which stands open near the body. Trieste, May 21, 1858. A beautiful, fresh morning. Up before four, as we are to leave the hotel soon after five to take the railway to Gratz before six. At the appointed hour, having breakfasted and come to the station, we are off in the train at 5.45, and are soon among the hills that form the attraction of one of the most beautiful countries in Europe. We are in the slow train, the only one that goes off in the morning. The express leaves at eleven at night, and it is to avoid a weari some night journey, as well as to enjoy the varied beauties of this exquisite scenery, that we have taken the day train, to get SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE. 28 Y out at Gratz., and to make the remainder of our journey to-mor row to Vienna by the express, which reaches Gratz at ten in the morning. We are running through a limestone region, which, in many places, has a most remarkable resemblance to the valley of Virginia, nothing being wanting to complete the likeness but the dense forests of our mountains. The little town of Divaca and its adjacent rugged limestone hills, was so much like Martinsburg, in Berkeley, as to make us almost think we were at home. Like that region, the fields here are full of those sinks or conical funnel-like indentations, that are seen in the Virginia valley ; and the country here also abounds in caves, some of which, one especially at Adelsberg are very extensive. This character of country extends to and beyond Adelsberg, which is famous in the tourists books, for its great grotto or cave, which has been explored for more than four miles. The descriptions of it answer precisely to those of Weir s Cave, though it is more extensive than that. Gratz, Styria, May 22, 1858. We drive through the prin cipal streets between rows of very large, fine houses ; then to the boulevards or public drives outside of the walls, and back through some of the narrower and more crowded parts. There is a large collection of market people with their wares in the public squares ; the milk, butter and cheese appear to be deli cious and abundant. The cleanliness of every thing is very striking. These are a good, honest people, and seem to live in a country of inexhaustible richness. We see no beggars. Indeed we have seen none in the north of Italy, and especially in these Austrian dominions. I have never seen a country which exhibits a more general appearance of comfort and good condition than this. Before our. drive this morning, while smoking my segar, I strolled into the great court-yard of the hotel, attracted first by a huge painting on the wall, of an ele phant as large as life, and very well done. There was a rhym ing legend under it in German, purporting that it was put there in 1618 (I think; it was a long time ago, I know), and that there was good cheer to be found in the house. The trunk 288 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. holds a bottle of wine, which the veteran patron of the house is emptying into his mouth. In this court-yard my attention was taken by the building of a large house, an addition to the inn, at which no less than fifty men and women were en gaged ; the men laying the bricks and stone, and the women carrying the materials and mixing the mortar. It was very rapid and solid work. While looking on at this, amused by the activity of the scene, I found that, unobserved by me, two of the masons had drawn their white chalked cord in the manner of a fence behind me, and each facing me, one fell to repeating some verses in German, in very measured cadence, addressed to me. All the working people on the building, and the other by-standers in the yard, were in a state of great enjoyment at the ceremony, and indulged in a general laugh. I waited till the recitation was finished, and guessing its import to be that I was under the penalty of a tri?ikgeld, I emptied my pockets of all my small money and put it in their hands. I had hit the intent of the visit, and I was released with abun dant thanks and with manifestations of the general satisfaction. Dresden Gallery, June 4, 1858. Take the collection alto gether, and considering it with reference to the number of its works, their great merit, their fine arrangement for exhibition, and the neatness and beauty of the rooms, as well as the ad mirable order and courteous attention with which the whole is offered to the public examination, we have some difficulty in assigning it a rank second to any other. Berlin, June 8, 1858. I go to make a. visit to Baron Alex ander Von Humboldt, who resides on the Bamberg Strasse. After a hot walk, with Henry as a guide, I come to the house. Here, with some hesitation, the porter tells me he thinks the Baron is not at home. He had gone up stairs to inquire, and returned with this answer. I then give him my card, upon which I have written a few words to say that I have called to make my respects, and desire him to return with that. The result is, after a few moments, that I am invited up to the Bar on s study. Having taken my seat upon a sofa while the ser- SECOND VISIT TO EUKOPE. 289 vant goes into an inner room, in a moment after the old philosopher comes in, giving me as he enters, a most kind welcome pronounced in good clear English, and with a cheer ful, pleasant, though somewhat attenuated voice. He tells me that it was a mistake that he had denied himself when asked if he was at home, and that having seen my card, he was very happy to have my visit. He said he remembered very well the little correspondence I had with him when I was Sec retary of the Navy ; asked me several questions about our political affairs ; indulged in some critical opinions in regard to some of our public men, of whom he spoke freely ; deplored our distractions on the subject of slavery; saying that it was to be regretted that we had made its defence, as a domestic institution, so important a consideration ; that we had, in tak ing this position, abandoned entirely the views of Mr. Jeffer son and the other distinguished statesmen of our earlier days. He spoke with regret of the loss of Dr. Kane to our country and to science, and told me with what pleasure he had read his book. I sit with him about half an hour, when he begs me to excuse him for breaking off our interview, as he is obliged to go to Potsdam, which, I learn, he does every day at two, to visit the king. He shakes my hand very cordially, assures me again of the pleasure he felt in my visit, and I take my leave. He told me he was now eighty-seven years old, but still enjoyed his faculties, as I might suppose, when he could still work and was now publishing a book. He added, that although he was able to do this his health was not good. He is well delineated in the engraving I have of him at home. There is a cheerful twinkle of the eye, and great complacency and gentleness in the expression of his countenance, as well as in his gesture and carriage. I should take him to have been a well built, though not robust man in the prime of his life, and perhaps less than six feet high. He is now a good deal bent, and his walk is slow, though firm for one of his age. His com plexion is fair, slightly tinged with a pale red, and his eye, I think (for I could not well observe it in the position he had) 13 290 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. is blue. In the course of our conversation he spoke with kind consideration of Mr. Fay, who had been resident here for some years, as the American Minister. Amsterdam, Brock, June 15, 1808. The village of Brock is the oddest thing I have ever seen, quite as outlandish to my view as if it were a Chinese settlement. It lies round a basin of the canal, and is permeated by small alleys shaded with trees and shrubberies, giving it the most delightfully rural aspect. It is also intersected with a dozen little, narrow ca nals, not wide enough for more than one boat at a time. The houses are beautifully arranged, and kept with a neatness for which Holland is proverbial, but which cannot be understood unless it is seen. These houses are all wood, generally paint ed of a deep green. They are all embowered ki shade, and appear singularly pretty. The business of the place is cheese- making, upon which many of its chief people have grown com fortable, and several quite rich. It is very striking to observe the beauty of these Dutch women. The masses are. all good- looking, and many are very pretty. I have not seen an ugly woman yet since we entered this territory, and everywhere, in every rank of life, we notice beautiful women and girls. Paris, June 26, 1858. These Parisian tailors are the worst I find anywhere. There is a great parade about fitting you, al ways insisting upon trying on clothes, and, if possible, doing this before they are finished, and it is generally the same thing a miss in something. "Ah, monsieur, quil est fachera. C est un erreur de mesure." I had a great deal of this this morning, as the theatrical journeyman was tugging and squeezing to make the button-holes meet the buttons in front. Of course he couldn t insist on my reducing my proportions, so he takes the panta loons away with a promise to make me another pair by Mon day evening. " Quel dommage," he says, as he takes them up with a look of disconsolate tenderness. "Us sont si jolis !" London, July 16, 1858. (Cambridge House Dinner). I find myself left with Lord Woodhouse and a very handsome man who has been conversing familiarly with me, who I think SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE. I have seen somewhere before, and therefore, with my usual inexactness of conjecture, I suppose may be Sir George C. Lewis. We go together to our end of the table. Lady P. gives Lord W. a seat between two ladies, and directs me to sit between Mrs. Dallas and the handsome man whom I have followed. We have a beautiful table, richly lighted and decorated, and dinner begins very pleasantly. My unknown friend talks to me about America, the Mormon affair Cuba our Federal and State Governments the Foreign and Catholic influence in America. He is full of inquiry, intelligent and courteous. He is anxious to know every thing about the slave population, etc. I tell him many things that interest him, and especially in relation to the Cuban slave-trade which makes so much noise just now. I assure him that if England wishes to stop the importation of negroes to that Island, the most cer tain mode of rendering the importation impossible would be the annexation of Cuba to the United States ; that a great misapprehension exists here in reference to the introduction of African slaves into the United States, in supposing such a thing had ever occurred, or that the Government could be accused justly, of the slightest complicity in it. I said that the whole country, north and south, equally revolted at such an accusa tion ; that the interests of the South, no less than the tradi tional sentiment and sensibility of Southern planters them selves, were opposed to it ; that in the excited state of the public mind on the slave question, and the preponderance of free States in the Union, and still more, the preponderance of opinion even in the Slave States against such a traffic, no American Statesman of any ambition or influence would dare to confront the odium that would be heaped upon him, if he laid himself open to the suspicion of favoring such a thing. These remarks seemed to make an impression upon my ques tioner. He was glad to hear this. He thought African slaves had been introduced into the United States, and was glad to learn that it was not true. He was very liberal and frank in discoursing on the subject, and had no doubt that the 292 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. truth regarding the condition of the slaves and their owners, and the many tales told of the general griefs of the slave pop ulation, had been greatly discolored and exaggerated. I ex plained to him what I thought was the more sober and enlight ened opinion in the United States in regard to the annexation of Cuba, and referred him for this to Mr. Everett s letter to Lord John Russell in 1852-3, which I told him went to the ut most verge of the conservative opinion of the country. I said the annexation was not desirable at this time, because it would renew all the excitements of the slave agitation ; that the Free States, which had now a majority in Congress, would most prob ably refuse to allow it to be brought into the Union with slavery, and the South would oppose it without ; and that, in any case, it was desirable to us that it should be more Americanized, that is to say, should have a large Anglo-Saxon population thrown into it, before it should be allowed to participate in our political organization. Talking farther on this subject of slavery, I presented to him the idea that it was scarcely possi ble for the most philosophic or the most intelligent European statesman to comprehend very accurately the difficulties of the problem of the extinction of slavery in the United States, where the slaves already numbered more than three millions ; that it was not altogether the fault of the United States that this large number of slaves existed among us ; that at the date of our Revolution the- conduct of England, in planting slavery among us, was one of the grounds of complaint against the Crown ; that Virginia herself had furnished no less than twen ty remonstrances to the Crown against the injustice of vetoing her Legislature to prevent slavery, and had foretold the conse quences of this policy with remarkable sagacity, as is manifest ed at this time, informing the Crown that the authority of England was employed to plant slaves in the Colony, and thus, not only to prevent the emigration of white labor to it, but to inflict upon the posterity of the memorialists a great and al most ineradicable evil, in the growth of a large slave popula tion. He acquiesced in all these views, acknowledged the jus- SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE. 293 tice of my remarks, and said these facts undoubtedly showed the wickedness of the English policy and certainly deprived Englishmen of the right to censure Americans for slavery. I said, ." I believe I am right in asserting that England is the only nation in Christendom that ever made a treaty to secure to herself the emoluments of the slave-trade ; that she had done it over and over again, under the protest of some of her wisest and best statesmen." He replied, " I believe that is true." When we had nearly finished this conversation, I turned to Mrs. Dallas, on my left, and asked her who was the gentle man with whom I was conversing. She informed me he was the Earl of Shaftesbury, and that the beautiful woman oppo site was his wife. London, July 20, 1858. I go to Fenton s to meet Donnell, and he and I walk, between nine and ten, to Judge Nicholson s Court, at the Cider Cellar, a public house in Maiden Lane. Here we find a man standing at the door wearing a square pa per lantern on his head, on the four sides of which are adver tisements, relating to the various courses of amusement for the evening. We enter the door and descend into the cellar by a good staircase, at the foot of which a woman stands in a kind of shed to receive our admission fees, one shilling each, and to give us our tickets. We go along a narrow passage, and soon find ourselves at the door of a large saloon. This room is lofty in the ceiling, is hung around with several large and small por traits, and has quite a respectable and even stately aspect. At the head of the room is a kind of a pulpit-desk of mahogany, behind which a large, fat man, with an exceedingly large head, a full, round and fat face, and an expressive physiognomy, is seated, clothed in the wig and gown of the courts. Near him, at a table, sit three barristers, in their gowns and wigs ; and con nected with this part of the room is a witness stand, elevated some foot or more above the platform. There are tables and chairs arranged in order in the rest of the hall ; one of these tables nearest to the judge and counsel, has twelve chairs, which are, as all the other seats in the room, filled by well-dressed 294: LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. men, chiefly young men, who have goblets of ale before them, and are, for the most part, smoking segars. Waiters are pass ing to and fro, industriously serving this company. Donnell and I advance to the upper part of the hall nearest the judge, take seats at one of the tables, and order our segars and ale like the rest At the time of our entrance, one of the counsel, a good-looking man in the costume I have described, is address ing the jury. We soon discover that the proceeding now on hand is an indictment of four women as common prostitutes. The counsel informs the jury that this indictment has been ob tained not so much with a view to punish the offenders, as to bring to light the facts relating to the lives and characters of the class to which these women belong, and to obtain an ex pression of opinion upon the subject from the public, with a view to a question of legislation by Parliament for the reform ation of the public morals and the amelioration of the condi tion of these women. His speech has nothing comic in it, but is grave, rhetorical and eloquent, the questions well argued and illustrated. When he is done speaking, which is not much less than an hour, he calls his first witness, Sir Crotchet Dan dy. This call is made by the usher of the court, who is also in his appropriate costume, and presently a stiff, formal, well- dressed old gentleman, with a white head, comes into court, and is conducted to the witness stand, where he is sworn in the usual style of the courts, with the omission, however, of the last words, and kisses the book. The judge inquires his name, and the examination proceeds. Here the amusement becomes very high. The witness is testy, the questions and answers full of fun, very broad sometimes, but exceedingly witty. The judge now begins to show his character. He is playing a part repre senting the peculiarities of some notability of the Bench. His imitation is manifestly very good, for it is natural, easy, and sus tained with great power and skill. His eyes, which have here tofore been half shut, now twinkle with the most arch and laugh- inspiring expression. His remarks are full of excellent wit. But he is short and reserved, making his hit in a few words, SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE. 295 and retreating into the dignity of his office. Sir Crotchet makes out a queer case of profligate experiences, not at all fit to be reported. The next witness is an old bawd, in whose fea tures I recognize the man who had formed the third barrister at the table when we came in. This exhibition, too, is irresist ibly comic, and the part played to perfection. We have all the slang of the streets, and the most extraordinary experiences of the horrible ingenuity of this wretched portion of the Lon don community, to cajole, debase, and ruin the victims of their trade. She is a driver in the employ of the matrons of prosti tution, and follows the young women who are dressed at the expense of the matrons, to see that they do not steal or dispose of the finery that is put upon them for the streets. It is really a fine piece of illustration of this shocking life, both in the con ception and performance of the part. The counsel for the prosecution now announces that he has no more testimony to offer. Then comes the shrewd and critical and amusing cross- examination, and the witness is dismissed. The counsel for defence now opens his case, and makes a speech of nearly half an hour, the best exposition of the whole character, cause and extent of this great malady of London life, I have ever listened to or read. It is an admirable speech, done in the best manner, full of thought, sound reflection, excellent composition and el oquent expression. Then a witness is examined, a cunning, hypocritical old woman, who, with the affectation of humanity and charity, proves herself, upon cross-examination, to be a de testable, artful old pawnbroker, who has fattened upon the ne- . cessities of the unfortunate women, of whom she professes to be the friend. After this comes the Chief-Justice s charge to the jury, pointed, witty, clear, and ingenious. Nothing could be better than his review of the evidence, and the fun with which he interpreted the slang and cant of the witnesses. He puts the several points to be decided by the jury, asking a show of hands upon each proposition, and finally pronounces the verdict of the company as thus obtained ; and so discharges the jury, with an announcement that those who desire to sup, 2iH> LIFE OF JOHN P. KF.NNEDY. may now give their orders, and that after supper the other pro ceedings of the evening will be taken up. It is about 12 o clock. There arises throughout the atmosphere of the room, a strong and piquant odor of beef-steak and onions. Donnell and I retire. At the door where we emerge upon the street, the man with the paper lantern cap is still standing, and I read on it, " The Poses Plastiques" will now be exhibited. Across the Channel Brighton to Dublin, July 30, 1858. Up at half-past seven. Breakfast before nine, at 9.15 I am off for Dublin. There is an Irish lady in the carnage, and a gentle man with his daughter, we make a party all the way to Dublin. I have a great deal of pleasant conversation with the gentle man, who as we approach the harbor of Kingston in the steamer, invites me to call and see him, before I leave Ireland, at his residence near Dublin. Upon asking his name and introducing myself, I find we have the same family name. He is Dr. Every Kennedy. Upon looking at my card, he tells me that, oddly enough, his father s name is John P. the same as mine. This little incident brings us into a more intimate relation, and he repeats his request that I will come to his country residence, Belgord Castle, Glendalkin, Tallaght, about five miles from Dublin, He says I must come prepared to spend the night, as he will not let me off until I have slept in his house. At parting, I promise if I can that I will call. Paris, Sept. 26, 1858. Thackeray calls to see me, and sits an hour or two. He is not looking well. He tells me he has need of my assistance with his Virginians, and says Heaven has sent me to his aid. He wants to get his hero from Fort Du- quesne, where he is confined a prisoner after Braddock s defeat, and to bring him to the coast to embark for England. " Now you know all that ground," he says to me, " and I want you to write a chapter for me to describe how he got off and what travel he made." He insists that I shall do it. I give him a doubtful promise to do it if I can find time in the thousand engagements that now press upon me on the eve of our leav ing Paris. I would be glad to do it if circumstances will allow. * SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE. 297 Mr. Kennedy and his fair protege were prostrated by the Roman fever ; and during many weeks of their sojourn in the Eternal city, learned to appreciate the skill and kindness of Dr. Valery. By the advice of Sir Henry Holland, Ithe party on their return to England, took a cottage in the Isle of Wight, for the benefit of sea-bathing and horseback exercise ; six months were there passed very agreeably in the midst of old friends. In a letter written thence Mr. Kennedy gives some general im pressions of his experience abroad : VENTNOR, ISLE OF WIGHT, ) Medina Cottage, Aug. 23, 1858. j" To GEORGE S. BRYAN ESQ. MY DEAR BRYAN : I have at length got into the most calm and peaceful nook of terrestrial comfort you can imagine. Af ter some six or eight months of wheel-and-paddle life, running on the rail, whizzing under tunnels, flying over bridges, and surging on the waves, here I am, at last, in a beautiful little cottage of my own as long as I wish to keep it in this pic turesque village of Ventnor, which sits upon the southern cliff of the Isle of Wight, looking over a boundless expanse of s.ea, that is ever throwing its rich carpet of white foam upon the " yellow sands, just fifty yards below the fanciful veranda, upon which my parlor windows open : here I am, with these glories before me, in the full enjoyment of a long-coveted ease, now rendered more delightful by the most delicious climate in the world. The plash of the waves comes pleasantly to my ear, in measured cadence, all day long; and, with still more winning music, to soothe me into sleep, and direct the current of my dreams during the night. I give you the benefit of this little bit of poetical inspiration, as a necessary artistic .device to bring you into full accord and sympathy with the sense of satisfaction I feel at the arrival of the time when I can sit down with be coming abandon, to indulge myself in the long-suspended de light of writing a letter to a friend. Now stop, before you read another line, and in order that you may establish the most ge nial rapport between us, for the imbibing of the true spirit in n* LIFE OF JOHN T. KENNEDY. which I write, put an arm-chair on the porch, on the breezy side of your house, obtaining, if you can, a good, clear view of the Atlantic ; taking care, also, that the weather be serene, and, at the sa.me time, exhilarating, and that the hour be that in which your humanity is most healthful and complacent and then, seat yourself in a comfortable,, unrestrained, and, indeed, luxu rious manner. You will thus bring your animal spirits into the jocund equipoise which I wish you to attain. Now, read on : My Dear Bryan : I received your delightful and loving letters of the loth and 2oth of April, at Vienna, on the 2isc of May, where they had been awaiting my arrival some weeks. They brought me, in addition to your own pleasant gossip of five sheets, the remarkable effort of our young pupil in his first essay of authorship, which, I hope, will hereafter expand into grander volume, and bring him a fame as ample, in proportion, as his autograph, which now engrosses so large a portion of the field of his labor. I got, also, the newspapers touching Ev erett s reception, and your oration for which it is not neces sary to say how grateful I felt. You know how felicitously the beautiful old Scripture phrase refers to the highest type of per sonal content, when it speaks of the delight of " tidings from a distant land." When that land is the traveller s home, and the tidings come from the best of his friends you have the additions that truly express my pleasure in your letter. I wish I had another chair beside yours on the porch, to give you the pleasant things that now remain upon my memory, after having made my circuit of exploration of this Old World. It is im possible to do it on paper, unless I should sit down seriously to the task which you invoke, of writing a book. Whether I shall do that or not, when I get home, will depend upon the question which relates to the correspondence between my performance and my intentions a correspondence which my experience proves to be exposed to many disappointments. But, if I were under a good roof, or the broad sky either, within speaking distance of you, I could amaze you with a yarn of as many colors as Joseph s, coat. At present, " you SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE. 299 must be content learn the whereabouts merely, and postpone the /^/abouts." I told you how we got along at Rome. Thence, after seeing every thing, and finding how unfavorable that climate was to the hope of recovering my health, I took my departure without regret, and moved on, by a three days journey, to Florence. It was beautiful spring-time when we arrived there, and our visit had so many captivations, both of climate and scenery, that I got, at once, into good health, and have, ever since continued in the best possible condition for enjoyment. We spent a month in the north of Italy : visiting Bologna, Mantua, Verona, Milan, Turin, Lakes Maggiore, Lu gano and Como, and so, by way of Padua, to Venice. How you, with your susceptible nature, and keen appreciation of the beautiful, would enjoy that round among the finest things in na ture and art, and the oddest things in the domain of human cre dulity ! (Think of the brazen serpent of the wilderness, which I saw, with my own eyes, at Milan !) Venice is perfectly delicious. It is an old, illuminated missal, full of the quaintest figures. A scene in a showy pantomime and then, again, it is. a pictur esque chapter in a sea novel. It has so many faces that I can t describe them. But one characteristic it has, that runs through all its entire phases of being the most sunshiny, voluptuous, indolent and happy spot for a lazy and romantic lounger, that human industry could produce. After a week, we bade adieu to Venice, and the whole land of Polcinello, and came over to Trieste, and thence to Vienna. From Vienna to Dresden where I saw Colonel Preston and his daughter most comfort ably, in a material sense, domesticated there, but with painful solicitude for the health of his son. . From Dresden to Berlin, to Potsdam, to Dusseldorf, to Amsterdam, to Paris, to London, to this snug sea-side retreat at Ventnor. Now, then, you have the line ! Fill it up with mountains, plains, rivers, old castles, churches, palaces, picture galleries and indescribable museums, with the everlasting occurrence of the ubiquitous soldier, and the frequent apparition of the priest, with beer gardens, operas, promenades, drives and ices, and you will get the material, at 300 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. least, if you do not get the arrangement of the glass beads of our kaleidoscope. In this jumble of the elements and the in dustry with which we explored them -from morning to night, for months together, you may find a foundation for a theory upon which you may solve the question, how it has come to pass, that here, and now, only, on this 23d of August, I am answering your letters of loth and 2oth of April. * * * I think I have settled that matter to your entire satisfaction, and so 1 finish part second, upon which I think it appropriate to make another pause. * # * * * # How many things I have to talk about, how much to say to you, if I coulcl only say it ! But paper, pen and ink, and post-office, all forbid much talking in this fashion. My topic would be this old world, which to me is so amazingly new. We have a reverence at home for Miles Standish, for the old black pot of the Mayflower, and for the mysterious wind-mill at New port. We actually brag of De Soto and the fountain of Bimini, and have an archaeological furor upon the mounds in the Mus- kingum. But what a set of infantile juvenilities do these all be come in the conceit of a man who has seen the brazen serpent, four girdles of the Virgin, and five Madonnas painted by St. Luke ! to say nothing of the bones of Abraham, Isaac and Ja cob, which I saw at Prague, or, at least, I saw the box in which they are kept. Why, sir, here, on this Isle of Wight, are old fortifications to keep off the Danes, and to frighten Hengist and Horsa. Carisbrook Castle is a piece of green modernity in our present estimation, and the terraces, walls and gateways, which are in my familiar walks around this village, are some of them older than Captain Smith s love affair with Tragabig- zanda. It is something in a man s training to arrive at this percep tion of the world s history. But, notwithstanding its monu ments, England is so much like our own country, that it almost seems like getting home, to come here from the continent. Everywhere else you have the most actual consciousness, all the time, that you are in a foreign land. The continent is, SECOND VISIT TO EUKOPE. 301 universally, with a very few exceptions, dingy with age. Italy is absolutely hoary ; the out-door statues, ballustrades, architec tural embellishments, are almost black, and often mossy, like our Alleghany rocks. In England there are everywhere new, bright, beautiful dwellings. The landscape is varied with in conceivably rich, velvety parks, lawns and groves, magnificent flower gardens, grand, healthy, shady forests, and trim, neat and thrifty seed-fields. It has reached the highest point of useful service combined with perfect embellishment, and future centuries cannot make it more perfect. Indeed, England al together approaches the beau ideal. It is as free as human* institutions can make it. It is far the most intelligent and educated of nations, and it is, undoubtedly, the most power ful. Its people are proud of it, and their loyalty is a part of their religion. The contentment of all classes is a most strik ing and happy fact to the observation of the traveller ; and the hospitable, generous and hearty character of the gentlemen of England invokes a continued admiration. To our eyes, there are some conspicuous defects, both in the organization and temper of society, which I account to be the natural product of its growth. England, or, more proper ly speaking, modern England, has always been in the front of European civilization, and her hardihood and manly quality arise out of her perpetual struggle to maintain her position. As she may be said to have always been, with reference to Eu rope, a. protesting power, that is to say, thinking for herself, and rising above the inertness and stationary level of the old gov ernments and their prescriptive abuses ; to have always been, in this sense, protestant in government and in social custom, as well as in religion, she has ever been, for this reason, look ed upon with dislike by the established despotisms around her just as, at this time, Sardinia is disliked by every other gov ernment in Italy. England, therefore, has been obliged to keep herself ever in harness, ready for every emergency. This condition of watchfulness ever maintaining peace by a war like attitude has, for centuries, insulated her people quite as 302 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. much as her geographical position has done, and out of this insulation her good opinion of herself, and her social exclu- siveness, have grown. And now, as the product of this long national exaltation, every man and woman in England is im bued with a personal conviction, not only that the nation is the greatest of nations, but that the people, individually, are each and all, the greatest of people. They, therefore, cannot help showing, with all their hospitality, kindness, and generous wel come, that the practice of these virtues to a foreigner is some thing of condescension ; and to us of the United States, par ticularly, whose eyes are unblessed with the display of titular grandeur, and who have never had the happiness to live in, or in sight of a court circle, the good-will of these people is offer ed, and expected to be received by us, as the benevolent pat ronage of an amiable grandee to a poor relation. Of course, this provokes some distaste on our side, and is a cause of suffi cient magnitude to drive away multitudes of our people from England altogether, and to lead them to France, where, if the people dislike us as I am sure they do, and every, thing that belongs to us we don t know it, and still less do we care. French opinion is concealed from us by the language, and all attention is diverted from the inquiry into it, by the amuse ments, the frivolities and the profligacies of Paris. I profess my immeasurable preference for England with all her draw backs, to France, or, indeed, any nation on the continent. England is honest, manly and truthful, and you feel that you may confide in her as sincere in what she does. France, with a vast number of good things, is too dramatic, too impul sive, too vain, and too light, to make a good friend. So, again I say, England for me ! I think we are close upon the time which is to witness a great change in the social and political esti mates of our two countries for each other. They are opening their eyes here to juster views of us and our policy, and it is quite in the course of probable things, that the new era will date from the great historical event the greatest since the voyage of Columbus of the laying of the Atlantic cable. I look to SECOND A IS IT TO EUROPE. 303 see, in speedy development and progression, the most liberal adoption, on both sides, of a policy of brotherhood much more real than that of which we have been talking so nonsensically every year at dinner tables I think the French alliance will, in due time not far off melt away, and other combinations of European politics arise, which will kindle a fervor of good feel ing between England and America. For, after all, with all our old grudges, if the liberty or independence of England should be assailed by any powerful combination of Old World absolutism, don t you think the Anglo-Saxon blood in our veins would warm up to stand by our kinsmen in the quarrel ? Could we be content to see another Norman cross the channel, with his mailed and gauntleted followers, to sweep away once more the beautiful monuments of our race the churches, colleges, and cities, so full of the mind, heart and worship, that are as much our treasures as they are England s ? Could we willing ly, and without a desire to prevent it, see those old and afflu ent fountains of English law and liberty, and those grand res ervoirs of English thought and sentiment, in danger of being seized upon, drained, dried up and obliterated, by a horde of Front de Bceufs, De Bois Guilberts and Malvois-ins ? I think not. Rather, I think, we should verify Benton s prophecy though in a different sense from his " The day will come and the babe is now born who will see it when an American brigade will hold a review in Hyde Park." To be sure it will ! and I hope that it will come, at the earliest moment, after the news shall be brought by telegraph of a continental invasion of Eng land, that a brigade of our stout fellows can be steamed across the Atlantic. Now, in my opinion, and this is the sum of my view of the national politics, England will be wise if she con templates such an emergency in time, and shall direct her policy and social influence steadily to the preparation of the English and American mind for it. I believe the signs are now that she will ; and I shall be disappointed if the next ten years do not witness a more cordial agreement and reciprocal esteem between the people and governments of the two nations, 304: LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY*. respectively. We are already the only two real republics in the world England being, in fact, quite as much of a republic as we are and the probabilities are that we shall have to combine for the defence of the republican principle against its natural enemies, wherever they may arise and for its diffu sion over the world, wherever it may suit our occasions to plant it. In the perception of this necessity, I prophesy : ist, that England will abandon her cant about the iniquity of slavery in America .or, at least, turn it over to that harmless community, which is as self-important as fussy, and as absurd here as its fellowship on our side is the good people who think that the grand national interest of States should be postponed and ig nored, to make way for a millennium of saints, who are to gov ern the world in universal peace, with any quantity of lectures and moonshine. My prediction is, that English statesmen, and, with them, the English public, will concur to leave the question of slave labor to the progress and destiny assigned to it by the laws of political economy, which are but another name for the decrees of Providence. 2d, I prophesy, as a cor ollary from this, that England will acquiesce with us, and ad mit the necessity of our acquisition of Cuba, whenever our own view of that necessity shall prompt us to consummate the act, and that she will manifest an honorable confidence in our integrity and justice in deciding that question. 3d, I prophesy that England will invite, or if not invite, complacent ly look upon our cooperation with her in the peopling and set tlement of her vast domain on our continent, hoping, and ex pecting, in that enterprise, to see an expansion of the Anglo- Saxon element, and its kindreds, over the northern portions of America, spread into many communities all affiliated with us and with the mother country, by free institutions, by the same forms of civilization, and by a similar industry and in that field to find a new commerce and an abundant agriculture, to sustain it equally for the benefit of both. 4th, I prophesy that all that region will rise to great prosperity and influence under SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE. 305 this policy, and that when the proper period of maturity arrives, it will assume the position of an independent republic, with the full and hearty concurrence of the government of Eng land. It is my faith in these predictions which induces me to say, that a new era is at hand, which will be characterized by a hearty agreement between England and the United States. Now, there I have given you a sermon which you may digest at your leisure. If I had any music, I would here in troduce the choir, and give out, after the manner of the learned professors at Yale College, a hymn to be sung by you and Mrs, B., and Isaac Marion and Rebecca Marion, and Kenny and Kate, and all the .rest of them" Old Hundred," sir, if you please, with which I shall conclude. I have engaged our homeward passages in the Persia, which is advertised to sail on the i6th of October. So, we may hope, once more to touch our beloved soil the best in the world, after all, for those who are born to its birthrights before that month is out. I shall be truly thankful to get back to dear Maryland, and within speaking distance of the match less friends who have made it a sunny land for me and mine. To tell you the truth, I am tired of roaming which confession, you will say, imports that I am getting old which by the bye, is a truth I am rather proud to avow, as it gives me some claim, or, at least, apology for it, to inflict upon you this tedi ous discourse on men and things. Yours, ever, J. P. K. 306 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. CHAPTER XIV. During the Rebellion. THERE is an unwritten chapter in the History of the War for the Union. It is that which will record the moral suffering of those who had to endure the alienation of life-long friends, and the perverse violence of kindred ; a chapter which describes the trials of those whom age and physical infirmities debared from the relief which military service yields the patriotic heart; who had to "stand and wait," and only serve the cause they espoused, by patient ar gument, by kindly forbearance, by earnest pleadings and by a noble ministry to the victims of war, on both sides ; whose ties of blood, of neighborhood and of personal sympathy, only aggravated their indignation and sorrow at the disloyalty around them ; and whose magnanimity was only equalled by their firmness and fealty. Among these Mr. Kennedy stands nobly in the foreground. " May we revive the memory of domestic war and will such recollection be magnanimous ?" asks the commemorative ora tor of Princeton College, on the Memorial Day of her martyrs for the Union ; and he answers the self-interrogatory thus : " If painful recollection and humiliation were the ends con templated, let it be utterly forgotten ; but the commemoration has important ends beyond itself. It is testimony to truth, wrought out by experiences in the past ; it is instruction to the present age. It records teaching for generations yet to fol low ; and this war has developed vital doctrine which must needs be asserted and re-asserted until it is rooted deep in DURING THE REBELLION. 307 the practical convictions of our American people : accepted as fundamental in their established creed, infused, like an innate idea, into the belief of their children. The due appreciation of the inestimable worth of the Union, must be secured by re newed consideration of the agony and sacrifice it cost to save it. * To such a man as Mr. Kennedy, the conflict between two sections of the country and between certain States and the Nation, was not a political, but a patriotic question ; in his view it was no partisan dispute, but a problem involving the life of the nation. The path of right and duty, of wisdom and honor, was as clear as noonday but the position he occupied and the task he felt bound to perform, involved the keenest suffering to his gentle nature, and the deepest solicitude of his patriotic heart. The native of a border State, yet most inti mately associated with the political leaders of the North ; a witness of the nullification experiment of Calhoun, and cogni zant of all its processes and phenomena ; with a large num ber of relatives in Virginia, of which State, in its normal ten dencies civic and social, he had made a study and, at the same time, a citizen who cherished the most broad and high views as to the duty and destiny of his country, few Ameri cans, from their antecedents, surroundings and experience, occupied such a desirable vantage ground as Mr. Kennedy, for a just estimate of the facts of the hour. He penetrated at once, to the core of the evil; he had become familiar with the encroachments of Southern politicians and their dreams of empire ; he had long known and humorously described the provincial egotism and political -crotchets of the sophistical State-rights party of Virginia ; and secession projects had Ion* before been discussed in his presence ; the manoeuvres of unscrupulous and ambitious schemers to commit the South to a desperate enterprise, were also apparent to him ; but * Dr. Duryea s Commemorative Address, delivered at the request of the Trustees of Princeton College, June 26, I860. 308 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. he was equally well acquainted with the worth and wisdom of the Southern conservatives, and with the vast resources and un flinching loyalty of the North ; and, above all, he felt how im possible it was for any American, of clear judgment, accurate knowledge and genuine probity, to shut his eyes to the folly and wickedness of an attempt to destroy the Union by force of arms and in the interest of slavery. Hence, after the first shock of grief and astonishment at the impending struggle, had passed away, he confidently hoped the sober second thought of the people would effect a reconciliation. To this belief he clung and labored assiduously for its realization. He opened a correspondence with his old political allies ; wrote strong appeals to his Southern friends ; made constant visits to Washington to consult with the influential friends of peace ; and with pen and voice, sought to awaken, in the pop ular mind, a sense of the awful consequences of civil war and the utter inadequacy of the alleged reasons so cunningly mar shalled, to "fire the Southern heart." A club, styled " The Monday Club," met alternately at the houses of the various members each Monday in the winter sea son, and during its existence was the most agreeable reunion in Baltimore, and was almost certain to command the pres ence of any distinguished stranger who chanced to be in town. Mr. Kennedy was among the most punctual in attendance. " He was always full of the subject that most occupied his attention," says a member, " and without engrossing the con versation would be certain to allude to it during the evening. At that time he had for the most part retired from active po litical life, but took a deep interest in the political discussions of the day, which he aided in elucidating by occasional contri butions to the National Intelligencer, in which many of his best political essays appeared. This was about the time when the sectional discussions in Congress began to assume the angry character they afterward took. On one occasion, Kennedy appeared at the club gloomy and desponding, and soon turned the conversation to the theme that most occupied his thoughts. DURIXG THE REBELLION. 309 He had just returned from Washington, where he had con versed freely with the more prominent Southern members, most of whom had been his colleagues in the previous sessions of Congress. " I have great apprehension," said he, " for the perpetuity of the Union, and I know not how soon this beautiful fabric of government, the best that the world has ever seen, may be rent into pieces." I remember that I expressed doubts as to the grounds of his fears, and urged that the present exacerbation of feeling would give place to one in which both sections would be per fectly willing to do justice to each other. " So I thought," replied he, " before I went to Washington ; but when I heard as I have within a few days grave and cautious Southern statesmen, in whose opinions I have been accustomed to repose great confidence, deliberately calcula ting the advantages that would accrue to their section by a sep aration from the North, I must confess that my confidence has vanished, and given place to the most gloomy forebodings for the future." The opinion of the gentlemen present, without exception, was that Kennedy s fears were groundless ; but he continued to argue his point with much ability, giving a number of facts bearing upon the question which, in a few days after, appear ed in the columns of the National Intelligencer in an essay from a " valued contributor," in which the evils of dissolution were most vividly portrayed. In the course of his remarks, turning directly to me, he said, with great emphasis, " I consider the danger imminent ; and I believe it to be the duty of every one who can write, to exercise his influence in attempting to save our now happy country from impending ruin." The sequel has shown that Kennedy s insight into the future was far clearer than that of his opponents." He had thus early foreseen and anticipated the tendencies of the hour ; under date of March 2, 1857, he writes : " Inter view with Buchanan ; and, speaking of the present disturbances 310 LIFE OF JOHN I. KENNEDY. in the country, I told him that I thought he had both the power and the opportunity to do much good, by healing dissension and making a strong national party in favor of maintaining the Union against all factions as it was his good fortune to be op posed by the ultras both North and South." Again he writes : Washington, July, 1860. Crittenden and I had a long talk on the condition of affairs. We agree to work together for the restoration of peace at the first moment that may be practicable ; we hope that at the opening of Con gress in the fall, a more auspicious state of things may exist. I promised to write him. Aug. 3. I fear the division of North and South is becoming too inveterate for future reconciliation. We find a strong hope of peace in the belief that a large number of the people of the South, comprehending perhaps a majority of the wealth and business interests in several States, are averse to disunion and are repressed and subdued by the despotism of the ruling party." Having been invited to prepare an appeal in accordance with these views, he thus remonstrates at the manner in which it was toned down before publication : BALTIMORE, FEB. 20, 1860. MY DEAR CRITTENDEN : The mail this morning brings me the address as remoulded under the revision of the Committee. It strikes me zz very tame and little, likely to carry much per suasion with it. As an advertisement of a plan of organization, it contains every thing that is necessary, and so far as the con servatives of the country have already made up their mind to enter into the next canvass, it will, serve to give them a centre and set them in motion. But to create a new party and to call out men from the ranks of the other two, and to rouse thought ful men to a perception of the follies and dangers which should invoke them io take a part in the movement, I think it fails to present the motives which exist to recommend it. What I conceive we want just now is, such a statement of party misrule as shall demonstrate to all the world that those who have DUKING THE REBELLION. oil brought the country into its present deranged condition are un worthy to be further trusted. This, in its very nature, implies a candid and severe criticism of the errors of party, and even a sharp censure of their faithlessness to the public interest. The men who conduct these parties, or who follow their lead, may be treated more kindly, and in some degree be excused. We may regard them with the charity due to the errors of over heated zeal and perverted judgment. Now, that is the view in which I prepared the address. I thought it important that, by such a review of the course of the two parties on the prominent question out of which the disorders of the day have been pro duced, we should furnish topic and argument for public discus sion, and provide our friends with ammunition for the contest. A mere recital of common-place sentiment touching the value of the Union and the danger of passionate extremes, which the newspapers and the speakers at Union meetings make the theme of declamation, is, in my judgment, scarcely sufficient for the occasion unless, indeed, as I have remarked, the country is already convinced of the necessity of a revolt against the dom ination of both parties. The committee can judge better than I can as to that fact. But if my view is a correct one, it is ob vious that the address, to discuss the grounds upon which a new party has become necessary, must be a somewhat long and ar gumentative paper. Our address, as now finally adopted, will persuade none, not already convinced, though it will doubtless serve to animate those who are waiting to know how they are to fall into the ranks." " The accounts are confirmatory," he writes in December, 1860, " of the worst in the South ; I think it scarcely possible that this wicked frenzy can last much longer. I have been all the week at work upon my tract The -Border States their Power and Duty in the present disordered state of the Country. I have some hope it may do good." No more seasonable ap peal illustrated the first stages of the civil strife, than this able argument to show how effectively the Border States, if united and resolved, could stay the tide of rebellion and harmonize 312 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. the antagonistic elements of the extreme sections ; while all ac knowledged its cogency and wisdom as well as its excellent tone and perspicuous style, those who most warmly responded to its views, were those who most sadly declared it came too late to calm the surges of passion by the pleas and protests of Rea son and of Right. A few days after the last entry in his note book, on the twentieth of December, Mr. Kennedy writes : " The news this morning is that South Carolina seceded from the Union yesterday ; a great act of supreme folly and injustice pass ed by a set of men who have inflamed the passions of the peo ple and driven the State headlong into an enterprise which history will record as the most foolish of blunders as well as most wicked of crimes. It is the mock heroism of men who do not comprehend their own incapacity ; who mistake passion for a just sentiment of honor; and who cannot perceive the desperate extreme of their own folly. They will live to repent the wickedness of this act which is destined to be visited upon them in the ruin of their country and in the detestable fame it is to confer upon them." Thenceforth he notes the progress of the Rebellion, from day to day ; comments on its origin and purposes ; and, with singular prescience, suggests its probable fortune and certain failure. Meantime he was attending paci fication meetings, holding conferences with loyal friends, re monstrating with disloyal relatives ; and sadly adding, from week to week, to the catalogue of traitors in naval, military and civil life, as their names transpired as deserters from the old flag. Still he was incredulous as to the culmination of the plot in deliberate and prolonged hostilities ; still he trusted common sense and conscience would prevail. " The plot thick- ens," he writes, Jan. 4th, 1861. " I am strongly impressed with the idea that the North is playing a game of bravado as well as the South, and before ten days Lincoln will interfere and terms will be offered which will secure peace." These illusions were dispelled in a few weeks ; on the thirteenth of April, he writes : " Yesterday was the birthday of Henry Clay. It was signalized by a most memorable and melancholy fact the opening of the DURING THE REBELLION. 313 civil war by the assault of the Carolina batteries upon Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor. 1 And now all the energies of Mr. Kennedy were devoted to the successful prosecution of the war for the Union and all his sympathies to the mitigation of its inevitable evils. His native city became the earliest scene of sanguinary events and social proscription ; and, during all the years of the conflict, he maintained his civic integrity with out the least diminution of kindness to friend or foe. His ac tivity and usefulness are indicated in his journal : April 1 6, 1 86 1. Governor Hicks is in town. I advise him to write a letter to the President to say that he can cheerfully tender the quota of the State to protect the Capital against in vasion. April 19. About noon a detachment of troops came into town, by the Philadelphia train ; and in passing from one sta tion to the other, the track was obstructed and a fierce and ex cited mob attacked the soldiers in the car with heavy stones. The troops undertook to cut their way through to Camden Street ; a furious fight ensued, and about half of the troops got through. The Mayor promised that if any route for the. passage of troops, without going through Baltimore, be practicable, the city should be avoided. I tell the people that this refusal of a right of transit, will arouse the whole North and invite an attack upon the city. April 25th. Thousands of reports flying. The secession ists of this State are growing moderate, and everybody seems to think that Maryland is helpless if invaded ; the Northern people breathe fire and vengeance against Baltimore." What a sudden and complete change had thus come over the peace- . ful, prosperous and social life of his native city ! Martial law was soon declared ; the cannon of Fort McHenry where, as a youth, he had served with his fellow-citizens in de fence of their homes, against a foreign invasion, were now turned toward Baltimore instead of the sea ; Federal Hill was crowned with ramparts, barracks and heavy guns ; instead of friendly visits to old friends, his mornings were often passed 14 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. in conference with the Union general in command, to urge lenity towards some insulting rebel ; to suggest the mitigation of some severe order; or co-operating in some subscription or correspondence in aid of the National cause. His letters now were frequent and varied ; one day he writes to General McClellan to secure a free passage for some unfortunate Southern family ; another he replies to an English friend who seeks information about the war ; or he indites a long and cheering epistle to his beleaguered kindred in Virginia, or a suggestive one to an old Congressional friend, with some plan for ameliorating the suffering of captives, or vindicating a loyal Southerner. Sometimes, in the midst of his sad record, flash es of his native pleasantry brighten the page. He notes, with good-humor, the fact that, when in the discharge of his duty as Provost of the University, he distributed Diplomas, the fe males present they could hardly be called ladies hissed and threw bouquets, composed so as to bear the rebel colors, upon the stage. He mentions passing in the street a life long friend, who turned his eyes away to avoid a salutation ; and being at divine service, when several of the congregation rise from their knees as the prayer for the President is read. To a noble mind these evidences of spite are simply disgust ing ; and the severe measures they induce amuse him. " Schenck," he writes, " is producing a terrible flutter of crinoline in the neighborhood, and is regarded as the Danton and Haynau of the age. He even forbids the birds to sing 1 My Maryland, a tyranny which has turned all the crotchets into demi-semi-quavers." While Mr. Kennedy s few Union friends in Baltimore took counsel with him in behalf of the National cause, his rebel rel atives and acquaintances constantly availed themselves of his intercession. Now a young lady comes flying on her favorite horse, from her manorial home leagues away, to beg his influ ence to save her live-stock from seizure ; and now comes a let ter of thanks from Fort Delaware or Fort Warren, written by a released prisoner in whose behalf Mr. Kennedy has success- DURING THE REBELLION. 315 fully wrought ; or an appeal from the Relay House, addressed to " my clear protector." He solicits employment for deserving and needy persons ; he gives details of many interesting inter views with the prominent actors in the exciting scenes of the struggle ; he carefully states all the circumstances of every im portant battle of the war ; sketches the character of the officers, narrates the whole course, consequence and rationale of the Mason and Slidell capture ; and dwells, with pathetic emphasis, on the assassination of" Lincoln ; personal and local experience and judicial comment giving to the record a unity which makes it full of vital significance. He sustains the baffled clergyman whose loyalty brings on him contemptuous treatment even in the performance of holy duties ; he visits and ministers to the wretched Union prisoners landed at Annapolis; he pleads with the authorities for the widow of old General Winder, under whom he served in 1814; he rejoices that his young cousin, Harry Pendleton, comes safely and bravely out of the Fort Fisher fight; and he bids "God speed" the gallant Porter, who goes forth with a smile to die at the battle of the Wil derness. The alternate triumph and despondency, victory and de feat, through which we passed during those long, sad, memora ble years, are renewed as they pass through so candid a mind and true a heart as his ; who solaced his isolation and calmed his impatience by this chronicle and commentary : from which the following extracts are taken at random : Baltimore, May 16, 1861. I have frequently heard it inti mated of late that there is a desire on the part of many leading men that I should receive and accept a nomination as candi date for Congress in the election which is to be held on the i3th of next month. The extra session is to be held on the fourth of July. I have discouraged the project of re-nominating me, being very unwilling to go back to public life. The grounds upon which I am solicited to accept are, that my re tirement for some years past has separated me from the influ ence of parties, and gives more weight to my position in this 316 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. crisis, that my views are highly approved by the Union men everywhere, that I have something of a national reputation which would be favorable to the interests of this State, and above all, that my coming into the canvass would be likely to unite all interests opposed to secession in a combined effort to place the city on the Union side. Baltimore, May 18, 1861. I drive to Meredith s, in Franklin Street, and take him in my carriage to Fort McHen- ry to call on General Cadwalader. We are admitted, and sit with him an hour. He talks very sensibly of his purposes here in command of the city, expressing a determination to interfere as little as possible with the civil authorities, and to take every precaution against unnecessary offence to our people. He has full powers given to him for military control. He thinks the war will last for some time. He told us that Baltimore, after the mob of the iQth of April, was in imminent danger of de struction, which the happy change in the temper of the dis turbers, and the revelation of the strength of the Union sen timent in Maryland and Baltimore, only averted. Washington, May 30, 1861. Calvert and I call on General Scott, at headquarters, where we are kindly admitted, and have a half hour s talk with him. The general, who is now about seventy-four, seems to be as active in mind as in youth, though physically, he shows age. He discourses very freely upon his projected campaign. He says that he is annoyed by the impa tience of the public in regard to active operations. " I tell Mr. Lincoln," says he, " that there are three sinews of war, men, money and patience, that if we pursue the system of the cam paign I have laid out, we shall close the war on the first of May next ; that if we yield to the advice of those who wish to hurry matters, we shall find the war on that day (the ist of May) as good as new. We save money and men both by proceeding carefully." He expresses himself very confidently of the issue. He says that " with our means in men and money, success is mathematically certain, and may be achieved with no great amount of bloodshed." " Sir," said he, " I have a great objection DURING THE REBELLION. 317 to wasting shoe leather. Shoe leather is a great element in war. Useless marches injure the men. I do not play for small stakes, and, therefore do not encourage assaults that do not advance the war. I look to New Orleans. We must wait till the season of malignant fever is past and when the waters are high, and I shall then establish a cordon of posts down the Mississippi which will effectually control that region." Among other things, he said he objected to mere annoy ances of the enemy. It is useless to make small incisions which fret and exasperate the country and produce fever in the public mind, but which do not tend to the advantage of the campaign. His plan I infer to be to get complete possession of the line of the Potomac from the ocean to the Ohio, which may re quire an early attack on Harper s Ferry, where there are some ten thousand troops ; and may also make it necessary to take Norfolk. He will then form a second line, more advanced and parallel to that, and so encircle Richmond. By advances of this character we may finally comprehend the chief points of the whole South, and by making these movements with overwhelm ing numbers, as he has the power to do, may save bloodshed. Washington, Thursday, July 4, 1861. Great booming of guns at daylight. I wake up with some idea that Btauregard has attacked the Union lines on the other side of the river. Many persons had an impression that it was his design to do so to day, and if possible interrupt the assembling of Congress. His force is said to be 50,000 men, and their position but a few miles apart from ours. The Union army on that side of the river must be at least 30,000, with as many more encamped on this side. It is a pleasant morning, and I am up at seven. The cannon ade is a salute of the day from the several batteries across the river. No attack from Beauregard. At eight o clock I witness the New York regiments wheeling into the Avenue, as they come from a review in front of the White House, by the Pres ident and General Scott. They march up the Avenue towards 318 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. the Capitol in platoons of thirty, and take upwards of an hour to pass. There are twenty-three regiments and upwards of twenty thousand men. The whole of these troops are excellent some of the regiments remarkably fine. At twelve, to the Capitol to see the opening of Congress. Here I meet in the House of Representatives, Wm. Appleton, and other acquaint ances. Stay till the speaker Grow, of Pennsylvania, is elect ed. Before going to the Capitol this morning, and just after the review, I call upon Reverdy Johnson by appointment, and he and I go to see the President. The room is empty when we enter it and we wait until Mr. Lincoln comes in. Presently he arrives with Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State. Mr. Welles also, the Secretary of the Navy comes in. This is the first time I have seen Mr. Lincoln. Johnson introduces me. His reception is cordial, but brusque. He is a much better looking man than I expected to see; the portraits, I think misrepresent him, or his short experience in the White House has improved his looks. Our business was to talk with him about the pris oners, the Police Commissioners, and to urge upon him the propriety of ordering their release. He heard us with great good will, spoke simply on the subject, and said he would bring it into a Cabinet consultation, which he immediately re quested Mr. Seward to arrange for three o clock to-day, and sug gested to Johnson and myself that we had better talk to some of the Cabinet before the meeting and give them our views. Patapsco, Tuesday, Sept 10, 1861. The weather is cool and clear ; the verdure of the country as fresh as Spring ; every thing around us is full of the beauty of an abundant year. The only subject of sorrow is this awful war that now rages over some of the fairest regions of the country. It is said that more than one hundred thousand men occupy the National camps around Washington; that McClellan s lines of defence are very strong, and that he is entirely confident of the security of the Capitol ; that Banks s division on the Potomac, above Washington, amounts to some thirty thousand and that but little less than this number of troops are gathered at Fortress DURING THE REBELLION. 319 Monroe. General Dix holds Baltimore with some ten thou sand. The regiment of Zouaves, formerly Duryea s are for tifying Federal Hill. On the Confederate side, it is estimated that Beauregard and Johnson have opposite Washington and along the Potomac as far as Leesburg, one hundred and fifty thousand men. The two armies have been for some weeks past but a few miles apart both strongly intrenched. We have daily reports of reconnoissances, skirmishes and cannonades. Many think a great battle imminent. In fact war rages over several States, and its exasperations are beginning to produce the usual afflictions not only to the combatants, but to the quiet and unoffending families, who are unhappily within its sweep. The newspapers report the arrest of my kinsman, Ed mund Pendleton and John Strother, in Martinsburg, as civilians who have refused to abandon their attachment to the Union. On both sides we hear of the arrests of disaffected citizens. It is quite manifest that here in Maryland we are only saved from the outbreak of civil conflict by the presence of the great force which now keeps the peace of the State. These are sad realities which no man could have believed possible in this once happy land, until the current of revolution hacTdriven them upon us. I can only look on and grieve, and wait for the day when in some lull of the storm of passion, I may find an occasion to speak a word for the restoration of harmony, and the reconstruction of our broken Union. At pres ent both parties have appealed to the arbitrament of the sword, and it is vain to hope for that calm judgment on the errors and crimes which have brought us to this deep disgrace, and which shall recall the nation to its duty, until another tri al of strength shall determine the predominant power that may control the events of the future. Patapsco, Friday, Oct. 25, 1861. My birthday, sixty- six ! I have renewed motives for gratitude to the merciful God who has directed my destiny in life, for the continuation of many blessings, chief among which is a clear conscience, a patient, contented and thankful spirit, and an unwavering reliance upon 320 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. his protection and support in all the difficulties and dangers which surround me, well assured that whatever lot is assign ed me, is that appointed by a beneficent and just dispenser of events and that a faithful performance of duty will be the most acceptable return I can make to Him. I am still associated with the friends I love, and feel an earnest pride in the conviction that those nearest and dearest to me have maintained a steadfast loyalty to the country in these darkest hours of trial, and have resisted both the threats and the persuasions of the rash and intemperate, the inconsid erate and the wicked men, who have brought our once happy country into this extraordinary and insane commotion. Baltimore, Sunday, Sept. 7, 1862. Very warm day. We have the carriage about half-past ten and set out to drive to Patapsco. Upon reaching the hill near Fairview Hotel, three miles out, we come to General Wool and his staff, with an es cort of dragoons. They are halting in the wood apparently in consultation. I stop to inquire of the general if there is any news. He tells me he has received a dispatch this morning that Lee had entered Frederick City at daybreak with 25,000 men, and was probably on his march to Baltimore. The gen eral is making an observation of the country to select a posi tion for defence if an attack should be contemplated. It is un certain if Lee means to march upon Baltimore, or to cross into Pennsylvania. The general advises me not to remain all night at our place at Ellicott s Mills, but to come back to town, as there is some risk of cavalry raids to-night as far as the Mills there being no troops between us and Frederick to in terfere with them. I determine to go on to look after matters at home and return in the evening to our residence in town. We are advised by the general and his officers to keep a good lookout ahead on the road, and if we should see signs of troops before us to return immediately. We go on ; meet, when about six or seven miles, a person in a gray blouse, well mounted a good rider, apparently unarmed ; about a mile farther another of the same character and equipment, the latter in plain dress, DUKING THE REBELLION. 321 both moving along at a walk. They strike us very strongly as disguised emissaries from the rebel army, venturing towards our lines. At our place, where we arrived about one, we make prepa rations for our return to Baltimore. I have all my bonds and other valuable papers here, which I determine to take away. See Mr. Bone, our manager at the factory, and tell him what I have heard, and direct him to get his team ready and have the factory goods, of which we have some twelve or fifteen thousand dollars worth, removed to-night. He promised to do this, and we set off on our return about four o clock. Reach town about sundown. Our servants also come in one of our carriages ; some trunks and other baggage are sent in a cart ; the weather is very warm. Baltimore, Saturday, Oct. 25, 1862. Splendid weather. This is my birthday, 6;th. It finds me still happy ; in good friends, in good health and good fortune thankful for the abundant favors I have received from my Creator, and patient ly and cheerfully awaiting for that future which he has allotted to me. I especially thank him that in this dreadfyl civil war which now rends our sorrowful country, he has given me the grace to preserve my faith to the Government under which I have received so many blessings, and to maintain my loyalty amid the bitter assaults which a wide pervading treason is making against it ; amid the threats which constantly assail me, and the alienation of friends which it has compelled me to encounter. I acknowledge no higher duty, here on earth, than that of meeting courageously every sacrifice which power or fortune may exact of me in the endeavor to preserve the Union and defend the Constitution. June 30, 1863. The alarm last night was occasioned by a cavalry skirmish near Westminster, in which a small party of Delaware horse was driven in with some loss of killed and prisoners, by a detachment of Stuart s cavalry, on a raid from the Potomac, from which they were seeking their way to Ewell at York. The alarm was propagated by signal, which imported I A* 322 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. that the enemy was galloping towards Baltimore. The effect here was good in showing the alacrity of the new levy of citi zens who rushed to their posts, some five thousand, and, with the well disciplined troops here, make up quite a respect able army. To-day Schenck issues a proclamation of martial law over the city and county and the rest of the western shore. Meade takes command of the army with a modest and soldier-like address ; and has, it is said, already made some im portant moves which are shown in restoring the communica tion with Frederick and Harper s Ferry, and clearing the country alo ng the Potomac of the light troops of the enemy who have been doing mischief there. July i, 1863. The town is very grave and anxious. We all feel that a great crisis is at hand. July 4. General Schenck has issued a request to all loyal citizens to display the national flag to-day. It is very odd to see that there is almost a universal exhibition of the stars and stripes. They are flying from almost every secession residence within my view. A wonderful increase of loyalty to-day ! Sharon, Aug. 4, 1863. In conversation with - - the other day, he told me a secret of the secession conspiracy, of which I had heard something before. About a year ago, he was driving with and another gentleman, Mr. -, whose name I now forget. The three were alone. - is a peace demo crat, in fact a secessionist. He told his companion that in the summer of 1861 he received a letter from Slidell which gave him a programme of the course which the conspirators of the South had laid down in the beginning of the rebellion. It was in substance this. Immediately after the secession ordinance was passed by South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and other Cotton States, while Congress was in session, and before the election of Lincoln was declared, or before the inauguration, they were to seize Washington, for which they had made pro vision. Buchanan, the President, was to be compelled to re sign. Breckenridge, the Vice-President, was to take his place. The New England senators were to be driven away, and the DURING THE REBELLION. 323 revolution was to be proclaimed, and the provisional govern ment to be sustained by the secession majority in Congress and by the force collected at Washington. They were then to call a convention of the States which might be willing to unite, form a new Constitution suited to the demands of the South, reduce the Senatorial representation of the small States, and when the fundamental law was then constructed in accordance vrtth their plan of Southern supremacy, to allow the States ex cluded by the original movement to come into the Union re modeled by this process. SlidelFs letter, - - said, as explain ed by , contained many details of the scheme which he did not repeat to me, and it affirmed that the scheme was frus trated by the obstinacy of Governor Hicks, of Maryland, who prevented the attempt to force our State into secession by re fusing to call the Legislature into extra session before the in auguration of Lincoln. This was the import of - s commu nication to me, which was suggested by a conversation in which I was narrating the endeavors of the conspirators in Maryland to force Hicks to convene the Legislature. Newport, Sept. 18, 1863. Mr. - - has given me a letter to read from a friend at Natchez to him, on the condition of things in that quarter. He says, " I would rather live on the confines of hell itself, than among secessionists in this Con federacy, for I hate them one and all, men, women and chil dren, with a bitter and everlasting hatred. I have told seces sionists here if they would replace the cotton (his own raising) burnt by Confederate authority, I would make a deed of gift to the Confederacy of all I now claim south of Mason and Dix- on s Line." He said in a previous part of the letter, " on mak ing an estimate of my assets in January, 1861, I thought I was worth $ 1,300,000. I would now gladly accept an offer of one- twentieth of that sum in good funds." After stating the sad havoc made by the war in Mississippi by the bad treatment of both parties, he says : " But there has nothing happened that I did not predict would be the result of secession. We are a ruined and degraded people, and by whom ? By such men as 2: LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. John Slidell, Jeff Davis, Wm. L. Yancey et id omne genus. Sli- dell is more to blame for it than all the rest. Secession was in its origin bad enough, but he who would be a secessionist now, after witnessing its result, must be a fool, a knave or a madman. On this point there can be but one opinion, and I am free to admit that we richly deserve our fate, for submitting to the dictation of selfish demagogues, unprincipled politicians and ambitious aspirants for political honors. These sentiments I have openly and at all times proclaimed, and have never sought to conceal or suppress them. I have been a firm, con sistent, unwavering and unfaltering lover of the Union, and yet I have suffered to a greater extent in property than the maddest secessionist." He then adds. " For the support of Mrs. and myself, I can see my way clear enough, but I have eight granddaugh ters and two grandsons, and they must be supported from my means. My sons must support themselves." " A secessionist asked me yesterday what I meant to do after I left (he had announced his purpose of quitting the coun try and going North), and how I expected to live. I told him I had the choice of two situations, one, abrakeman on a rail road train, the other a toll -keeper at a turnpike gate, and I had not yet made up my mind which I would take ! ! !" This is the letter of an old gentleman upwards of seventy, a moderate, intelligent and upright man, and one of the most influential citizens of the South. New York, Oct. 19, 1863. and have all come here manifestly for mere enjoyment. Strange that these people, who are always talking about the " cursed Yankees," and profess eternal hatred to every thing " North," and who have so often vowed that they would never set their feet on this side of Maryland, should have the face to be crowding into this region, as so many have been doing all summer. Baltimore, Jan. 8, 1864. Colonel David Strother calls on me, on his way from Washington to Cumberland, where he be longs to Kelly s staff. He is very instructive in his accounts DURING THE REBELLION. 325 of the war, of which he has seen so much, and of which he tells me he has kept a fdll diary ever since he entered the service. Baltimore, Nov. 28, 1864 Fine day. Professor Goldwin Smith is to go this evening to Philadelphia by the half-past four train. We set out by eleven and drive to Janes s Hospital, and here we are shown over the whole establishment. We see the poor fellows who have just arrived -some two hundred and fifty who were sent forward from Annapolis, where many more of them now are. These are the strongest and most capable of being moved those left behind are too weak to be exposed to the journey. We examine several of these men, picking out the most intelligent, and the story of their sufferings is invariably the same. The worst accounts, as seen in the papers, are not more heart-rending than the stories these men give us ; scant food, of the most revolting kind filthy water no shelter from sun or rain no covering- generally robbed of their clothing, always of their money and the sick and well equally de serted and oppressed. Nothing within the boundaries of civ ilization has ever surpassed the barbarity towards these pris oners, the deaths at Andersonville were one hundred a day. These men are so attenuated that the Professor enclosed the arm of one of them, above the elbow, in the ring of his finger and thumb. We left this horrid scene after an hour or more, and came to town." " The following is the statement of old Mr. Kidwell, of Bath, Berkeley Springs : One beautiful summer morning, my son Isaac, aged nineteen, and myself, were out cradling wheat, when up rides a soldier and says, " I command that young man to lay down his cra dle and follow me to Winchester, at the call of his country." And pray," said I, " who gives you the authority to come and force my son off?" " Colonel Johnson," said he. With that, I exclaimed, "You are all a set of rebels ; you hung John Brown for fighting against our country, now in my soul, I be lieve he was crazy ; but you are all a set of rascals and rebels, and deserve to be hung far more than John Brown." " If you don t hold your tongue, said he, I ll bind you hand and footj LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. and take you to Puchmond ;" with that he gave a whoop, and up run five or six soldiers, that had been hid in the bushes, and they bound Isaac and led him off he poor boy ! so un willing to go. Oh ! it was hard, and with tears streaming down my face I could only exclaim, O Heavens, give me power ! About two weeks after this, being in the town of Bath, a friend came to me and said, " Kidwell, I am just from Winches ter, your son is very ill in the Hour Hospital, and you had bet ter go to him." " Friend Willard," said I, " it is impossible, I have but forty cents." "Here," said he, "is my pocket-book, take what you want fifteen, twenty, or thirty dollars " (can I ever forget that noble fellow ?) but I am a plain man, and five dollars was quite enough for me so off I started to Winchester, and about dark, rode up to the Hour Hospital. In one room were four doctors playing cards. " Can you tell me," said I, " if a young man of the name of Kidwell is here ?" " He is not here," said one of the doctors ; "but, said I, he must be here, I was told to come here ;" turning to a soldier, one of the other doctors said, " Go and see" after awhile the soldier came back and said ; " There is no one of that name here ;" just then, a half- drunken soldier said, " Look in No. Six, there was a man put in there .some clays ago." Jerking up a candle, I followed the fel low to No. Six, he unlocked the door, and there lay a man ; holding the candle close down to his face, I saw my son, my dear son Isaac. " Oh ! Father," said he, whispering, for he could hardly speak, " I m so glad you have come give me wa ter." Holding the pitcher to his mouth, parched and dry as a bone, he took a long drink, and said, " Oh, how good !" " My son, "said I, "what have they done for you?" "Nothing, Fath er," said he whispering, " no one has been near me for three days !" " Isaac, why did they not let you come home, when you were first taken sick?" "Oh, Father !" said he whispering, " they said you were a d Union man, and if I once got away I d never come back." And so my poor child, my only son, died, and I buried him and now I am broken-hearted." Meantime, while Mr. Kennedy s public spirit found such DURING THE REBELLION. 327 benign scope, his private feelings were anxiously excited by the precarious situation of his kindred in Virginia. Martinsburg and its vicinity were constantly threatened and alternately in the hands of the enemy and the national troops ; the lands were ravaged, the provisions carried off, and the households kept in a perpetual state of alarm by forays and fighting. Sometimes his relatives, even the most disloyal, were fugitives at his threshold ; and at others, he was busy in devising means to send them relief; they were often on short rations; and for weeks together no communication was practicable. Yet all was not disheartening in the news which from time to time reached him. His brave old uncle was true as steel to the cause and the country. " My dear John," he writes at the out break of the struggle, " I had not read through the first para graph of Friends of the Union to the Rescue, in my Intel ligencer, when the surmise of its authorship occurred to me. The surmise became conviction before I reached the bottom of the first column ; and I read the rest of the article with an interest and an eagerness which I leave you to imagine. As Gibbon said of Burke s Reflections, so I say of Maryland, I admire his eloquence, I approve his politics, I adore his devotion, to the Union. " Like so many other aged and pure patriots, the venerable Philip Pendleton suffered in his vital ity not less than his fortunes by the war ; its anxieties and ag itations told upon his stalwart frame, and shortened his days, despite the cheerful temper and the philosophic serenity which distinguished him. In the spring of 1861, he writes to his nephew : " The gloom of old age alone is bad enough, but it is the course of nature ; it is terrific to have added to it the ruin of one s country and the impairing of all reliance upon man kind." After reading Mr. Kennedy s tracts on the duty of the Border States and that entitled " The Great Drama," he writes : " I cannot express the fulness of my approbation and admira tion. I am looking with increased eagerness to getting, as soon as possible, to some place whence, from the loop-hole of retreat, to peep at such a world" alluding to the state of LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. things around him, which he describes as " disgusting and con temptible to the last degree ; foolery is in the ascendant, and in my judgment, only to be got rid of by the ultima ratio." The disloyalty of his kindred and the loss of his property doubtless hastened an attack of paralysis ; from 1863 he had to employ an amanuensis. His nephew continued to send him epistolary cheer to the last ; as in the following : BALTIMORE, March 30th, 1863. To PHILIP PENDLETON, ESQ. MY DEAR UNCLE : M. and S. are to go to Martinsburg on Thursday, and will take this letter with them. Sally has been in an ecstasy ever since the holiday loomed upon her thoughts, and will enjoy herself for the ten days of the Easter vacation like an enfranchised school girl. She and Martha will tell you all that goes on here in the way of gossip. As to our graver concerns, I think I may cheer you with the hope that this terri ble imbroglio is drawing towards its end. As a mere fact of history we might predict that twenty-five millions of people would get the better of three millions, particularly when the larger power is full of all the resources of war and the smaller one in great degree destitute of them. My belief is that if one hundred persons were out of the way, the South would be glad to make peace now by returning to the Union. I have no faith in a sensible people dying in the last ditch, and as little in the declaration that the Union has no friends in the South. Ask any man from that region who is not a political zealot, what he is fighting for, and he will cudgel his wits a long time to give an answer. I tried this upon Y P , and I think he was a full half hour endeavoring to explain it through fifty shifting trials, accompanied with con siderable contortion of body and mind. It came-out at last that he was fighting for the Resolutions of 98. I told him I thought that was it, as I was perfectly sure those resolutions would some day bring him into trouble. Then I asked him what those resolutions were. He replied he had never read them, but if DURING THE REBELLION. 329 I had heard s speech, which he heard, I would see what a capital fight could be made on them. Well, what was s view ? Why he couldn t exactly answer, but it fully allowed Vir ginia to make a fuss if she wanted it. He concluded by saying, " You ought to have heard him." Now this I think is about the most intelligible declaration of Independence I have yet got from any of the champions of the cause and so I make it known to you in " decent respect for the opinions of mankind," hoping that you will pass it round. A Mrs. was arrested the other day, and a letter of hers published this morning in the American and Intelligencer, which I suppose you have read. She there reproves the zeal of a lady friend who avows that she took the oath of allegiance only that she might the better perpetrate treason. Does it not oc cur to you as a strange development of human character, some thing which is only brought out in such a convulsion as this, that when men and women have once plunged into the vortex of such an overshadowing crime as this rebellion, it produces an entire new view of all other crimes, and brings them to be regarded as virtues ? After that plunge there is no sin left. The host is purified in their own estimation. The great primal transgression is converted into a great merit, and all the sec ondary transgressions get the same character. I heard Schenck say the other day, that in his experience here, he had arrived at the most profound conviction upon which he acts every day, that no woman who approaches him and they are running to him all the time, for they have taken the surreptitious business out of the hands of the men, no woman implicated in the rebel lion or sympathizing with it, has the slightest compunction in deceiving by falsehood. He does not believe a word they tell him. Rank, quality, previous character, makes no exception to this experience. He has many queer stories to tell in proof of this. As to the men, they are only a little more guarded though we see enough in Southern bulletins to make our own conclusions. These are traits disclosed by the extraordinary state of affairs ; and but for this commotion we would have run 330 LIFE OF JOHN r. through our worldly career in the belief that truth was the dis tinctive glory of the Anglo-Saxon. How little we know of ourselves !" At the commencement of the third year of the war, Mr. Ken nedy wrote a series of letters addressed to the late Mr. Seaton, then editor of the National Intelligencer, and published in that journal. At the end of the conflict they were collected into a volume under the title of " Mr. Ambrose s Letters on the Rebel lion ;" and the author s reason therefor is that "every thing that may serve to note the history of such an era, has a value that makes it worth preservation." In this instance a special inter est attaches to these unpretending contributions to the bibliog raphy of the war. The author s intimate relations with the South ; his long political experience ; the prompt and firm stand he took as a national citizen and patriot during the struggle ; his liberal and urbane disposition, which rendered him a desir able mediator as well as a noble champion all gave emphasis and significance to his calm and earnest appeal to old but rec reant friends, while it strengthened the purpose and clarified the arguments of his own allies. We know of no work which, in so concise and convincing a manner, gives a more authentic summary of the events and influences which culminated in re bellion, or more candidly and truly analyzes the latent causes and successive phases of the " ripening of a wonderful revolu tion in the political and social character of the nation." While logical and rigid in the statement of facts, and uncompromising in the denunciation of treachery, these letters are written " in the kindest spirit of old friendship ;" they are at once judicial and conciliatory : tracing the origin of the secession heresy to the " quixotes of politics" and the " traditionary dialectics" that had bred a class of " hair-splitting doctrinaires ;" and while ex posing the sophistry thereof, he reveals the means and methods whereby mere foolish speculation was perverted into sectional bitterness, and shows how the loss of political prestige, the promptings of selfish ambition, dreams of Southern empire, and the "domineering importunity of political agents," fostered the DURING THE REBELLTOX. 331 war of opinion into bloody battle ; the machinery of the conspir ators is also revealed in the cunning measures adopted to di vide the Democratic party and secure the election of a Repub lican President, which was the signal to "fire the Southern heart ;" all the elements of the rebellion are laid bare ; the " exorbitant and engrossing State pride ;" the extravagant and inhuman claims of slavery ; the forced revival of the slave-trade ; the local prejudices, the youthful zeal, the perverse reason ing, the imaginary wrongs and insane pretentious which were enlisted so artfully and insidiously in the desperate cause ; nor are the sins of the Northern allies of the rebels passed over ; the history of their union with and subjection to the party of the South which originated the treason, is faithfully related ; the Constitution is examined and the views of its framers cited ; the benignity of the Federal Government vindicated, and the " sober second thought" of the infatuated men who were drawn into the rebellion, appealed to for tardy but sincere recognition of the truth and manly abjuration of their fatal error, if " the chances of war should permit these letters to cross the line." Mr. Kennedy s final counsels to his misguided brethren are as wise as they are benign ; and his patriotic hopes, his faith in the final triumph of freedom and progress only gained strength amid the tests and trials to which both were so long and painfully subjected. " It is only from the truly heroic," he observes, " from those who possess that rare wisdom which dis cerns the path of duty, with vision undisturbed by passion or affection, and who have the courage to follow it, that we may expect an example of that noble patriotism which accounts our country dearer than all human blessings and its service only subordinate to that we owe the Creator." And he deeply felt the consoling truth that "the sinews of nations are strengthen ed by conflict and their virtues nourished by the discipline of pain and sorrow." Mr. Kennedy was fond of relating the gallant conduct of one of his young cousins in the second degree, a lad of eleven years of age, the grandson of his uncle Philip, and the son of 332 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. his cousin Dr. Pendleton, of Martinsburg. Imbued with the most earnest loyalty, little Nat, while the rebels occupied the town and bivouacked on the family domain, became a favorite with the officers, who used to converse freely in his presence as being " only a boy." On one occasion he learned that two Union prisoners had escaped and taken to the woods ; on pretence of a private picnic, he put his own dinner and all he could gather from the table in a basket, and scoured the coun try, till he found the half-starved fugitives ; and after supplying them secretly with food for days, guided them round and through the outposts of the enemy, safely into the Union lines. On another occasion, he hovered around an improvised council of war, apparently absorbed in play, but with his ears on the alert ; he discovered that Early had reached the valley with fifteen thousand men, and intended, next morning, to surprise General Kelly, who, with a tenth part of such a force, was in camp three or four leagues away, wholly unsuspicious of dan ger. The general and little Nat were old friends ; the former having often enjoyed the hospitality of the family, when quar tered at Martinsburg. Pretending he was going into the woods to pick berries, the boy managed to get his pony out of sight, and mounting him dashed away and, after a rough ride of twelve miles, reached the first Union pickets and requested to be taken at once into the presence of the commander. He gave so accurate a report of the position, force, and intentions of the rebels, that General Kelly immediately crossed the river into Maryland ; and, half an hour afterwards, the enemy, confident of their prey, occupied the abandoned camp, but deemed it unsafe and inexpedient to cross the border in pur suit. This timely service was communicated in Kelly s dis patches to Washington, and President Lincoln sent for little Nat to come to the Capitol and receive thanks ; he, however, did not accept the invitation. He remained all night with the Union officers, and had to make a wide circuit to avoid the enemy, and get home to relieve his anxious mother alarmed at his long and inexplicable absence. DURING THE REBELLION. 333 A more distant kinsman of Mr. Kennedy, and one in whose welfare he took a deep interest, was one of the most efficient national officers in that part of Virginia. This was David Strother, the accomplished artist and author, who, under the nom de plume of Porte-Crayon, has so admirably delineated the scenery of his native State. Being familiar from childhood with every inch of ground in Western Virginia, an expert top ographical engineer, and, withal a stanch Union man, his ser vices were indispensable in that region, and he was appointed aide to the successive generals in command, enjoyed their highest confidence, and guided their most successful forays and retreats. To him Mr. Kennedy was indebted for much interesting information of what transpired in that border sec tion ; the father of the artist kept a famous inn at Berkeley Springs, and was known far and wide and much regarded ; as firm as his gallant son in his love for the Union, he was cruelly persecuted by rebel marauders ; his hotel used as barracks, his property carried off, and finally himself cast into prison, where the privations undermined his health and caused his death soon after release. Nor did the artist-son fare better. His valuable collection of original sketches, and all the materi als he had gathered for future use, were ruthlessly destroyed. Strothers cherished the most affectionate respect for Mr. Ken nedy, who had cheered his career as artist and author, and deeply sympathized in the sufferings incident to his loyalty. It was a labor of love to the young limner to illustrate " Swal low Barn," and he excelled in representing the comedy of Vir ginia life with the pencil as his kinsman did with the pen. At length the prospect brightened, and no heart welcomed the " beginning of the end" of the prolonged and terrible strife, more gratefully than did Mr. Kennedy. With the surrender of Vicksburg he hailed the collapse of the rebellion ; with the victory at Antietam the security of his own State ; and with Gettysburg, the virtual death-blow. Of the first relief by the withdrawal of the rebels from the border, he writes to his uncle ; Baltimore, March i3th, 1862. " Day is breaking over your long LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. night of suffering and sorrow along the border. The ruffian army is driven away, the mails restored, and in ten days the railroad will be open." In January, 1863, he writes : " It is very pleasant to find that obstructions which have been thrown across the path of our intercourse, have been removed at last ; and that you can obtain both tidings and supplies. Elizabeth has improved the opportunity to send you oysters, oranges and other things now deemed luxuries. " " The old flag," writes Dr. Pendleton to Mr. Kennedy, Martinsburg, August i6th, 1864, " is once more waving in our streets ; and I hope the gov ernment is at last awake to the importance of holding on to our valley ;" and the latter thus notes the closing scenes of the war: Baltimore, April 10, 1864. The American has the full of ficial account of the surrender. The negotiations opened yes terday by a note from Grant to Lee, inviting capitulation, to save unnecessary waste of life. Lee replies by saying he would be glad to capitulate if Grant would arrange with him the terms of a peace. Grant replies he has no authority to make a negotiation for a peace, but that he was sure the whole North would be rejoiced to make peace as soon as the rebels complied with Mr. Lincoln s demand to lay down their arms. He invites Lee to a conference, upon the terms of a surrender. Lee answers, that he will meet him to hear his terms. They accordingly met at nine o clock yesterday morning, at Appo- matox Court House, and there arranged the terms. These were very simple, freely offered by Grant and freely accepted. The army, with all its munitions, stores, etc., to be surren dered ; the men to go home on their parole, not to serve against the United States until exchanged ; the officers to be allowed their personal baggage, their horses and side-arms, and dis charged on parole. So ENDS THIS STUPENDOUS, WICKED AND FUTILE REBELLION. Our duty is gratitude to God, amnesty and forgiveness to the weak and foolish who have erred, char ity for their faults, and brotherly assistance to all who repent. Never has history recorded a rebellion of such magnitude and DURING THE REBELLION. 335 such folly. Never have a people who have sinned, been more sadly humiliated than the rebels. Not one hope has been fulfilled, not one prediction verified. Such want of forecast, the wisdom of statesmanship ; such false reckoning of their means and resources ; such ignorance of the nature and char acter of the contest they invoked ; such misconception of the strength ot the nation they fought, and such an overwhelming confidence in themselves, are absolutely marvellous as ex ponents of the intelligence and capacity of the leaders of the rebellion, and equally so, as to the blind confidence and sub mission of those who followed them. They got no aid from any foreign nation, not from England and France as they promised themselves, not even from Spain or Mex ico, as they sought to do in the latter years of the struggle. They got no aid from the Democratic party of the North and West, as they asserted they would. Their own resources failed, and the Union victories destroyed their means of sup ply obtained by running the blockade. They lost all their cities on the seaboard, and every inland town of note. They then appealed to the negro to save them, and actually sunk to the degradation of enlisting their slaves to fight for the per petuation of slavery. And, after all this, they surrender their Capitol of Richmond when driven from it by battle, them selves burn down the chief part of the city amidst the remon strances of the helpless population, who were ruined by this foolish act of vandalism ; retreat in alarm from their works, hoping to escape to the mountains ; are pursued, engaged, beaten, and finally forced to a surrender of the only army upon which the hopes of the rebellion hung. So be it ever, when the people of any section of our grand and beneficent Republic shall be tempted by ambition, by avarice or by pride, to strike a blow at the power that makes us a nation, or at tempts to sever the territory bequeathed to us by our fathers, and enlarged by our own labor ! The surrender was made in the afternoon of yesterday Palm Sunday and not more than a hundred miles from the spot where Cornwallis sur- 336 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. rendered his army to Washington, and closed the war of the revolution. April ii, 1865. Cloudy day. I find our rebel sympathi zers are softening down. They praise Grant s magnanimity in the terms of the surrender, and talk of the generous bearing of the Union men here in the present state of things. We have no details this morning from the army/ It is said that there is a strong Union feeling manifesting itself in Rich mond and other parts of Virginia among persons of influence. I have always believed that this fact would be disclosed when ever the pressure of Davis s despotism was taken off the Southern people. Baltimore, April 15, 1865. A drizzling morning. Tht whole city is stricken down with the astounding news of this morning ; the Assassination of President Lincoln, and also of Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, and his son Frederick, the Assistant. Last night at half-past nine, the President was shot through the brain in the theatre at Washington. About the same hour, the Secretary of State, who was lying ill in bed, disabled by his late fall from his carriage, was attacked by a ruffian, who entered his chamber and stabbed him two or three times in the neck. Four persons were in the room at the time attending him. These were all wounded. His son Frederick was struck down at his door and remained insen sible. This horrible news came last night at two o clock, and E. and I heard it before we were up, from Martha, who had been to church and got it there. The morning papers contain a few details. We shall have full accounts this evening. At eleven we hear that Mr. Lincoln expired at twenty min utes past seven this morning. Mr. Seward, it is hoped, barely hoped, may recover. At one o clock, a telegram says Freder ick Seward is dead. The assassin in the theatre was J. Wilkes Booth, a Maryland man and son of the actor. Letters found in his trunk show this crime to have been long meditated and DURING THE REBELLION. 337 intended for the fourth of March last. Harry Penclleton goes out to learn some particulars and comes in weeping. Our whole family is in tears. Never was a blacker crime commit ted with so little object. Lincoln had just given evidences of clemency to the rebels of which every one was speaking. Even Richmond was beginning to laud the kindly and magnanimous tone of his treatment of the conquered enemy. How igno- miniously have the chivalry of the rebellion displayed them selves to the world as their fortunes began to wane ! Firing New York by secret attempts at incendiarism, hanging and roasting negroes, massacring them when made prisoners, rob bing railway trains of civil passengers, and stealing the jewelry of women from their persons, burning one-half of Richmond at the moment of running away from it, when whipped out, and plundering their own people there of what could be stolen from the ruins ; seizing all the gold of their banks at the last moment and making off with it ; and then, when utterly van quished and forced into a final surrender of their chief army, to wreak their malice in these most cowardly and detestable murders ! Baltimore, April 18, 1865. Fine weather. I am too nervous to do any thing. I can neither read nor write. Government making many arrests and opening up strange discoveries rela ting to the conspiracy. The feeling of the country is intense. Nothing was ever seen like it. To-morrow the funeral cere monies are to be performed in Washington and at the same time all over the United States. The papers to-day contain Henry Ward Beecher s Oration at Fort Sumter upon the raising of the old flag there on the fourteenth a grand memorial of the rebellion. It is a very strange thing that that cere mony of Good-Friday the restoration of the identical flag lowered in sorrow on the fourteenth of April, 1861, and now replaced by the same hands General Anderson, assisted by Sergeant Hart, on the fourth anniversary of that day, should be followed by the abrupt termination of the life of Abraham Lincoln, as if to signalize a grand work finished, the con- 338 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. quest of the rebellion, and the commencement of a new era of National existence and a career, as we have every reason to hope, of such power, prosperity and glory as no nation ever en joyed before. Then, again, it may also be noted, that this ceremony marked the final accomplishment of what Mr. Lin coln seemed to consider his special mission in the Presidency, when he said that he entered upon this war to " repossess and re-occupy" all the forts that the insurgents had seized. It so happens that all were then retaken, and this formal re- occupation of Sumter, was the last act of that series of events. The news to-day informs us that Mobile and all its forts sur rendered on the ninth. How visibly do we see the hand of Providence in this afflictive and striking event ! It looks like a solemn sacrifice of blood illustrious and dear to the land, as a propitiation for sin and a covenant of future blessings to enrich and magnify and strengthen our country. It celebrates and con secrates the consummation of the greatest historical fact of all ages the emancipation of four millions of slaves ; the wip ing away the great sin of centuries and restoration of the na tion to virtue, to justice and freedom. In the martyrdom of our good President our country will find the seed of innumera ble blessings for many ages to come. Baltimore, April 21, 1865. Light, drizzling rain. A very sad day. The remains of our good President Abraham Lin coln arrive with a great escort from Washington at ten o clock, at the Camden station. The rain ceases, but the day is murky and damp. The boom of cannon at intervals, and the deep tolling of all the bells tell the city that the corpse is on its way to the Exchange, where it is to remain until two, for public inspection. I leave my study and go down to Baltimore Street just in time to see the whole procession. I have never witness ed a spectacle so solemn. The streets are so jammed with spectators that we can with difficulty get along the side walks. Every window in every house, every balcony, every bulkhead, is filled with men and women. Some three or four regiments of Artillery, Cavalry and Infantry, form the escort, troops of DURING THE REBELLION. 339 General officers and their staffs follow then the hearse, very splendid drawn by four black horses ; bands of music scattered along the whole length of the procession are pouring out grand strains of melancholy music. A large body of offi cials pall-bearers, members of Congress, etc., etc., follow the hearse in carriages ; then several thousand citizens of various corporate bodies and associations, Masonic Societies, Odd Fel lows, Union Leagues, Mayor and City Council, our Union Club, and then one or two thousand respectably dressed col ored men, in Masonic and other societies, make up the rest of the procession. Innumerable badges, flags, and funereal sym bols are borne by this long cortege. The emotion of sorrow is very deep and earnest. I could not restrain my tears, especially when the body passed me, and I hear that every where the same emotion was remarked in the spectators. Richmond, May 12, 1865. On Tuesday Sheridan passed with his cavalry. They are all in full march for Washington. It was a grand sight to see these veterans, who have accom plished such a wonderful campaign, all the way from Chatta nooga to Richmond, now marching with such alacrity through this conquered city, so long the citadel of Rebellion. The troops came from the other side of the James, crossing on a pontoon, and occupying some four or five hours to march by one point. They are in ordinary marching trim, with all their baggage, and long trains of pack mules (which is a feature in this army of Sherman s), as well as wagons. It was very touching to see the tattered, torn and worn-out colors, of the several regiments, and the honor shown them by the hundreds of spectators from the loyal States who lined the streets. The inhabitants did not show themselves, and the delicate consid eration of tfur soldiers for these poor people, and even tender ness with which they were treated, was very beautiful to ob serve." The following selections from his correspondence at this memorable period, more fully illustrate his views and feelings, as well as his patriotic activity : 340 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. BALTIMORE, June 3, 1865. To WILLIAM WHALLEY, ESQ. MY DEAR MR. WHALLEY : * * * Does it not occur to you that, quite apart from the merits or demerits of our un happy quarrel, our four years of agony have demonstrated to us, for the first time, that we really are a nation, and in that development have had the, further proof that we are far the strongest nation in the world ? Strong in resources of every kind that makes a master power ; our material means, of men, money, munitions of war, inventive faculty and supply of all things necessary, are inexhaustible ; and then, far above all that, the indomitable bravery, perseverance, skill and pa triotic devotion of our people, as these qualities have been manifested on both sides. Now, let us recognize this, and turn it to good account for the future, by setting out with good \\ill and honest brotherhood upon a new career. I am afraid you have suffered too much, and have come too recently out of the fiery ordeal, to be quite ready for this advice, but I wish you to believe, my dear sir, that whatever may be your estimate of it as a practical suggestion, you may rely upon my disposition to do every thing I can to promote the pacification to which you allude in your letter. * * * * With kindest remembrances and regard, Very truly, yours, JOHN P. KENNEDY. BALTIMORE, Thursday, June 8, 1805. To PROF. GOLDWIN SMITH. MY DEAR MR. SMITH : * * * What rapid evolutions of events since you left us ! What a history have we made in the winding up of our great drama ! The rebellion crushed by splendid military power : the war finished, the triumph illustrated by a magnanimity that has no parallel, and by a martyrdom so grand as to make it the most enviable good for tune that ever fell upon the good and faithful servant of a peo- DURING THE REBELLION. 341 pie. Abraham Lincoln lives forever in history as the Liberator of two Continents. He crushed out slavery from America and Africa. " The Curse" is taken off the world, and can find no lodgment on either side of the Atlantic. The extinction of slavery here makes it henceforth impossible anywhere. Think of the grandeur of such a sudden and sublime exaltation as that, in the space of four years. The life of Lincoln seems like a heavenly mission. The simple, and shrewd, and honest woodman,- thrown upon such a stage, with such a labor be fore him ; the steady and almost inspired wisdom of his ad vance from each stage to the next, in the accomplishment of his task, and the final consummation of his appointed work, in the end of the war, by which he has saved the Republic, and which has secured the complete and perfect liberation of four millions of slaves ; and then, the duty done, the depart ure from the scene of his labors, a sacrifice, and on that great day of propitiation, when Christians were everywhere cel ebrating that greater sacrifice for sin which redeemed a world ! Follow the lead of this thought and see where it leaves our great and true hearted,. and meek and humble President. * * Very truly, yours, JOHN P. KENNEDY. ELLICOTT S MILLS, MARYLAND,/ Monday, July 3, 1805. f To HON. E. L. STANLEY. * Was there ever any thing so complete and perfect as our victory ? I congratulate you, my dear Mr. Stanley, on this result, and all our friends in England who stood by us so nobly in our time of trial, Goldwin Smith, Bright, Cobden, the Duke of Argyle, Lord Houghton, Stuart Mill, and all the rest who had a kind word for us in our great tribulation. We have come through it, with much sorrow in the loss of friends, but without diminution of strength. The Union is more powerful to-day than it ever was before. The prosperity of the North goes on with increasing vigor. I think the South will soon be able to make the same boast. Our population is 3 2 LIFE OP JOHN P. KENNEDY. larger than in 1860 ; our debt gives us no trouble, the taxes are paid cheerfully, and we are able to make a surplus, which will discharge the debt, or as much as we desire to dis charge, in one generation. Our armies, which are now going home, are more effective than at any period of the war. Here where I live, on the banks of the Patapsco, ten miles from Bal timore and near the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, troops are passing in trains almost every hour, and as they see my flag which hangs from the library, I get the cheers of a regiment at a time. One hundred thousand, have sped by, hurraing, shouting, and sometimes dancing on the tops of the cars, within the last fortnight. These are mostly Sherman s army, going home to the West after having made their wonderful round of travel which history hereafter is to keep in immortal remembrance. It would delight you to see this up-springing of the nation from trouble to the enjoyment of the pleasures and charities and generous hopes of peace. * * * Very truly, yours, JOHN P. KENNEDY. JOURNALS. 343 CHAPTER XV. Mr, Kennedy s Journals ; His Social Life and Influence ; Public Spir it ; Various Speeches ; Occupations ; Slavery in Maryland ; Manu mission of Two Slaves ; His Forbearance ; Record of His Feelings and Daily Experience. AS Mr. Kennedy s spheie of action widened with advan cing years, and the variety and interest of his social life increased, he began to keep a diary, the earliest volume of which is dated 1847. Before this period his note-books were chiefly used for business memoranda ; a man of admirable method and extreme conscientiousness in the transaction of affairs, whether on his own account or that of others, nothing can exceed the order, promptitude and accuracy with which he recorded every important fact in regard to his various trusts and his own private concerns. Not only do these memora bilia serve as evidence in a legal point of view, but they greatly facilitate the action and make clear the duty of those who come after him. With these notes for practical reference, there began, at the time mentioned, to appear an account of his daily employments, of the events of the hour, with com ments on questions of immediate interest and sketches of em inent or eccentric individuals with whom he came in contact. They also furnish a complete history of his public life and re veal his motives of action ; from those written while he was in Congress and immediately after, might be collected an au thentic and candid history of the Whig party ; while the descrip tions of his frequent journeys the scenery and society, the economies and traits of each region visited, would furnish a novelist with all the needed local data whereon to lay the 344 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. scene of a story illustrative of American life. Mr. Kennedy s recorded impressions of public men are singularly discrimina ting ; in many instances prophetic ; and this not owing alto gether to. his intelligent observation of character, but also to his fine and true moral instincts. Another phase of his life unconsciously brought out in these frank journals, is the sig nificance and scope of his social sympathies. It seems to have been an absolute necessity of his nature to hold intimate relations with his fellow-men, to exchange views, to cherish friendships, to "flit the time gently as they did in the golden age." In every one of the many places he habitually visited, in our principal cities, at Saratoga, Sharon and Newport ; in Virginia, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and Richmond wherever the pursuit of business or recreation so frequently led him, a host of attached friends greeted his coming, made excursions to show him every thing of interest around them, and parties to bring him in contact with interesting people ; his coming was ever the signal for congenial re-unions or so cial pilgrimages, the record whereof is full of zest and sug gestive of the most delightful intercourse and observation ; even political tours grow attractive in the retrospect, by virtue of the sympathetic companionship which opens new vistas to the mind and expands the heart beyond party objects, into the realm of humanity. We also learn by this unstudied chroni cle, the secret of that affection which Mr. Kennedy inspired in young and old, and of the fresh charm which life kept for. him to the last. He habitually exercised his thoughts and feelings disinterestedly ; that is, he let them go forth jand be come identified with the welfare of others, with objects of pub lic utility and subjects of comprehensive scope. Hence the hospitality of his mind and the fidelity of his heart, which con tinued to entertain casual acquaintance until it ripened into friendship, and to manifest an interest in others long after ab sence or accident had interfered with frequent personal asso ciation. Never did the truth of Cowper s maxim about the many oc- JOURNALS.- 345 cupations of those whom the world call idle, have a more striking illustration, than in the life of Mr. Kennedy. The record of his employments is the most varied imaginable, and so incessant as to cause us to wonder how and when he found time to accomplish so much apart from public duty and social requisitions. He was, in the first place, a faithful correspond ent and besides the inevitable letters of business and courtesy, kept his kindred fully informed of passing events around him, and his political friends au courant with his opinions and the state of public affairs. He was called upon continually to de liver addresses, to draw up reports and memorials, to preside at meetings, to plan a political campaign and arrange a social celebration ; he was, for many years, one of the most active di rectors in the large railway corporations of Maryland ; and any business they had with the Legislature, with other companies or with the public, was sure to be confided, as far as its docu mentary statement went, to Mr. Kennedy s pen or speech. The diversity of calls upon his friendly service was indeed re markable. One day we find him busy with the design of a gold snuff-box he has been requested to invent and have exe cuted ; another he is engaged in reading the manuscript of a young author who solicits his opinion and advice ; here is writ ten the programme of a dinner-party to some distinguished stranger ; then the toasts or speeches for an historical fite ; now he is signing or distributing diplomas as Provost of the Maryland University or bonds of a railroad ; and now receiv ing a basket of flowers in testimony of gratitude from the young ladies of a public-school, where he has officiated at the examination ; one evening he delivers a lecture, another he writes a chapter in a novel or biography ; one morning is passed with a board of directors, and another in helping a poor scholar to obtain employment. Often occur such remarks as this : " My attention has been recently withdrawn from my book by the affairs of the railroad company of which I am a director." The notes of his impressions of a sermon are followed by 346 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. those derived from a play both preacher and actor being of ten carefully estimated ; now he is occupied with an obituary notice of one eminent friend, and now with the appreciative criticism of another s new book ; to-day he gives away a bride and to-morrow is harassed with the care of an improvident rel ative ; he makes a note of his doings at the Orphan s Court, as trustee, and of the illness of a favorite and faithful servant ; one morning is devoted to letter-writing, another to reading, and each occupation is chronicled ; in regard to the latter, his habit continued desultory to the last ; from Norton s Evidences of Christianity and Newman s Hebrew Monarchy, he turns to Prescott s newly-issued History, or some freshly-acquired docu ment which throws light on the earlier annals of his own country. He sends indigenous products to friends abroad with pleasant epistles thereon; canvas-back ducks to Lady Houghton and the Bishop of Oxford, " old bourbon" to Sir Richard Packenham, and hominy to Lady Holland ; and, af ter a day in his library, looks in at the club with some literary guest, who has paused, on his journey, to see him, or takes a long walk with the old friend of his youth. These constant and varied occupations are, from time to time, interrupted by illness, which is followed by his unfailing viaticum a journey, on which he starts with alacrity, if the health of his wife s father allows her to accompany him, and sadly otherwise. These frequent jaunts are always planned and provided for with systematic care and the experience faithfully recorded ; expenses, routes, companions, and local resources being thus preserved for future references ; many of them have already acquired a historical significance. On setting out for one of the longest of these excursions to the West and South, he writes: Nov. igt/i, 1850. "Up soon after six; a beautiful day ; my dear E. came into my dressing-room with her Bible and begs me to put it in my trunk. I do so, and shall read it often for her sake as well as my own ; Mr. Gray and Martha are both at, table ; E., of course, with her heart brimming over at her eyes ; old Phil, has the carriage at the door ; we have a JOURNALS. 347 leave-taking all round heart too full to speak ; I hurry off af fecting to be cheerful." At the frequent anniversary dinners at which he assisted, and the political ones given on his tours, he was called upon to deliver impromptu addresses ; some of them are quite felic itous, and the diversity of the subjects and occasions remark able. He alludes quite humorously to this phase of his expe rience in his diary ; and was often taken entirely by surprise by some overwhelming compliment, and never more so than at a sumptuous supper at Charleston, S. C., when travelling with Mr. Fillmore in the Spring of 1854. A warm-hearted and distinguished gentleman pres-ent gave the toast " Hon. John P. Kennedy the honors he has received are worthily enjoyed by one who has done so much to develope the public character of our country, and preserved with his pen, for dis tant generations, the most glorious period of our history." In describing a dinner of the St. Andrew s Society, a few years previous, he thus refers to a similar call upon his ora torical powers and the effect of habit in enabling him to prove equal to the occasion : tl After some time there comes a toast to the author of " Swal low Barn" and " Horse-Shoe Robinson," which of course brings me up again speech No. 4. Pretty well for a modest and shy man who hates dinner speeches. They come easy, however, especially after the first, and I have got used to it. It amuses me to hear some of the more unpractised ones saying they wish they had my facility. In truth what facility I have, comes from desperation, for a man who is brought out at a dinner-table is so cornered that he cannot escape. It greatly terrified me for a long time ; but, as I said, I have found courage in despair, and get on tolerably." The singular inconsistency of feeling and opinion made ap parent by the rebellion, was nowhere more incongruously ex hibited than in Maryland; and especially with reference to slavery. Quite early in the annals of the State, we find a so ciety instituted for the abolition of slavery and the relief of free 348 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. negroes unlawfully held in bondage. An advertisement in a leading journal of Baltimore, elated May, 1796, offers "for sale an Irish servant-girl who has about two years to serve ;" and another announces the " ship Sally, just arrived from Limerick, with a number of men and women servants and redemptionists, all in good health, whose time will be disposed of." These cu rious indices of the customs and ideas relative to domestic servi tude are emphasized by the ardent sympathy of the secessionists of the same region, more than half a century after, in the at tempt to establish an empire based on slaver} 7 and the ruin of the Republic. We have alluded to the exceptional opportunities Mr. Kennedy enjoyed to appreciate and understand the state of feeling, the prejudices, the passions and the purposes of ex tremists both North and South. We have seen how early and emphatically he ranged himself against slavery while he pro tested against violence and injustice in its abolition. To illus trate the difficulties in the way of an unwilling slave-holder to rid himself of the burden, the following extracts from his jour nal are given : Berkeley Springs, July 21, 1857. I prepare a deed for the manumission of my servants John and Matilda, and their children, which I intend to execute and record in Martins- burg, setting the family free on the ist of March next. I give them this length of time in order that they may prepare them selves to remove next Spring to Harrisburg, where I have spoken to Mr. Philip Dougherty to take charge of them and al low them to consult him for advice, etc., and who will also see that they shall not suffer for want of an occasional supply of means in any exigency of sickness or want of employment, for which I shall take care to provide him. Thus I get rid, at last, of these slaves, which I have been reluctantly obliged to hold. Hitherto they have refused to be set free, and I am now resolved to manumit them without asking their consent to it. July 27. I execute a deed of manumission for John and Matilda and their two children, Edmund and Elizabeth, which I mean to acknowledge to-morrow in Martinsburg and record it, JOURNALS. 349 to take effect ist March, 1858. I write a letter to Philip Dough erty, of Harrisburg, requesting him to take care of them and also a pass for them to travel with wherever they choose to go. These papers I mean to leave with them, to be used when they find occasion. Martinsburg, July 28. I send for John and Matilda, and their children, and tell them I have set them free, to take ef fect on the ist of March, but if they choose they may go to Pennsylvania at any time before that, as I have fixed that day only to give them time to prepare to remove, which they must do, by the law, within the year following their manumission. They are very unwilling to accept this gift to them, and Matil da falls to weeping. They don t like the thought of taking care of themselves in a free State. I tell them I have provided a friend for them in Harrisburg, Mr Philip Dougherty, to whom I give them a letter. He promised me that he would give them protection and advice. I tell them also, that when I re turn from Europe, I will go and see how they are coming on, and if they are behaving well, I will buy a comfortable house and lot, and put them in it rent free, and then help them in other ways. These promises hardly reconcile them to the change. But I have determined to persist in my plan. I give them a pass to leave the State, and travel where they please, and whenever they wish to go. Baltimore, Dec. 22, 1868. Edmund Pendleton is here from Martinsburg. He calls to see me, and I ask him to look" after a demand made upon me by D , of Martinsburg, for seventeen months rent due by John and Matilda. These poor blacks I fear will never be able to support themselves. I tell Ed. to examine the account, and so far as it may be cor rect, I will pay it, though I think it something of an impo sition on me that Mr. D should suffer these people to be come indebted to him to such an extent. They have been free ever since the ist of March last, and I am not answerable from that date, but still I will pay the amount that they just ly owe." 350 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. A clerical friend of Mr. Kennedy s, whose chief intellectual refreshment it was to drop into his library for a chat, assures me that, although he resorted thither at all hours and staid sometimes unconscionably long, he never detected even a look of impatience at the interruption ; another intimate acquaint ance declares that Mr. Kennedy never would revert to or allow the discussion of any injustice of which he was the subject ; in the prompt forgiveness of injuries and the patient endurance of vexation he was a truly Christian gentleman. Nevertheless, that he felt as keenly as others what he bore with such rare mag nanimity, is apparent from the private and impulsive record of his thoughts ; thus, after noting an instance of generous and ill-requited aid, he exclaims " another swindle ! how very strange, that out of so many cases in which I have taken " the word of a gentleman," short of funds, and lent him money, I have never yet had a single honest return ;" and again : " I am growing tired with this working in a team in which the pull is not for -the load, but against my yoke-fellow ;" alluding also to a wasted morning which he had urbanely given up to an egotist, he says : " I must write an Essay on Bores." Tenderly, now and then, peer out like spring blossoms, from this history of external things, glimpses of that happy back ground of his life whence came its most genial sustenance and serenity. Habitually noting the weather so as to compare the seasons in successive years, he often adds a word as to the influence thereof upon his condition and that of those he loves. "The weather just suits Lizzie," he writes; or, "This is my wedding-day, now nineteen years married. I present my dear Elizabeth with a little token of grateful remembrance. No man was ever happier in wedlock than I have been through all this lapse of time ; no man had ever more reason to be grateful for the blessing of a truly good wife, I pray for her continued happiness." Seldom, however, are his private emo tions recorded ; he breaks off abruptly, in one instance, when thus indulging their expression" enough of this j these pages are intended as a loose chronicle of ordinary events, not of JOURNALS. 351 feelings." They are, indeed, precisely such fainpour servir, as the French say, for a personal memoir ; but it requires the details which the association of ideas would revive to the au thor s mind, in order to render them satisfactorily biographi cal. As an evidence and illustration of character and a record of life, however, they serve an excellent end and also have an historical value. They show a methodical habit of observa- cion ; much reading and reflection ; they conserve many curi ous personal facts gleaned in conversation with eminent men ; they afford veritable glimpses of social and political life, and abound in economical facts ; they betray a very uncommon ver satility of taste and breadth of sympathy, and afford evidence of a benign activity rare in our age and country. It is curious to compare them with Hawthorne s Note-Books ; the latter are far more elaborate, and one constantly sees the eye for ma terials of authorship which this introspective romancer instinct ively indulged. Mr. Kennedy s object was evidently more practical ; now and then he notes a hint for an essay, and de scribes a scene or a character available for history or fiction ; but his chief object evidently is to keep such an account of the duties performed, the vicissitudes encountered, and the pleasures enjoyed, as will enable him to recall them, in one harmonious picture, and draw thence the life and light of the past, as reflected in a mind attuned to grateful philosophy. Indeed gratitude, a recognition of the blessings of his lot, is a marked characteristic of the writer : matter-of-fact and practi cal as are his usual comments and chronicles, when an anni versary warms his sensibilities with fond remembrance, he cannot resist putting in words his reasons for trust and thanks giving. Here are a few such episodical records of feeling suggested by the return of his birthday ; and though written at long intervals, each breathes the same grateful spirit : Wednesday, October 25, 1848. Fifty three ! Fiddle de dee ! Here is my birthday. The top of the morning to you, my good fellow ! You wear well. Somewhat thin somewhat scattered in the matter of thatch upon the poll ; but not so bare 352 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. as the back of my hand. It will come to that one day. Let it come, I am ready. My conscience is not blistered. I have put ratsbane in no man s porridge defamed no man s good name. I neither lie nor steal. In a broad sense that s a rare virtue. Few men can say as much. I am well to do in the world, with all manner of blessings of heart and hand around me. I trust I am thankful. I strive to be charitable and be- neficient, but I know how grievously I come short of duty in that. I desire to avoid all boastfulness of heart, and to walk humbly before my God. Humbly before man I do not walk ; no, nor proudly either, but in my own way, indifferently for the most part to praise or blame. I know enough of mankind to know how very poor a thing it is to have their praise, how very common to have their blame undeserved. Let me do my duty, in all stations, and I give the back of my hand to conse quences. How idly do I spend my time ! Bad health was a good excuse a short time ago, but it is not so now. This I must mend, and work more and play less. There is a long rest at the end. Patapsco, Tuesday, October 25, 1853. This is my birth day. I am fifty-eight. All goes well with me. My health is good, my mind is sound, my fortune and estate in life prosper ous. My mother is in the enjoyment of a comparatively vig orous old age at nearly seventy-eight, happy in her condition. My brothers are well and thriving. My dear wife, blest with every association to brighten her own career, and still more blest in the good gifts of a serene and cheerful temper, a reli gious, confiding spirit and a blameless life, has every enjoyment which loving friendship and domestic harmony can confer. Her father and sister are as happy and affectionate as herself, making our domestic group a little household of daily benefac tions. For all these inestimable and cherished blessings, I am devoutly and humbly thankful to God, expressing my gratitude to him in morning and evening thanksgiving. Thus year after year is added to the cycle of my existence, bringing JOURNALS. 353 me increase of endowment both temporal and spiritual, and, I trust, finding me more cheerfully conditioned in my relation to my Maker, and my fellow-creatures. I look back without re gret, and forward with humble hope and contented submission to the events of the future. I know my own errors, imperfec tions and omissions, and secretly and earnestly strive to amend them, in that prayer and meditation which more and more grows to be the natural resource and pleasure of my mind, and the predominant habit of my being. Baltimore, Oct. 25, 1855. " Sixty !" "twice thirty" as Colonel Benton would say" Three times twenty, sir !" Here I am sixty years of age on this bright, cool, frosty October morning. Things go well with me yet. I am happy in many blessings bestowed upon me by a kind Providence which has always cared for me above my deservings. Happy in a healthful intellect, and in a fair share of physical ability and comfort ; happy in the attachment of a dear and devoted wife ; happy in competent fortune and store of worldly goods. More happy in a contented mind which is at peace with all mankind, and humbly thankful to God in whose mercies I have an abiding faith. There are sadnesses growing around my condition in the loss of friends, and in the long-suffering and infirmity of my dear father-in-law, Mr. Gray. But I re gard these as no other than the appointed and necessary con ditions of life, with which we have no rational ground to find fault. Baltimore, Thursday, Oct. 25, 1860. My birthday sixty- five. A beautiful, mild day. Life passes gently with me to wards its sunset. I take it with its vicissitudes and trials and blessings, with a thankful and happy composure, trustful in the guidance of a merciful and indulgent God, and with calm resignation and hope in my forward look ; with some infirm ity of health sufficient to school my mind to a due sense of physical as well as mental imperfections, and stronger reliance upon the good Providence who controls my allotment, both of happiness and suffering. My trials, however, are light, my 354 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. blessings many, and my spirit, I hope, profoundly thankful. I find a daily increase in the strength and truth of my religious convictions, and rest with, more and more stable faith in the promises of Christian revelation. I endeavor to avoid the un- charitableness of sectarian opinion, and maintain an equal mind toward the various forms in which an earnest piety shapes the divisions of the world of believers, tolerating hon est differences as the right of all sincere thinkers, and look ing only to the kindly nature of Christian principle as it influ ences the personal lives and conduct of men, as the substan tial and true test of a sound religion. According to a custom I have pursued for many years, I open my will to-day to examine it and determine whether I wish any thing in it changed. I believe I have provided ev ery thing that is necessary and so close it again without ad dition. New York, Oct. 25, 1863. A very cold, cloudy day. The anniversary of my birth. Sixty-eight. Still happy in many blessings, and I hope more grateful for the abundant favors heaped upon me by a merciful God. In mind, body and es tate, I have manifolcl reason for devout thankfulness to the bountiful Creator of the world who has conducted my steps so prosperously along the path of life, and to whom I look with humble trust for that support which shall bring me serene and hopeful to the end of my worldly career. New York, Oct. 25, 1864. This is my sixty-ninth birth day. It finds me in the enjoyment of as much happiness as I could desire, blessed with many worldly advantages, and cheered by the love and assiduous tenderness of my dear Elizabeth, who proves to me how beautifully the affections grow in strength and loveliness as age confirms the promises of youth, and time sets his seal upon the sincerity and truth of a noble-hearted woman. I have a daily growing debt of gratitude to my Creator for abundant blessings much above my deserts ; but I feel that first, above all these, is the great good I have found in the gentle influence and virtuous control JOTJKNALS. 355 over my affections constantly exercised in our married life, now approaching thirty-six years, by my beloved wife." To illustrate his manner of recording whatever inklings of adventure or little domestic incidents occur, the following passages are quoted : " We celebrated our Christmas and New Year as we have been accustomed to do, when at home, for some years : we dining on Christmas day, with our old friends, the Merediths ; and they dining with us on the first day of the year. Both of these meetings were very pleasant. It is a happy fortune to declining years to find the bonds of old friendships preserved, and even to grow stronger by the concentration, which the steadily diminishing number of those we lose by the wayside of life, promotes. Our two families grow all the closer in this career. " The farther we fly the faster we tie" as the adage has it." Philadelphia, July 20, 1863. It is a warm day. We are up at six, breakfast at seven, and at nine, set out for the Philadelphia R. R. Station. Our party consists of eight. E and M , Mary Harrison and myself, Kate McGlancy, M. s maid, and three colored servants, Emmeline, Anne and Aleck. I have a pass for the whole signed by General Schenck himself. The Mer ediths and their party are going by the same train. My bag gage consists of twelve pieces ; a pretty formidable mass. We arrive at two having left town at ten at Philadelphia, where we part with the Merediths, who go on to New York. We go to the Continental. After dinner E. and M. and M. H. and myself take a street railway and visit Tom Bell and his family, in Walnut Street, West Philadelphia ; sit with them an hour and return at eight. At ten I meet Admiral Dupont and Winter Davis. The Admiral is giving me some account of his attack upon Charleston. He does not express any high opinion of the efficiency of his iron-clads and monitors. While we are conversing, Lizzie comes to me with an air of great alarm to say that she has just discovered that she had lost, to-day, all her diamonds. They were put into a small morocco box, and this 356 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. was, as she supposed, safely bestowed in an under pocket at tached to her petticoat. She placed the box there this morn ing and now it is gone, and the bottom of the pocket is ripped with a large hole in it ; bad sewing. She is in great distress, for there was her old Huguenot ring, descended to her through a period of two hundred years, with its seven large diamonds of the cut of the reign of Louis Quatorze ; a diamond pin with her father s hair set in the back and an inscription of his initials and day of his death ; two other rings, and two other pins ; all set in diamonds. Intrinsically they are worth much money ; but to her invaluable from association. What is to be done ? First, I tell her there is hope in the fact that her pocket was not picked. They were dropped somewhere, and may have fallen into honest hands ; next I go to the coach that brought us to the hotel ; then send to the railroad cars. No tidings. I draw up an advertisement offering two hundred dollars reward ; set up another in the hotel. We copy the advertisement and send it to M- , in Balti-more. I go to the office of the de tective police. There is nobody there it is too late. I write a letter to Tom Bell, and put it in the Post Office. We cannot wait here to-morrow, as we must be off for New York at ten in the morning. New York, July 21. Lizzie and Martha both in great dis tress about the diamonds. I encourage them with the hope that they will certainly hear of them to-morrow. Martha rises early and goes out to Tom Bell s, in West Philadelphia, to tell him of our loss. I go to the detective office and have a memorandum made of the particulars, and to tell the officers of the reward I have offered. At ten, we leave the hotel. A long drive to the Kensington depot, where we set out at eleven ; arrive at Jer sey City at three, cross the ferry and take carriages to the Fall River boat for Newport, where we- leave Martha and Mary Har rison and all the servants to proceed at five. E. and I drive to the New York Hotel ; am shockingly cheated by the hack- driver, who charges me five dollars and a half. There are no such insolent and extortionate rogues in the world as the hack- JOURNALS. 357 ney coachmen of this city. We get an excellent room at the New York Hotel ; dine at half-past five, and afterward call at Mrs. Rowlands, where we find the Merediths. They all set out for Newport to-morrow. E , who is full of her loss, tells them all about it, and meets a warm sympathy. Being very warm, I go to bed early. At midnight I am awakened by a tap at the door. A telegram from Tom Bell " I have Lizzie s jewels in my possession, all right." What a timely dispatch ! A load suddenly taken off the mind of poor E. a sound, wholesome night s sleep. Sharon, July 24, 1863. A letter from Tom Bell, giving us the history of the diamonds. He had drawn up an advertise ment the day we left him, offering one hundred dollars reward, instead of my two hundred, and gave it to the Ledger to appear the next morning. The same evening, Tuesday, he called upon a neighbor of his, Mr. Ward, when he was casually in formed by that gentleman that a little girl, an orphan, bound to him as a servant in his family, had picked up in the street the evening before, at the corner of Thirty-ninth and Walnut streets, a box of jewels, which she immediately brought to him, with her story of the finding. Bell told him he had just offered a reward of a hundred dollars for that box. It was produced, and found to be E. s lost treasure, which was at once delivered to him. Bell told Mr. W. that the reward should be given to the little girl, and that he would have it invested at interest, to be paid to her when she had served out her apprenticeship ; that he was sure this arrangement would gratify us, and we should be glad to confirm it. Mr. W. assured -him that the girl was a most exemplary and worthy subject for such a bounty, and that the money could not be better bestowed. What a pretty piece of real-life romance is this whole story ! The loss so grievous, the finding so speedy, and the whole event to wind up with such an occasion to do a good act for a worthy orphan child, to whom it may turn out to be the cause of a virtuous and prosperous life. E is in the great est delight at this fortunate denouement, and writes immediately to Martha, enclosing Bell s letter with this historiette. 358 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. Baltimore, May 31, 1863. I have Mop with me as usual. Somewhat concerned to hear from Pennington that the police or somebody else have been scattering poisoned sausages about the streets. I keep a watch on Mop, and get home about seven. After tea I go out to visit Mr. and Mrs. Bona parte ; stay an hour, and when I return I find our poor little dog dead. He was taken with spasms immediately after I left the house, and died in about three quarters of an hour. Great grief in the family. We were all so much attached to him. A little friend is gone whose place we cannot supply. What an outrage, as well as what an absurd folly, is this poi soning of dogs at this season! The ladies feel this most acutely, and I am very sad myself. Poor Mop was my con stant companion in my library, and my daily attendant in my walks. He was the pet of the ladies, and the constant object of their care ; had so many winning ways ; so watchful of the notice of us all, and seemed so proud of his position in the family. We should all have heard of the death of our coach horses with less regret. It is very natural, trivial as it may seem, that his loss should produce so much emotion. There is something so shocking in the thought that he was destroyed by poison, without any imaginable pretext for such an as sault upon him. Poor Mop !" Here is a pleasant account of a visit, with Irving, to an old Virginia estate where some historical relics and local peculiar ities rewarded their observation : Charlestown, Va., Wednesday, June 22, 1853. We drive this morning to Audley, the residence of Mrs. Washington Lew is, and see her son, who married Miss Johnson, of Baltimore. The distance is about thirteen miles. Audley is in Clark County, an- old and ample country establishment built by Warner Washington (not of the General s family), and sold to Lorenzo Lewis. My brother had prepared the family to ex pect us, as Irving had written tl at he wished to examine some, private memorials of General Washington s, which are here. Mrs. Lewis brought out several relics of the General for our JOUBXALS. 359 inspection, among them his shoe-buckles and those of the knee gold and topaz. We saw, also, remains of his china and glass, table furniture. The most interesting subjects were some private letters of the General written in 1797 and 98 to Lawrence Lewis, his nephew. In one of these he apprised Lewis of his purpose to leave him a bequest of two thousand acres, part of Mount Vernon, which he gave him upon his mar riage with Nelly Custis. In another letter he speaks of some runaway slaves, and says : " I wish the State of Virginia could see the wisdom of -the policy of adopting measures for a gradual abolition of Slavery." This is in the letter of 1797. We saw, also, Washington s ledger a very large folio, full of accounts. Among other accounts there (they are all in the General s handwriting) is one headed " Accounts of Cards and other Games." This has the entries of three years (i772- 3- 4), with a debtor and creditor side. His winnings entered on one side thirteen pounds, the highest entry there, and his losing on the other, with a balance struck at the end of three years, showing a loss of 6 and some shillings. There is also an account for the education of the son of some friend, I forget the name, charging 32, I think, for the expenditure and credit on the opposite page with the en try, " By my promise to educate his son." Singular precision in making this a matter of business ! This Audley estate is a very beautiful one. -Mrs. Lewis was Miss Cox of Philadelphia, and is now a widow. Her son Washington married Reverdy Johnson s daughter about twen ty years ago. I was present at the wedding. - Irving is quite enchanted with this visit to the valley of Virginia, the scenery of which keeps him in a continual rapture of exclamation. We have a pleasant dinner and are to remain here all night. Irving is curious to see the negro establishment. All the blacks he has seen in this region seem to be so well off and so entirely contented, that he is continually laughing at Mrs. Beecher Stowe s sentimental griefs over Uncle Tom. After dinner he and I stroll to the stable, where there are a few cab- 360 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. ins to be seen with families of negroes. One old fellow named George, I believe, is seen slowly getting over a fence. He is infirm with age and very slow in his motion. He has some coopers tools in his hand, and a hoop. As he comes near us, I stop him, and ask his name, " George, massa." " What do you do, George ?" " I am a cooper ; I am gwine to hoop a barl now." He is very well clothed, and has a cheerful air, though showing much infirmity, which he says is " rheumatiz." "Are you married, George ?" "Yes, Fse had three wives in my time." " How many children ?" " Seven, if I knowed where they war. But not any by my wife I have now. I am alone now." After some little bragging about his skill in coopering in times past, he leaves us and hobbles on to his work. Irving and I remained sitting on a log in the yard, as George limped away. Irving, looking after him with a comic smile, says to me, " That s an Uncle Tom. What a melancholy story ! so infirm doubtless the effects of severe scourging, then that express ion, so full of his mournful history I am alone now, lay ing a heavy, sad emphasis on alone, and looking very pathetic. And I have seven children, if I knew where they war. Poor old victim of oppression ! What a volume Mrs. Stowe would get out of George!" After we had amused ourselves in making up some items of melancholy matter out of George s short interview, and imagining the framework of a dismal tale on this foundation, we returned to the house to laugh over the story. George is an old servant of the family, who once be longed to Judge Bushrod Washington, is a privileged magnate among the negroes, and spends his time, now and then, in the exercise of his old craft, so far as the supply of a hoop to a barrel will allow, and living a loitering life between his cabin, where his old wife takes good care of him, and the stable-yard in looking after the poultry and doing such jobs as an old fel low of seventy might attempt." We have a glimpse at the varied interest of his duties, pas times and feelings in these notes taken at random : May 6 At twelve to-day the Board of Directors of the JOURNALS. 361 Northern Central meet. They were elected while I was in the South, and unanimously re-elected me President against my own request and earnest wish to be relieved from it. A committee reported this election to me this morning ; and upon assembling I take occasion to say that I should have been gratified if they had made another choice, explain my inabil ity to attend, as I am going away, and hope they will allow me, in accordance with the by-laws, to appoint a President pro tern, to whom I will turn over my salary. The Board are very in dulgent. They pass a resolution giving me leave of absence, and comply with my wishes in all particulars. I find it daily more important to methodize my time. How will this do during my sojourn at home, at least ? Breakfast, newspaper, etc., until ten. Literary occupation with my pen, from ten till two ; again from four till six. Two hours reading before bed. Bed at eleven. The two hours reading to be historical, to read one book at a time that is, until it is finished. Light reading when I can. Saturdays correspondence. Sundays Theology. Try that. April ii. I go at six to dine with Winter Davis. Here I find what I have not seen for many years, a bar dinner-party. First, Chief-Justice Chase ; then Schley, Judge King, Judge Bond, Archie Stirling, Jr., M , Stockbridge, Andrew Ridge- ly, Milligan, Davis and his wife. We have a good dinner, wine, segars and all sorts of professional anecdotes, the reg ular bar traditions. I have noticed in my Life of Wirt, de scribing a country bar, how much the members and associa tions of the profession resemble those of the stage, such stereotyped jokes, old stories, glorification of this and that lawyer and judge, who is gone, or retired from work ; a certain kind of witticism which grows out of the habits of prac tice ; the loud laugh all around, the amazing success of old puns, and other evidences of the large amount of merriment produced by moderate investment of capital. There was some thing strangely pleasant in all this, to me, even with its plat itudes, which came upon my feelings with the flavor of times 16 362 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. and persons long ago, all of whom have joined the comrades of the profession in another world. Capon Springs, Aug. 13, 1855. A warm day, but with a most pleasant breeze at the Pavilion here, which never fails. I have been studying my German very diligently ever since I came here, and have made excellent progress. I can read it pretty well, and speak it a little enough to get along comfortably if I were travelling in the country of the language. I began to study it in June, and in less than a month acquired quite a good stock of it. My determination to learn some thing of the language, arose out of an accidental meeting I had last spring, with some German emigrants, who had just arrived in Baltimore, and having strolled into the town, had lost their way. They stopped me to ask me something (as I could make out only by their gesticulations) as to the road back to their ship. I was ashamed of myself when I found that I could not give them one word of direction. I determined then to go to work and correct this mistake of my education, which I have now done pretty well. Saratoga, Aug. 7, 1864. I have for more than a year past determined to join with E. and M. in receiving the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, and have only delayed it until I could fully satisfy my mind that I was in proper accord with the Church in regard to the fundamental points of belief upon which I conceived it necessary to determine my own convic tion ; and now having completely satisfied myself on these questions, I have resolved to defer my purpose no longer. I accordingly go with E to-day to the Episcopal Church here, and with her hold my first communion under the ministration of Mr. Wainwright son of Bishop W." INTERCOURSE WITH AUTHORS. 363 CHAPTER XVI. Intercourse with Authors ; Thackeray ; Cooper ; Willis ; Prescott and others : Poe ; Cruse ; Irving. MR. KENNEDY had a strong sympathy witn men of let ters ; he constantly assisted and encouraged poor au thors, partly because he loved their vocation and, in no small de gree, because he felt that his own prosperous circumstances gave them a claim upon his kindness. His correspondence shows a wonderful amount of patience with some of the most encroach ing and least grateful of the tribe, and also the greatest rel ish for the society of such as are gentlemen and men of probi ty as well as writers. He took a warm interest in the literary success of his friends ; his letters to them overflow with cor dial encouragement. He was active in their behalf, and gave of his time and means freely to promote their objects ; some of his most characteristic letters, both written and received, be long to the period of his genial intercourse with Irving, Prescott, Thackeray, Simms, John R. Thompson, Strother, and his cous in Philip Pendleton Cooke. His friendliness was neither repell ed by hopeless improvidence or absurd complacency ; yet no man was better aware of the uncongenial and perverse side of the craft of authorship. In a letter to his wife, after some irksome experience thereof, he says : " I think the tribe author is not altogether the best of the tribes of Israel. There is a little touch of Signor de Begnis in most of them bravura and voluntaries, with a stretching out of the neck for applause. These soldiers of the quill do not, I fear,, often leave me great ly prepossessed with my comradeship. 1 The care with which he always noted every item of literary 304: LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. interest, is apparent in the following mention of Thackeray and the Bryant festival : Washington, Feb. 27, 1853. Thackeray s dinner at Boulan- ger s was very pleasant. We staid there till eleven. To morrow he goes south to Richmond and then to Charleston, S. C. I gave him some hints to make a journey to California, and to prepare some lectures adapted to the tastes of that re gion. He received this idea with great deliberation, and, in breaking up to-night, he told me I had made him a fortune. Baltimore, Jan. 15, 1856. Thackeray tells me he is going to write a nov.el with the incidents of our revolution intro duced into it. To give him some information he is seeking with this view, I lend him some books ; " Graydon s Memoirs of the Revolution ;" Heath s Memoirs " and " Garden s Anecdotes," which he takes away with him; I tell him he may keep them as long as he wishes, and may return them to me hereafter. Baltimore, Jan. 16, 1856. I go to hear Thackeray s fourth lecture on George IV. gossippy and anecdotal like the others. After the lecture I walked up with him, Merrison, Harris and Bradenbaugh. Harris, having come over from the House of Representatives, had had no dinner, so he proposed we should all go to Guy s and get an oyster, which we did, and had a pleasant session till after midnight. While we were at table, Bradenbaugh, who is president of the Mercantile Library Association, and therefore had the superintendence of Thack eray s receipts for the lectures, went out and got the account and presented it to him. It was a dollar or so above one thousand dollars, for the four nights. Thackeray told me that Boston gave him fifteen hundred, New York fourteen hundred, and Philadel phia fifteen hundred, which, with this one thousand, make a total of five thousand four hundred dollars for four Courses of these light and playful lectures pretty good pay ! He is going on South, and will perhaps treble this amount before he gets back. New York, Nov. 3, 1864. We have determined to set out for Home to-day, although I have been strongly solicited by Tuck- erman and Bancroft to remain over Saturday,. that I might at- INTERCOURSE WITH AUTHORS. 3G5 tend a meeting of the poets and literati of the country, who are to assemble here, on that evening, to celebrate, by a festival, Bryant s seventieth birthday. How near he is to my own age only one year ahead of me ! I am obliged to decline this invitation, because I am specially desirous to be at home in time to vote for Mr. Lincoln, next Tuesday, which I fear an accident might prevent if I remain here till Monday." Here we have a pleasant glimpse of Cooper : " During our stay at Sharon we made a visit to Cooperstown on the Otsego Lake, a beautiful village sheltered beneath the mountains which encompass the lake, and about twenty-two miles from Sharon. Our plan proposed that we should pass the night at the village and return the next day to dinner. We reached the village about one o clock. The weather had been very pleasant, but clouds had risen over the lake towards the end of our journey, and were producing all manner of beautiful varieties of landscape as they alternately lowered with a stormy darkness upon the mountains and the lake, and broke again before the sudden sunshine. We reached our little hotel the Eagle, I believe, whatever its name it was the wrong house, we ought to have gone to the Otsego in time for a tolerable dinner, and still mo-re opportunely, to escape a shower which came and went almost in the first half hour of our arrival. After dinner, the ladies (Mrs K. and her sister) determined to make an excursion to " The Vision," the mountain top de scribed in " The Pioneers," and which was within a mile, or little more, of the town. Mr. Gray and I were smoking our segars in the porch, when I saw Cooper drive into the neighborhood with a very rustic looking buggy, an equally rustic horse, him self more rustical than either. He stopped at the door of a house hard by, and I went to him. He was pleased to see me, and immediately came to the hotel and visited the ladies. Finding what they had in hand, he resolved that his daughters should call and see us, and accompany us to the mountain. To save them the trouble of a walk, and to gain time, we took Cooper s suggestion, and went with him to his own house, that 3G6 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. being in the direct course to the mountain. Here we found his wife and daughters, in that fine old building in the centre of the town, looking immediately up the lake which he calls "The Hall." His carriage was soon at the door, and his two daugh ters with our two ladies go into it. Mr. Gray determined to forego this excursion, and to remain behind in the library un til we returned. Cooper and I took the rustical buggy which he drove, and away we went. Cooper was gay, and his daugh ters extremely kind and obliging. We saw " The Vision" and all its appurtenances. The sky had again become overcast, and we were about to retire down the mountain, when Cooper insisted we should go farther and see " The Prospect," and then visit " The Chalet," a little rough mountain farm high up, and not far from where we were. Within a half mile of " The Prospect" we had to abandon the carriages and go afoot. When we reached the rock which Cooper called k< The Prospect," a severe gust and heavy rain was seen mantling the upper end of the lal$;e in darkness, and this came like a curtain, rapidly descending over all things before us, until in a few minutes " The Prospect" afforded nothing to our view but a few tree tops immediately below the rock. All the- world beside was shut out. Then came the rain and the wind, the one in torrents, the other in hurricane. We had four cotton umbrellas, which served only to sift the rain into a finer mist, as it fell upon those who fancied there was some shelter beneath them, and collected into as many jets as there were whalebones in the frame, bestowing these liberally upon the ladies 1 skirts. Cooper and I took the tempest at defiance, and as soon as we found our whole party completely drenched, we proposed a . homeward journey. We were soon again upon the road, stowed away in wet carriages with wet clothes, and our four umbrellas like four reservoirs containing an inexhaustible supply of drippings for the rest of the journey. " The Chalet" was left for some other day. We drove again to " The Hall." I went in quest of dry shoes for the ladies. We had all come from Sharon with no extra INTERCOURSE WITH AUTHORS. 307 clothing, except what was necessary for the night. I was lucky enough to find a shoemaker who took a dozen pairs of shoes to Mrs. K. and her sister to choose from, and who sup plied me with a pair for myself. I got a great coat and a pair of dry stockings and then went to Cooper s. Here I found our ladies in a species of masquerade supplied from the wardrobe of the ladies of " The Hall." Cooper and his daughters, in defer ence to us, had put on an undress which, together with our own grotesque habits, gave an air of ease and good-humor as well as oddity to our assemblage, most favorable to pleasant and famil iar acquaintance. Every one was in the best spirits the ad venture of the afternoon had done more for good-fellowship than a dozen ordinary meetings could have procured. Cooper was in his happiest mood he told all manner of stories and brought out all his pleasantries, gave some very minute par ticulars of his experience in mesmerism, to which he had re cently became a convert; reminded me of his incredulity on this subject when he and I, the year before, had met at Lea and Blanchard s, in Philadelphia. He showed us many little matters of interest in his library, his pictures, auto graphs, etc. At ten o clock we parted. The ladies had been restored to their garments which were now completely dry, and we re- . turned to our lodgings, greatly delighted with the Cooper fam ily, " The Hall," " The Vision," " The Prospect," and with a grateful remembrance of the storm. No colds or other ail ments followed. We slept well, and the next morning after breakfast, set out on our return to Sharon, under a heaven rich with the peculiar glories of a summer day in that beautiful region." " The sheet of newspaper from which the scrap announcing the marriage of my father and mother, is cut off," writes Mr. Kennedy, " was sent to me by N. P. Willis, from Idlewild ; he having a file of this paper, of which his father was the ed itor, and where he accidentally saw this announcement." He thus acknowledges its receipt : 308 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. BALTIMORE, March 4, 1852. To N. P. WILLIS, ESQ. MY DEAR WILLIS : Thanks for that old memento. I did not know we were so nearly related. Martinsburg is the scene of all my early and now of my latest associations of kindred. My mother yet lives in the house in which she was married ; and Willis is one of the most familiar names to my ear. I should " by rights," as they say, have been born in Martins- burg, but for the accident, I suppose, that my mother thought it more desirable to have the matter transacted at home her new home and to visit her parents after that remark able event, rather than before it, as most ladies would have done. This yoice, coming up out of our antiquity, shows, too, where " Melanie and other poems" had their first germ. It is quite worth noticing how much posterity has improved in metre. "May all the honor, sense, the bliss virtue can yield." That s a line for two generations to work upon. It required two to get over that old rough ground, into such a beautiful railroad as the latter day has produced. Have you ever been in Martinsburg ? Do you know that you dine there on the railroad line to Columbus from Balti more ? An hour s ride from there five hours from this city takes you to one of the pleasantest watering-places in the United States, the Berkeley Springs, famous in days of old as the summer resort of Washington, Lord Fairfax, and sun dry others who had private houses there. Now, I propose to you that next summer, when you shall have got home from Bermuda, spick-and-span in the matter of new health, that you should visit that region, and revive those ancient impressions which your germ or atom or possibility must have received when your grandfather was developing the poetic elements which have since expanded so happily. It is a fine mountain country, abounding in beautiful landscape and still more with pleasant people. INTERCOURSE WITH AUTHORS. I am very sorry to hear so much of your bad health this winter. You work too much, and are quite too much persecu ted even for fame. I trust you will reform your habits in both particulars, and content yourself with a reasonable share of tribulation hereafter. A pleasant voyage to you, and a re turn in perfect health. Remember us all here very kindly to your wife and Mr. GrinnelPs family, and believe me, my dear Willis, Very truly yours, J. P. KENNEDY. Two of his letters to Prescott illustrate his warm regard for the historian : BALTIMORE, April 24, 1853. W. H. PRESCOTT, ESQ. MY DEAR PRESCOTT : I am greatly delighted by that pleas ant memorial of the engraved portrait, which came safely to hand two days after your note announcing your kind remem brance of me. It has gone to the carver s for a handsome frame, and will soon take its place among my /ares, where you are, in many forms, an ever-present figure. The ladies make somewhat emphatic comments on the youthfulness of the pic ture, and say you wear very well considering your labor ; and all agree that the likeness is excellent, and a most encour aging provocative to a summer excursion to England, where good cheer brings so happy an aspect. I wish I could find so pleasant a restorative for myself just now ; for I have come home from Washington, a spent rock et, sadly out of repair by a winter s work. But I have great faith in idleness and vagrancy, and hope, by these virtues, to bring myself into condition once more for the good fellows whose association I gave up for the frivolities of state. If in the pursuit of the regimen I should cross your frontier, I "shall not fail to thank you, in person, for your most acceptable present. Very truly, my dear Prescott, Your friend, JOHN P. KENNEDY. 1 6* 370 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. BALTIMORE, Feb. 10, 1856. To W. H. PRESCOTT, ESQ. MY DEAR PRESCOTT : Some three or four weeks ago a friend in New York wrote to me to advise me of a packet of pamphlets he had sent to me by the express, which packet reached me the day after I got his letter. The parcel consisted of two bundles tied up together. Having in the interval, be tween the date of the arrival, and a few days ago, distributed the upper bundle, I had occasion to open the second, when, to my surprise, I found your two volumes of Philip the Second, with a kind inscription on the fly leaf from yourself. There they had been lying, in a corner of my library, for nearly a month, wondering, I suppose, if books ever do such a human thing, why I had not released them from bondage and given them the honors to which they were entitled. And, I dare say, you were in a more authentic state of admiration, which, by this time, must be verging upon discontent, at my neglect to tell you how much I prized this friendly attention. For, certainly, you could not have done me a higher honor, or con ferred upon me a more acceptable favor, than by such a pleas ant remembrance as this. I receive them as I would your children, with a special hospitality, and have already given them their lodging, with all the rest of their family, on the warmest and pleasantest shelf in my library ; and having so disposed of them, I turn to you, my dear Prescott, with a heart full of thanks, not only for the present of the books, but for the grace you have done the world in writing them. It is one of the many benefactions for which posterity will thank you, even more than the present age. I had procured a copy of the work before your arrival, and had begun the reading of it, when I was forced into the prep aration of a lecture for our Institute, at which I worked so assiduously till midnight for some weeks, that I brought on a weakness of eyesight, which, for the present, compels me to abstain from any thing like continuous study, and has so inter- INTERCOURSE WITH AUTHORS. 371 rupted my progress that I am now halting in the train of a beautiful princess, with an old knight for whom I have a great esieem, " because he was said to have the best library and the best steed of any gentleman in Castile." Without meaning any disparagement of its history, I think Philip the Second much the best romance of our times. Thackeray saw it on my table, and told me he had spent nearly all night upon it and thought it the most delightful reading to be found in our literature. To me it is the more pleasant for the association it is con stantly suggesting of my esteem for the author. Very truly, my dear Prescott, Your friend, JOHN P. KENNEDY. His pleasant relations with his literary friends are indicated by the following casual letters : BALTIMORE, May 8tli, 1852. To W. GILMORE SIMMS, ESQ. MY DEAR SIMMS : I have been intending every day for the last fortnight, to acknowledge yours of the 5th of April ; but I am as completely broken up by the confinement of the long winter just gone by, and so broken down by the engagements which have pressed upon me during all this spring time, that I have almost determined to forswear pen ink and paper. My health is feeble, without being actually bad, and I am ordered by my physician to take to the woods on horseback, which I do with the earnestness of the Black Horseman, of the Hartz forest. I am just making my preparation for my ordinary sum mer vagrancy. I have got my fishing-tackle out, and I wait but a few matters of business before I set out for the Alleghany to catch trout ; and after that I suppose I shall migrate towards the White Mountains, and so on till I am called back to win ter-quarters. You perceive that this programme, as well as this state of the case, constitutionally speaking, utterly excludes the 372 LIFE OF JOHN 1*. KENNEDY. idea of any work for a few months. But I hope when I resume, that I shall be in a condition to give you some token, first, of my sympathy in your labors, and second, of material aid to wards lessening them: I have just got Horse-Shoe out in a ponderous volume, and I shall direct Putnam forthwith to send you a copy, which you will receive with my kindest regard. I have given a little per sonal adventure in the introduction to this edition which is a true history of my acquaintance with my hero. Remember me to Bryan and Trescott, and believe me, Ever and truly yours, JOHN P. KENNEDY. PATAPSCO, ELLICOTT S MILLS, July 4, 1857. To JOHN R. THOMPSON, ESQ. MY DEAR THOMPSON. I have had no time till now to ac knowledge the kindness of your note of the 9th of May, which brought me that curious solution of the question of Talbot s fate in the MS. scrap you enclosed. In the interval of this delay, I have made two journeys, and, what is still more com pulsory as a disablement from writing, I have gone through the process of dismantling one residence and stuffing another with the debris, having "given up" which means final relinquish- ment with its attendant evacuation, of the lumber of fifteen years my house in Calvert Street, and surrendered my lease, and moved here with all and sundry into the country. Then we had that terrible affliction of the death of our good friend Stanard and a subsequent meeting here with Mrs. Stanard, who spent one night with us on her way west : so I could not write till now. The stray MS. leaf you have sent me, I now return to you with this, as you directed. I have made a copy of it for future use. It is conclusive on the point of the trial and sen tence, the reprieve, and, inferentially of the pardon by the king, which I have no doubt was given. I wrote a year ago to Macaulay, in London, for some infor- INTERCOURSE WITH AUTHORS. 373 mation on the issue, knowing how deeply he had gone into the history of the Talbots in his pursuit of " Lying Dick." He answered to say, that, not being able to satisfy me himself, he had put a query to the point I desired, in the Notes and Queries, and, when I saw him afterwards in London, he had got no response. But this old rat-nibbled paper settles it, for which I thank you, my dear T., with all my heart. Mrs. K. and I are going over again in August. Can I do any thing for you ? Have you repaired that loss of your book by fire ? If you have what a Phoenix of a book, as the say, it will be ! Mrs. K. and I send you all kind wishes. Yours ever, J. P. K. Edgar Poe s biographer thus describes Mr. Kennedy s first acquaintance with him and the results : " An offer by the proprietor of the Baltimore Saturday Visitor " of two prizes, one for the best tale and one for the best poem, induced him to submit the pieces entitled " MS. Found in a Bottle," "Lionizing," " The Visionary," and three others, with " The Coliseum a Poem " to the committee, which consisted of Mr. John P. Kennedy, Mr. J. B. Latrobe and Dr. James H. Miller. Such matters are usually disposed of in a very off-hand way; so it would have been, perhaps, in this case, but that one of the committee taking up a little book, remarkably beautiful and distinct in caligraphy, was tempted to read several pages ; and becoming interested, summoned the attention of the company to the half dozen compositions it contained. It was unanimously decided that the prizes should be paid to " the first of geniuses who had written legibly." Immediately the confidential envelope was opened and the successful competitor was found to bear the scarcely known name of Poe. This award was published on the twelfth of October, 1833. The next day the publisher called to see Mr. Kennedy and gave him an account of the author which excited his curiosity and sympathy, and caused 374 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. him to request that he should be brought to his office; accord ingly he was introduced ; the prize-money had not yet been paid and he was in the costume in which he had answered the advertisement of his good fortune. Thin and pale even to ghastliness, his whole appearance indicated sickness and the utmost destitution. A well-worn frock coat concealed the want of a shirt; and imperfect boots disclosed the absence of hose. But the eyes of the young man were luminous with- intelligence and feeling, and his voice, conversation and man ners all won upon the lawyer s regard. Poe told his story and his ambition; and it was determined that he should not want means for a suitable appearance in society, nor oppor tunity for a just display of his abilities in literature. Mr. Kennedy accompanied him to a clothing store and purchased for him a respectable suit, with changes of linen, and sent him to a bath, from which he returned with the suddenly regained style of a gentleman. 7 His new friend introduced him to the editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, by whom he was soon engaged as a contributor, and subsequently, for a limited period, had the general supervision of that then prosperous periodical. He was, however, discontented with his life at Richmond, and Mr. Kennedy thus wisely and kindly remon strated with his gifted ljut wayward protege : " I am sorry to see you in such a plight as your letter shows you in. It is strange that just at this time, when everybody is praising you, and when fortune is beginning to smile upon your hitherto wretched circumstances, you should be invaded by those blue devils. It belongs, however, to your age and temper to be thus buffeted ; but, be assured, it only wants a little resolution to master the adversary forever. You will, doubtless, do well henceforth in literature, and add to your comforts as well as your reputation, which it gives me great pleasure to assure you is everywhere rising in popular esteem. The unfortunate habits of Poe continued to mar the best influence of his friends and the legitimate results of his prosperous authorship ; the patient and judicious interest INTERCOURSE WITH AUTHORS. 375 which Mr. Kennedy, and so many others, manifested in his behalf, proved unavailing, and on his way to New York, in the autumn of 1849, ne stopped at a tavern in his native city, and, meeting an acquaintance who invited him to drink, " in a few hours," says his biographer, " he was in such a state as is commonly produced by long-continued intoxication, and, after a night of insanity and exposure, he was carried to a hospital ; and there, on the evening of Sunday, October lyth, 1849, he died at the age of thirty-eight years." Two of Poe s letters to Mr. Kennedy are so characteristic of his improvidence and his need of self-reliance, that they deserve a place in the supplementary illustrations of the " In firmities of Genius." The first is a note, written in the author s usual neat and careful style, in answer to a hospitable mes sage : " Your invitation to dinner has wounded me to the quick. I cannot come for reasons of the most humiliating nature my personal appearance. You may imagine my mor tification in making this disclosure to you, but it is necessary." RICHMOND, Sept. 11, 1835. DEAR SIR : I received a letter yesterday from Dr. Miller, in which he tells me you are in town. I hasten, therefore, to write you, and express by letter what I have always found it im possible to express orally my deep sense of gratitude for your frequent and ineffectual assistance and kindness. Through your influence Mr. White has been induced to employ me in assisting him with the editorial duties of his Magazine at a salary of five hundred and twenty dollars per annum. The situation is agreeable to me for many reasons, but alas ! it appears to me that nothing can now give me pleasure or the slightest gratification. Excuse me, my dear sir, if in this letter you find much incoherency. My feelings at this moment are pit iable indeed. I am suffering under a depression of spirits, such as I have never felt before. I have struggled in vain against the influence of this melancholy ; you will believe me, when I say that I am still miserable in spite of the great improve ment in my circumstances. I say you will believe me, and for this simple reason, that a man who is writing for effect does not write thus. My heart is open before you, if it be worth read ing, read it. I am wretched, and know not why. Console me, 376 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY for you can. But let it be quickly, or it will be too late. Write me immediately. Convince me that it is worth one s while that it is at all necessary to live, and you will prove your self indeed my friend. Persuade me to do what is right. I do mean this. I do not mean that you should consider what I now write you a jest. Oh, pity me ! for I feel that my words are incoherent ; but I will recover myself. You will not fail to see that I am suffering under a depression of spirits which will ruin me should it be long continued. Write me then, and quickly urge me to do what is right. Your words will have more weight with me than the words of others, for you were my friend when no one else was. Fail not, as you value your peace of mind hereafter. E. A. POE. Mr. Kennedy writes in his journal on Wednesday, Octo ber 10, 1849 : On Sunday last Edgar A. Poe died in town here at the hos pital from the effects of a debauch. He had been to Richmond, was returning to New York, where he lived, and I understood, was soon to be married to a lady in Richmond of quite good fortune. He fell in with some companion here who seduced him to the bottle, which it was said, he had renounced some time ago. The consequence was fever, delirium and madness, and in a few days a termination of his sad career in the hospi tal. Poor Poe ! He was an original and exquisite poet, and one of the best prose critics in this country. His works are among the very best of their kind. His taste was replete with classical flavor, and he wrote in the spirit of an old Greek phi losopher. It is many years ago, I think perhaps as early as 1833 or 34, that I found him in Baltimore in a state of starvation. I gave him clothing, free access to my table and the use of a horse for exercise whenever he chose; in fact brought him up from the very verge of despair. I then got" him employment with Mr. White, in one department of the editorship of the Southern Lit erary newspaper at Richmond. His talents made that periodi cal quite brilliant while he was connected with it. But he was irregular, eccentric, and querulous, and soon gave up his place INTERCOURSE WITH AUTHORS. ^><7 for other employments of the same character in Philadelphia and New York. His destiny in these places was as sad and fickle as in Richmond. He always remembered my kindness with gratitude, as his many letters to me testify. He is gone a bright but unsteady light has been awfully quenched." Of the youthful literary friends of Mr. Kennedy, we have already alluded to one who was associated with his first pub lic experiments as an author. Peter Hoffman Cruse fell a victim to the cholera in 1832 ; born in Baltimore in 1798, he was educated at Princeton Col lege, N. J., and after being graduated studied law ; but like so many other aspirants for literary culture, was beguiled by na tive taste therefor, from serious devotion to a professional ca reer. During the last ten years of his life he contributed to the periodical literature of the day, and was, for a considerable period, editor of the Baltimore American. He was endowed with rare humor and a classical taste ; his conversation was animated and interesting, and it is easy to recognize these qualities in his writings. " Cruse," says Mr. Kennedy, in quoting from a biographical sketch of Wirt from the pen of that gentleman, " was a finished scholar, of exquisite taste, and gifted with talents which would have secured him an enviable eminence in the literature of the country." " More than any other of his cotemporaries," says an able critic, " Mr. Kennedy resembles Washington Irving. He has much of his graceful expression and cheerful philosophy, with more than he of the constructive faculty." This resemblance, which was at once observed in the lite rary characteristics of Washington Irving and Mr. Kennedy, was but a reflex of a natural affinity between them, not only in mind, but in temperament and character. They took to each other on first acquaintance, and this soon ripened into friendship. Endowed by nature with rare geniality of dispo sition, having historical tastes and a refined ideal of expres sion, they were also both men of quiet and ready humor and warm affections. The similarity in style and method between 378 LIFE OF JOHN T. KENNEDY. their earliest productions, was superseded in Mr. Kennedy, as his subsequent writings required a diverse treatment ; but the harmony of taste and feeling remained to the last. They were admirable companions, and mutually enjoyed domestic seques tration, social experience and, especially, journeys and excur sions ; many a pleasant anecdote and stroke of humor could each relate of their visits and sojourns together ; both had ar tistic as well as literary proclivities j equally fond of a joke, Mr. Kennedy was naturally more buoyant and sustained in his cheerfulness, and thus proved always an encouraging, as well as congenial companion to his friend, who was subject to periods of depression and self-distrust. Mr. Kennedy thus dedicated his most popular work to Washington Irving. " With some misgivings upon the score of having wasted time and paper both, which might have been better employed, I feel a real consolation in turning to you, as having, by your success, furnished our idle craft an argument to justify our vo cation. In grateful acknowledgment of these services, as well as to indulge the expression of a sincere private regard, I have ventured to inscribe your name upon the front of the im perfect work which is now submitted to the public." The manner in which Mr. Irving reciprocates this feeling, and the long, frank, free and cordial intimacy which refreshed his later years, may be gathered from a few random extracts from his letters to Mr. Kennedy : " You will perceive, my dear Horse-Shoe, that when I was a little tetchy under your bantering at Niagara, it was not the fault of your jokes, which were excellent as usual, but because I was too miserably out of tune to be played upon, be the musician ever so skilful. I avail myself of a tolerably sane fragment of myself which is left, to scrawl these lines." Writing to Mrs. Kennedy, in reply to an invitation to join her husband and President Fillmore on a Southern tour, with characteristic emphasis, he thus protests against such a pub lic demonstration. Douce Daviejs the name of "the horse they were accustomed to ride at Ellicott s Mills : INTERCOURSE WITH AUTHORS. 379 " Heaven preserve me from any tour of the kind to have to cope at every turn with the host of bores of all kinds that beset the path of political notabilities ! Has K not found out by this time, how very boreable I am ? Has he not seen me skulk from bar-rooms and other gathering places where he was making political capital among the million ? No, no ! I am ready, at any time, to clatter off on Douce Davie into the woods with the gentle Horse-Shoe or to scale the Alleghanies with him (barring watering-places), but as to a political tour, I would as lief go campaigning with Hudibrus or Don Quix ote." The respective social advantages of politics and literature, or those derived from fame acquired in either sphere, wer6 the frequent subject of banter between the friends. Horse-shoe was always rallying Geoffrey Crayon on his modesty in not making himself known at inns, and thus securing good accom modations ; and, in one of Irving s letters, is an amusing de scription of an experiment of the kind which he successfully tried and which he says, " Kennedy calls travelling on my capital." - I remember the zest with which the latter used to relate an instance of his triumph, as a political official over his friend s literary renown, while they were on a journey in the western part of New York. Arriving late at night at a crowded hotel, fatigued with a long day s journey, they found tljeir request for rooms to themselves refused as impracticable. Mr. Kennedy took the landlord aside and pointing to their names in the register, suggested that the popular author from Sunnyside was entitled to special consideration ; " Never heard of him," said Boniface, " but that gentleman with him shall have a room ; he has been in Congress, and Secretary of the Navy." In anticipation of seeing the family at Sunnyside, Mr. Irving thus writes to Mr. Kennedy in the summer of 1853 ; the ham alluded to in the proposed bill of fare was a present from Mr. Gray : " I look forward to a visit from you all at my small contentment ; wherever I may be my nieces will be happy 380 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. to entertain you, in their own modest way, on our rural fare, a couple of short-legged hens, a joint of mutton, with very pretty little tiny kickshaws, or peradventure with a juicy ham sent to me from the banks of the Patapsco by a much valued and somewhat musical friend, who flourishes in that quarter. To that excellent friend and his two inestimable daughters give my most affectionate remembrance thine ever more, my dear Horse-Shoe, while this machine is to me. " GEOFFREY CRAYON." A characteristic illustration of his friend s sensitive diffi dence, despite their perfect mutual understanding, is noted by Mr. Kennedy in his journal, dated Patapsco, October, 1853. Monday, as I have said, a heavy snow-storm, through which I drive to town with Irving. He tells me, as we ride together, that he had brought the manuscript of one volume of his Life of Washington with him in his trunk for the pur pose of submitting it to my perusal to give him an opinion upon it, but that from his shyness and repugnance to what seemed to him an exhibition of himself, he could not bring himself to ask me to read it. I told him I was very sorry he had not done it, as it would have given me a high gratifica tion to look over it, and to express freely whatever opinion I might have formed, and to aid him by any suggestion I could make. He advised me to write diligently now for a few years on some good work. I told him I was preparing such an enter prise in the plan of a work intended to give a history of the political and social condition of this country during the ten years preceding the revolution. I explained my scheme to him, and he approved it strongly, and urged it upon my dili gent pursuit. We reached the depot about ten, and after spending a short time there, I took my leave with the exchange of many good wishes and farewells, with my excellent friend." He writes from Sunnyside, August 2 ist, 1855, to Mrs. Ken nedy : " Kennedy you tell me is studying German I presume as INTERCOURSE WITH AUTHORS. 381 a relaxation from his railroad labors. He has an aptness, I should think, for the Northern languages, from the facility with which I have heard him render a conversation between Miss Bremer and one of her countrymen. I should like to rub up my own recollections of the German in the course of a few rides with him in the woods on the back of Douce Davie. 1 think I could repay him in bad German for some of the metaphysics he occasionally wastes on me in the course of our woodland colloquies." And in September, 1856, Irving writes to Kennedy: " By the way, Mr. Joseph Grinnell spoke of having seen you at Baltimore after your return from your gastronomical and oratorical tour with Mr. Fillmore, and he seemed very much haunted by the recollection of some jocose account you gave of various deputations of white waistcoats, from divers committees to welcome the ex-president and yourself. But though the recollection of the joke seemed still to shake his diaphragm, he could not do any justice to it. So I shall put you in mind of it when next we meet, that I may have a companion picture to those of your interviews with Kossuth and with Frederika Bremer; the recollections of which I always summon up as sure pills to cure melancholy." In the three following letters the confidence and geniality of their intercourse is charmingly evident : ELLICOTT S MILLS, Sept. 22, 1853. To WASHINGTON IRVING, ESQ. MY DEAR IRVING : Now that the summer is past and gone, and the sun shines amiably upon the sons and daughters of men, with no fell intent either to trip up their heels or dissolve their brains, I feel that I may once more venture upon the effort of a salutation to a friend. "So, God save thee Good Geoffrey ! health and happiness to thee and thine, and full return of thy wasted strength, and so much of restored bulk as shall make thee jocund ; and pleasant humors to thee, with thine accustomed recognition and enjoyment of such poor LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. jokes even as mine ; and good increase of store, and good storing of thy increase, and all desirable delectation to Sunny- side, and its worthy contents ! that beehive of happy bees which sweeten thy cup with distillations of Hybla, great-grand father of cis- Atlantic letters ! meaning, not a degree above the father s father of the Alphabet, but a grandfather who has earned his title with Alexander and Peter and Alfred. Here is beautiful weather again, which, as it comes on the wintry side of the Equinox, will, I doubt not, continue its beneficence up to the coming of the snows. When we reached home from our summer ramble we found that we had left New York one week too soon. The weather was, as it had been, as you know to your cost once or twice before, absolutely crush ing ; the sky distressingly bright, and the sun s rays falling like arrows. We were all overcome except Mr. Gray, who rejoiced as a salamander in these fervors, and has actually gained nine pounds by the scales ; all the rest of us were so cast down that you would have thought gravitation had done its worst and meant to keep us down. I rallied, however, and made a resolve to fly to Berkeley, which I did before the week was out, and reached there on Friday, nearly two weeks ago, just as the weather changed and came out so cold that a fire and great coat became indispensable. There I found some remnant of the tribe whose curiosity you had so perversely bafHed in June, and who had not, even yet, done wondering at that queer in congruity of yours, as they set it down, which distinguished the actual from the ideal Geoffrey, which last they held to be the most loving and tender-hearted and meltingest of the wor shippers of woman. But when I told them that you had had a great break and outburst of bilious fever which had been ag glomerating within the confines of your heart and stomach ail summer, and which had finally exploded with a crash and a crepitation like that of your unhappy London lapdog, they made a satisfactory theory upon the matter, by which they con vinced themselves that all such sinful affections or overcharged livers, or morbid pancreases or disturbed prima mas, or tardy INTERCOURSE WITH AUTHORS. 383 duodenums, naturally beget and nourish a restless reluctance to the approach and converse of that purer element whereof woman is compounded, and that the afflicted man must be ex ercised and thoroughly purged before he can take an honest pleasure in such intercourse. And now that you have cast out your devil and placed him under your foot, they are per suaded you would be quite delightful if that visit were repeated. I hope you have been regaining strength without backsliding, since our visit to Sunnyside, when, as I thought, you were manifestly the better for the attack. That heaviness of head you complained of in the Spring, and when you joined us at Saratoga, may be referred to the disease which has found a vent in the fever, and was bound, I think, to go off with it. We heard in New York and since our return of several indica tions of autumnal fever on the North River. Mrs. O s family were obliged to leave her residence near Sing Sing on that account. I do not know that you have found malaria in your quarter, though it would take but a small spark to set off such a magazine as you may have been quietly gathering in your long scholastic incubation of this last egg of yours. The health of our region is singularly good ; and as the first of October approaches, we keep our lookout to see you here, where you are now greatly wanted. The piano is tink ling all day with the music of merry girls ; and the house is vocal with their multitudinous prattle, which only wants the accompaniment of your laugh and encouragement to make it a perfect concert. My brother Andrew and his household are also asking when you are to arrive and assist in the proces sions, marches and fantasies which they are keeping in reserve for you. In fact, we have sundry plans waiting for exploita tion when you shall come to take your part. Mrs. K and I will go with you to Virginia. We have our annual visit to make there," which we have arranged to be made with you. I shall send up a light carriage and two saddle-horses, and we propose to survey the mountains in fine weather, with abun dance of gay adventures and much at our ease. October is 384 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. the month for this, and you must be here in good time for it. I promise you thorough redintegration of body and mind, and the pleasure of. making a host of friends in these latitudes happy. Chief among them is Mr. Gray, who talks continually of your coming, and whom you have taken such hold of as to make your presence a necessity. I must say that " the little fume of a woman," and her sister will account it a most benig nant thing of you to keep this appointment punctually, be cause you will see that before you have opened your lips, and hear it, if you are attentive, perhaps as you come up the front door steps, if they should recognize your footfall. Write to me to let me know how you thrive ; and particu larly, again, when you will set out and be here. By the present arrangement of the trains you can reach our house on the evening of the day you leave New York. When you reach the depot in Baltimore, which is about six, I believe, you will find a car at the door which takes the Wheel ing and Cumberland passengers straight on to the Baltimore and Ohio depot. There the train for Wheeling leaves at seven, and reaches the village Ellicott s Mills at quarter before eight. This train does not stop at our bridge, but goes on to the village, half a mile above us, where I will have the carriage to take you in charge. You perceive, from this arrangement, that at the Baltimore depf t of the Philadelphia road, you take the car to the Balti more and Ohio depot, and there take your passage to Elli cott s Mills, marking your baggage to be taken out there. Once at the village, you are our prisoner, and will be brought in the dark to your old quarters. Yours ever, J. P. KENNEDY. BALTIMOKE, June 19, 1854. To WASHINGTON IRVING, Esq. MY DEAR IRVING : Mrs. Kennedy has been, for some time past, in a state of evident inward disquiet, manifested by cer- INTERCOURSE WITH AUTHORS. 385 tain outward signs of energetic locomotion and visible increase of activity which I have discovered has been produced by a determination to write to you, by way of acknowledgment of a letter you wrote to her some months ago, in February, perhaps, certainly not later. She confesses that it weighs upon her mind ; that it is a shame, that she ought to explain this delay ; and then she asks me every morning if I am not going to write to Mr. Irving ? and if I am, would I tell him why she had not done so ? Now, the truth of the case is this : First, I went on that long tour southward, which put her into an incapacity. Second, she grew ill with what the doctor called gastralgia ; a very nervous malady, and, indeed, was quite ill with it for some weeks, so ill that I was summoned home by telegraph, in a dispatch which met me at Columbia, in South Carolina ; and third, as she has now recovered from the worst of the attack, she is not yet restored to that com posure which is necessary to the intellectual exertion of in diting an epistle, and therefore relies upon me to perform such occasional service in that way as may lighten her conscience, and keep it in fair sailing trim. We are indulging the hope of seeing you, before long, in that pilgrimage which we hope is to be annual and frequent to the shore of the Patapsco, and will have youf arm-chair and cell in fitting condition as soon as our carpenters shall allow us. At present, our cottage is buried in shavings and saw-dust, and we are only to-day beginning to prepare for our removal. You know I projected a very imposing addition to the house last fall. The plan was made and I engaged a workman, who contracted to have every thing done by the first of May. So having got the matter in his hands, he takes it so much at his own pleasure, that now, more than six weeks after the time, he gives me a plausible hope that I may get rid of him by the middle of July. Very annoying, this per fidy, but utterly without relief except in a philosophic and Christian resignation. We shall move out in a day or t>vo, and take all the discomforts, of the plastering and painting as 17 386 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. well as the restriction of house room, for the new building has cut off some of our old accommodation, and does not give us the substitute until the clay of emancipation, which we look for in July. The improvement in our face to the world, as well as in interior arrangement, will be very obvious, as you shall see when it is done. I am getting a handsome library room, and and a fine, airy chamber above it, and some two or three additional rooms for the family. These will be illustrated by a tower, which I have put up for the staircase, surmounted by a spire, weathercock and gilt ball. The proximity of the river, upon which the new building is planted and which it overhangs, suggested a Venetian fancy, and this will explain my campanile turret, my round arched windows, and the hanging balconies. If you could send me a gondola, and a guitar man, in cloak and feather, with a dark mustache, I should take it as a friendly contribution to the intended archi tectural conceit. In the mean time, we shall use our village organ-grinder, and the little skiff of the dam which will carry one man and two boys. Enclosed I send you a sketch of the front, which looks to the river, in which you will recognize only the old gateway bridge across the race, and the willows. As this architectural feat is of an ambitious hue, and is considered a very bold undertaking of mine, I stand greatly in need of good backing from stanch friends, and I therefore bespeak your prowess at once. When you come to see us, come prepared to stand up for the man who could engage in this severe venture. I shall write to let you know the first moment when the plaster is dry and the place habitable, for until then we shall be in probation. Mr. Gray s health has been very feeble of late, but better just now. We may go to Saratoga, but that is doubtful. We all send love to you and your household. Very truly and kindly yours, JOHN P. KENNEDY. WITH AUTHOR*. 387 ELLICOTT S MILLS, August 8, 1854. MY DEAR IRVING : My old friend The Sun, " honest light," I am glad to inform you, rose this morning in a most happy state of convalescence after his late violent attack of fever. His visage is somewhat pale as might be expected, but his pulse is good, his complexion clear, and he really seems to en joy himself in the delicious breeze of the morning. The old fellow must be watched, however, as he gets back to his health, for I found aurora scudding before him about daylight, very much confused and evidently laughing in her blushes as she ran away ; and I thought he himself was a little flustered when I caught him peeping over the hills at her. But these veter ans, you know, are apt to be a little extravagant in their be havior after such a pull down, and may claim some indulgence for a few extra antics. I hope your case is as good as his, and that you have come out of your calenture as little shorn of your beams, my dear and kindred luminary, as good in your intents, and as wholesome in visage as he. The antics I am quite sure you will have nothing to do with, and, in that re spect, will teach him a lesson of propriety, by which he may become a wiser and a better Sun, if that be possible. You have had your tertian or your quotidian or your quarternian I don t know which, (either is more than you deserve), I learn from your letter, to vex you this summer, as that greater erup tion of bile did last year ; but from a line I received this morning, written to me by Grinnell, who tells me you were din ing with him on Sunday and gave him a message from me which he has very kindly answered, I infer your ailments have now bid you good-by, whereat I congratulate you with all my heart, and say God preserve you from the foul fiend, and keep you jocund and sound for many years ! I am now writing in my new library from beneath the tow er ; and there is a woman up stairs scouring out the traces of the workmen. The last of the painters left us on Saturday, the bell-hanger has ceased his jingles, and every thing is done 388 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. but the final coxcombry of a spire on the tower, and the light ning-rod which is to bring it to a delicate point : and my wife is just beginning to be energetic on the carpet question, and is plotting some exploits in furniture. So we come to see peace once more, with a broader expanse of accommodation and, al ready, we have arranged a nook for you, with a distinct appar atus of pen and ink, with a beautiful lookout on the waterfall ; and, by way of training, our watchman is practising a more sparing tintinnabulation on his bell, both for night and morning, proportioned reticence in his clamor, for the benefit of your nerves, which we suppose, by the middle of September, will be in condition to stand up to a daylight salutation of thirty seconds, and the drumming of the mill dam upon the windows. In the mean time I am going up to my poor brother An drew, who is sadly overthrown by the loss of his eldest daugh ter, our beloved Annie Selden, of whose death Mrs. K ap prised you in her letter. It is a melancholy household there. My brother has done nothing but weep ever since. I am go ing to take him, if I can persuade him to it, to Capon, in the mountains above Winchester, and thence over to Bath, where I go, by appointment, to meet my old uncle Mr. Pendleton, to whom I have become a necessity. Thence I return to Mar- tinsburg to visit my mother. All this I propose to do in the coming month, leaving here towards the end of this week and remaining abroad these thirty days, unless I should be recall ed by Mr. Gray, who has grown very old since you saw him, and has been nursing fancies of death almost ever since we came out here. He is a great deal better now, and grows more cheerful and contented every day, talking always with great pleasure about meeting you again, and uttering a " God bless you !" as often as your name is mentioned, which is every day." In March, 1856, in writing on the occasion of a domes tic bereavement, Mr. Irving gives earnest expression to his grateful sense of those social virtues, that genial compan ionship and intelligent sympathy which so brightened life to INTERCOURSE WITH AUTHORS. OO? him and endears the memory of his friend to so many faithful hearts : " My dear Kennedy, my intercourse with you and. your family has been a great sweetener of the past few years of my existence and the only attraction that has been able to draw me repeatedly from home." 390 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. CHAPTER XVII. The Peabody Institute. IN 1841 Mr. Kennedy remarks in his Diary: "I wish to write a lecture upon the means of improving our city ; first, pointing out its resources and then suggesting sundry matters in relation to its institutions, but especially a plan for a Free Public Library, a Museum and School of Art and provision in the way of Lectures." This favorite project had long occupied his thoughts ; and at length, an unexpected and most auspicious opportunity was offered to realize the cherished purpose. Among his comrades who rallied to the defence of the city in the seconcl war with Great Britain, was a young merchant with whom he ever after sustained friendly associa tions. They boarded for years at the same house in Baltimore when both had their way to make in the world. This old fellow-soldier and townsman was George Peabody, who had become a wealthy London banker. When this gentleman resolved to bestow his large fortune for the endowment of charitable and educational institutions, his thoughts naturally turned toward the State which had been the home of his youth and the scene of his earliest commercial success. He informed his old friend that he wished to do something for Baltimore, and requested him to consider the subject carefully and give him the benefit of his counsel and suggestions. It was no new subject to Mr. Kennedy, and he entered upon it with the most intelligent sympathy. He drew up a plan for an Institution which should combine cheap lectures from the best sources, with musical instruction, a free library and, eventually, an art-gallery. His views were at once adopted THE PEABODY INSTHTTK. 391 by Mr. Peabody and embodied in a letter announcing his intention to provide munificently for the enterprise. As one of the Trustees of the Peabody Institute, Mr. Kennedy s labors were assiduous and most enlightened. His views, however, were too comprehensive to be readily adopted by all his co- trustees. He was in favor of economizing in the proposed edifice, of erecting it in a central and accessible situation, and expending the greater part of the funds upon the intellectual resources of the Institute. He was also earnest in his advo cacy of a union of all similar associations with this, as a nucleus, so as to concentrate all the means of popular culture in one efficient and adequately endowed establishment. He was not prepared for the exclusive spirit, the local jealousy and the -limited ideas with which he had to contend, in the attempt to realize his great scheme. He was obliged reluc tantly to surrender his dearest wishes in this regard, and to yield his mature convictions to the will of the majority. This disappointment, however, did not cool his ardor or lessen his co-operative labor. He interested himself effectually in the organization of the Institute, in the selection of the library, and in obtaining the most desirable lecturers. Abroad he arranged for the purchase of books and studied the system and the workings of similar establishments in England and on the continent. Much that is permanently desirable and practi cally successful in the results of Mr. Peabody s benign experi ment, is due to the foresight, wisdom and patient labor of Mr. Kennedy. His reports and addresses are among the most lucid and effective illustrations of this beneficient en terprise. Had he lived, the Peabody Institute would have prospered to an incalculable extent, by his intelligent, faithful and disinterested labors. He bequeathed to it his library and his papers. He was the moving spirit of the Trustees ; well might his friend Pennington write him when in Europe : " I wish you were here aiding and directing us in putting the In stitution into operation; we sadly want a head." And it is but justice to add that all the. reasonable objections which 392 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. have been made to the practical workings and actual results of the Institute, may be traced to the neglect of those re sources or indifference to those arrangements which Mr. Ken nedy originally advocated. He writes, December igth, 1854 : " I saw Mayhew yes terday and he showed me Peabody s letter from London which requests him, together with Reverdy Johnson and myself, to devise a plan for a large, beneficent establishment for the City of Baltimore, which Mr. Peabody is anxious to institute. I will endeavor to plan something on a magnificent scale which may serve to educate a large number of students in the most useful arts and sciences." The plan suggested by Mr. Kennedy and adopted by Mr. Peabody was the following : First. An extensive library to be well furnished in every department of knowledge, and of the most approved lit erature ; which is to be maintained for the free use of all per sons who may desire to consult it, and be supplied with every proper convenience for daily reference and study, within ap pointed hours of the week days of every year. It should con- <iist of the best works on every subject embraced within the scope of its plan, and as completely adapted, as the means at your command may allow, to satisfy the researches of students who may be engaged in the pursuit of knowledge not ordinarily attainable in the private libraries of the country. It should be guarded and preserved from abuse, and rendered efficient for the purposes I contemplate in its establishment, by such regu lations as the judgment and experience of the Trustees may adopt or approve. I recommend, in reference to such regula tions, that it shall not be constructed upon a plan of a circula ting library ; and that the books shall not be allowed to be taken out of the building, except in very special cases, and in accordance with rules adapted to them as exceptional privi leges. Second. I desire that ample provision and accommodation be made for the regular periodical delivery, at the proper sea son in each year, of lectures by the most capable and accom- THE PEAJ50DY INSTITUTE. 393 plished scholars and men of science, within the power of the Trustees to procure. These lectures should be directed to in struction in science, art and literature. They should be estab lished with such regulations as, in the judgment of the Trus tees, shall be most effectual to secure the benefits expected from them ; and should, under proper and necessary restrictions adapted to preserve good order and guard against abuse, be open to the resort of the respectable inhabitants, of both sexes, of the city and State : such prices of admission being required as may serve to defray a portion of the necessary expenses of maintaining the lectures, without impairing their usefulness to the community. In connection with this provision, I desire that the Trus tees, in order to encourage and reward merit, should adopt a regulation by which a number of the graduates of the public High Schools of the city, not exceeding fifty of each sex, in each year, who shall have obtained, by their proficiency in their studies and their good behavior, certificates of merit from the Commissioners or superintending authorities of the Schools to which they may be attached, may, by virtue of such certificates, be entitled, as an honorary mark of distinction, to free admis sion to the lectures for one term or season after obtaining the certificates. I also desire that, for the same purpose of encouraging merit, the Trustees shall make suitable provision for an annu al grant of twelve hundred dollars ; of which five hundred shall be distributed every year, in money prizes, graduated accord ing to merit, of sums of not less than fifty dollars, nor more than one hundred for each prize, to be given to such graduates of the public Male High Schools now existing or which may hereafter be established, as shall, in each year, upon examina tion and certificate of the School Commissioners, or other per sons having the chief superintendence of the same, be adjudged most worthy, from their fidelity to their studies, their attain ments, their moral deportment, their personal habits of cleanli ness and propriety of manners : the sum of two hundred dol- 17* 31M LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. lars to be appropriated to the purchase, in every year, of gold medals of two degrees, of which ten shall be of the value of ten dollars each, and twenty of the value of five dollars each, to be annually distributed to the most meritorious of the graduating classes of the public Female High Schools ; these prizes to be adjudged for the same merit, and under the like regulations, as the prizes to be given to the graduates of the Male High Schools. The remaining five hundred dollars to be, in like manner, distrib uted in money prizes, as provided above for the graduates of the Male High School, in the same amounts respectively, to the yearly graduates in the School of Design attached to the Me chanics Institute of this city. To render this annual distribu tion of prizes effective to the end I have in view, I desire that the Trustees shall digest, propose, and adopt all such rules and provisions, and procure the correspondent regulations on the part of the public institutions referred to, as they may deem necessary to accomplish the object. Third. I wish, also, that the Institute shall embrace within its plan an Academy of Music, adapted, in the most effective manner, to diffuse and cultivate a taste for that, the most refin ing of all the arts. By providing a capacious and suitably fur nished saloon, the facilities necessary to the best exhibitions of the art, the means of studying its principles and practising its compositions, and periodical concerts, aided by the best talent and most eminent skill within their means to procure, the Trus tees may promote the purpose to which I propose to devote this department of the Institute. They will make all such reg ulations as, in their judgment, are most likely to render the Academy of Music the instrument of permanent good to the society of this city. As it will necessarily incur considerable expense for its support, I desire that it may be, in part, sustain ed by such charges for admission to its privileges, as the Trus tees may consider proper, and, at the same time, compatible with my design to render it useful to the community. And I suggest for their consideration the propriety of regulating the conditions of an annual membership of the Academy, as well THE PEABODY INSTITUTE. 395 as the terms of occasional admission to the saloon if they should consider it expedient at any time to extend the privilege of admission beyond the number of those who may be enrolled as members. Fourth. I contemplate with great satisfaction, as an auxil iary to the improvement of the taste, and, through it, the mor al elevation of the character of the society of Baltimore, the es tablishment of a Gallery of Art in the department of Painting and Statuary. It is, therefore, my wish that such a gallery should be included in the plan of the Institute, and that spa cious and appropriate provision be made for it. It should be supplied, to such an extent as may be practicable, with the works of the best masters, and be placed under such regula tions as shall secure free access to it, during stated periods of every year, by all orderly and respectable persons who ma) take an interest in works of this kind ; and particularly that, under wholesome restraints to preserve good order and cleca rous deportment, it may be rendered instructive to artists in the pursuit of their peculiar studies and in affording them op portunity to make. drawings and copies from the works it may contain. As annual or periodical Exhibitions of Paintings and Stat uary are calculated, in my opinion, to afford equal gratification and instruction to the community, and may serve to supply a valuable fund for the enrichment of the gallery, I suggest to the Trustees the establishment of such Exhibitions, as far as they may find it practicable from the resources within their reach. Lastly. I desire that ample and convenient accommodation may be made in the building of the Institute for the use of the Maryland Historical Society, of which I am and have long been a member. It is my wish that that Society should per manently occupy its appropriate rooms as soon as they are pro vided, and should, at the proper time when this can be done, be appointed by the Trustees to be the guardian and protector of the property of the Institute ; and that, if it accept this duty 390 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. and, in conformity with my wish, shall remove into and take possession of the apartments designed for its use, it shall also be requested and empowered to assume the management and administration of the operations of the several departments as the same shall be established and organized by the Trustees ; that it shall, at a proper time in every year, appoint from its own members appropriate and efficient committees, to be charged respectively with the arrangement and direction of the oper ations and conduct of each department in the functions assign ed to each by the Trustees that, in the performance of these duties, it shall keep in view the purposes which it is my aim to promote ; give due attention to the details necessary to ac complish them; and adopt suitable measures to execute the plan of organization made by the Trustees and carry into full and useful effect my intentions as disclosed in this letter." Abroad and at home Mr. Kennedy consulted with Mr. Peabody in regard to the details of this programme and the appropriation of the funds. He had, as has been before ob served, much to contend with in the opposition his ideas en countered from some of the Trustees ; and, although baffled in many cherished purposes, he had the satisfaction, in his last interview with the donor, to find that he wholly sympathized with and approved his course. Sometimes, however, he felt discouraged ; " If the views," he writes after a meeting of the Trustees, " expressed to-day, are carried into practice, it will be a sad failure on a plan which may give a very respectable Reading Club House, where idle men may find the means of killing time, but which will contribute little towards the forma tion of a literary and scientific taste in the city." Besides ac tively interesting himself in the economical details, the general arrangements and the selections for the- library, Mr. Kennedy was auspiciously efficient in securing able and interesting lec turers. His large acquaintance among men of science and letters, enabled him to enlist their aid and sympathy in this department. " Many thanks," writes one of eminence in lit erature, " for your invitation to come and discuss again. It THE PEABODY INSTITUTE. 397 seems to cast a dash of sunshine on the trade of lecturing, and I am strongly tempted to come mainly that it- will enable me to renew my intercourse with yourself." This personal charm which attracted men of culture, is of great value to a literary purveyor ; it was always recognized, and not one of Mr. Ken nedy s friends could fail to reiterate the declaration in one of Prescott s letters to him : " It did me good to see your hand writing ; but I would rather see yourself." Even into the peaceful affairs of this association, the influence of the war penetrated ; but at its close the liberal founder of the institu tion which bears his name, auspiciously interfered to effect a reconciliation. In his diary Mr. Kennedy, who was abroad at the time, gives the following interesting statement : " When Mr. Peabody came to Baltimore to assist in the Inauguration of the Institute on the 25th of October, 1866, at which I was not present, having gone to Europe in the pre vious July, the Trustees, after the ceremonies of the occasion were over, gave a dinner to Mr. Peabody, at which all the mem bers of the Board, or all who were in town and able to attend, were present. The estrangements produced by the war had up to the time of the Inauguration, severed the Board so com pletely that the two parties, the loyal and disloyal men, never, with few exceptions, met together during the five years of the strife. We stood about thirteen loyal to some nine or ten (there being some absentees) against the Government. The secession party even refused to take any part in the meeting or manage ment of the Institute. At the Inauguration the whole Board, or nearly the whole Board were present. At the dinner that followed, Mr. Peabody made a short speech full of his charac teristic benevolence, and gave a solemn exhortation to the mem bers of the Board, praying them to forgive and forget all that had passed, and assuring them that it was his dearest wish to see them renew their old brotherhood and work together in per fect harmony. He wished to effect this reconciliation himself whilst he was here with them and now at their present feast to give a pledge of their restored regard by shaking hands 398 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. all around at the table. His speech had a most touching con clusion when the company rose j and saluted each other, as he proposed, and gentlemen who had not met or spoken to one another for years, shook hands and renewed their friendship. It was just after this action, that Charles Howard rose and made some very kind and generous allusions to myself, the President of the Board, then absent, and offered a most com plimentary tribute to me in a toast, to which all responded with the most emphatic good-will. Pennington gave me a full and pleasant account of the scene in a letter which reached me soon afterwards in Europe." Mr. Kennedy notes his last conversation with Mr. Peabody, thus : Newport, Sept. 21, 1869. On the i3th, Monday, I had an interview with Mr. Peabody. He had come here the night before from Boston, and was the guest of Mr. Sam. Wetmore. He came expressly to meet me here and to converse with me about the Institute. I called on him at noon and sat about an hour, which was as long as he had strength to talk to me. He was very feeble and lay on the sofa, apparently short of breath, and often suffering pain from too much effort. He surprised me by telling me that he intended to leave Newport that night at eight in the New York boat, and to continue his journey at eight o clock to morrow to Baltimore. He said he wanted me to accompany him, as he wished to meet the Trustees the day after his arrival. I told him it was not in my power to go with him, and especially in such rapid travel ; that I was very much out of health and not able to endure the fatigue ; wondered greatly to see him attempting such a journey in his condition. He had made up his mind and nothing would stop him. I asked when he would return. He said on Wednesday I return to Philadelphia ; stay with Macalester till Friday, then to New York arid remain at Wetmore s till Wednesday, when I sail for England in the Scotia. This was a secret of which I was not to speak, as he did not wish the day of departure to be known. In conversation in regard to the Institute, he told TIIK PEABODT INSTITUTE. 399 me that he entirely concurred with me in the propriety of the policy I had suggested in my last anniversary letters to him ; the principal idea there suggested being a resolve to hold on to the capital or principal of our fund, and to construct our new buildings out of the accumulation from the interest When I parted with him it was with an understanding that I should meet him in New York for further conference after his visit to Baltimore. After dinner E. and M. called upon him and, after a short interview, took an affectionate leave, which both parties felt was very probably a final one." One of the last of Mr. Kennedy s labors was his Report as President of the Institute, dated Feb. i2th, 1870. It is a clear, judicious and well authenticated statement of its affairs, a survey of its doings and prospects, with excellent suggestions for its future development. His remarks on the Library are characteristic : " Our country is yet far from being gifted with a Library completely supplied to -meet these requisites and fully to satis fy the research of students in their pursuit of that kind of knowledge which, being of rare demand, does not ordinarily find a place in private collections. We are aware how often the students and scholars of the United States, especially those engaged in scientific and historical investigations, have found themselves compelled to resort to foreign libraries for aid which they could not find at home. Even the history of our own continent cannot, at this day, be fully authenticated from our own collections. And although this impediment to accurate research is gradually lessening before the awakened enterprise of the present time, still, it is our part, as I am sure it was Mr. Peabody s wish we should so regard it, to use the munif icent donation with which we are entrusted in the careful, per sistent and intelligent application of our means to the gradual accumulation of every thing notable in literature and science as necessary to the pursuits of the scholar. I esteem it to be the peculiar excellence of Mr. Peabody s design, that he has given it pre-eminently this character of a National gift, a sig- LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. nally patriotic endowment in the broad foundation he has laid for it and in the perennial supply of means for its increase, by which it may, in good time, remove the reproach to which I have alluded. If we and our successors, his representatives, adopt this view of the work before us, and do our duty in con formity with this interpretation of it, and thus bring into fruit ful existence his conception, we may predict that no act of his, among his many good deeds, will survive to so late a poster ity or render his name so familiar or so grateful to the distant generations of our country, as the Library which he has charged us to create." CORRESPONDENCE. 401 CHAPTER XVIII. Correspondence. A PLAN for funding the arrears of interest of the State debt, led Mr. Kennedy to an interesting correspondence on certain legal points with Chancellor Kent, Chief-Justice Story, and Marshall and other eminent lawyers of the past gen eration. His letters to ladies are graceful and piquant, and among his female correspondents were many of the most in telligent and charming women of our own country and Europe. A remarkable illustration of his patient courtesy is evinced in a long and admirably argued reply to some objections which Wirt s daughter made to his conscientious criticism on her fa ther s literary style and youthful indiscretions, in his Biography. His correspondence with his uncle, Philip Pendleton, of Berkeley, Va., extended over many years and evinces a strong mutual attachment. There were frequent visits interchanged between them, and a rare degree of personal and political sym pathy. To this endeared relative he is freely and fondly com municative. Mr. Pendleton was a genuine specimen of the old school Virginia gentlemen, a Federalist of the strictest pattern, and one of those rural lords of the manor, so well de scribed in " Swallow Barn," easy-going, warm-hearted, intelli gent, with intense local pride, tenacity of opinion, and a kind of philosophical dolce far niente habit characteristic of the landed gentry of his State. He married a wealthy lady, and had three sons. He had little sympathy with the spirit of the age ; detested its social innovations, and ignored its locomo tive facilities ; except an occasional visit to his favorite nephew in Baltimore, his excursions were limited to a summer sojourn 402 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. at Berkeley Springs. At Martinsbtirg and in all the country round, he was looked up to and consulted ; unenterprising and old-fashioned in his tastes, he was patriotic and contented ; he was fond of argument and a game of backgammon ; in a word, he was very much such a man as the Frank Merriwether portrayed by his nephew. Ke was a fine-looking .man, six feet high, had been educated for the law, and to an advanced age, retained his faculties and much of his personal influence. He followed his nephew s career with pride and sympathy ; depended upon him for news, political and social ; and their intercourse was not less frank than intimate and affectionate. " The old people and I staid at home," writes Mr. Kennedy from his uncle s house, to his wife, "and had a regular dish of mesmerism, to say nothing of John Tyler and the hard times." " John will in a short time be gone to Washington," writes Mr. Gray, urging the old gentleman to come to them, " and the full harmony of the anticipated nodes will be wanting, without his aid." The unenterprising tendencies of his class are sometimes naively exhibited in Mr. Pendleton s letters ; thus, in acknowledging one of his nephew s addresses, he writes, " I dare say that, like old Polonius, I have attained to a plentiful lack of wit, but I beg leave to say that the address of yours before the Mechanics Institute is, in my judgment, an admirable one, tasteful and appropriate in the highest degree, albeit it contains, as it inevitably must, some fuss and fustian about the dignity of labor. I feel disposed to talk to you as Hamlet did to Horatio thou art a man, etc. ; but, no, I will not ; there is a somewhat grave objection to wearing in one s heart of hearts, persons of errant propensities and fan ciers of European tours and Kentucky mammoth caves ; nev ertheless I will say to you that the comfort you have been to me for the last thirty years, seems to increase as I grow older." In the letters addressed to his uncle from Washington, we have vivid glimpses of his activity in politics. " Just a word," he writes after his first election to Congress, " until I have time to breathe, for I have not been in a condition for even CORRESPONDENCE. 403 such poor thoughts as I may put in such a letter as this, from the moment of my nomination until to-day. It has been an interval of hard labor, intense excitement, bewildering success and frantic rejoicing." The good-humor with which he took defeat is apparent in his remonstrance with his uncle on the delay of a promised visit " What is the reason you have not come down according to promise ? Is it so deep a matter to be beaten, that a man may not look his friends in the face ? In whatever station I may be placed it is my first wish and purpose to do all I can towards the secure and permanent elevation of the Whig party of Maryland in the esteem of the country. What a glorious exit I have made from political life protem ! You know I wished to be at home this winter, par ticularly wished it, because I had the Life of Wirt to finish, and half a dozen other matters besides ; now have I not come off well ? I have the honor of a nomination forced upon me, when I had, in fact, declined it ; and the good reputation of standing by my friends even in the face of certain defeat. I have lost nothing but the election. What better fate can I ask than this ?" In no manner can the employments, sympathies and opin ions of Mr. Kennedy be so justly revealed, as by his letters to kindred, friends and political associates ; a few random speci mens of his correspondence are therefore given : BALTIMORE, October 23d, 1844. To MRS. N. C. KENNEDY. MY DEAR MOTHER : When a woman comes to your time of life, she has either squared her sails for a steady voyage right on before that wind of doctrine, which, after long experience, she has found most to her liking, or neglecting this steadfast policy, suffers herself to be blown about by every little whiffling breeze of opinion that anybody may think proper to blow upon her. Now I am very seriously apprehensive that those two old gentlemen uncle Phil and his senior, Andrew Kenne dy, have set themselves up on purpose to zephyr you about, 404: LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. just as it shall please their peculiar whimsicalities, to sway you, touching your railroad stock sheer envy ! sheer envy in these invidious wights, of your great wealth, and of that commendable thrift by which, rising superior to Virginia im mobility and Martinsburg-in-particular cast-anchoredness-on- the-shoal-of-things-as-they-are I say in sheer envy of your having got ahead of these drawbacks, they are trying to fright en you into the notion of parting with your prudence and of putting you on a level with all things else in your a-hundred- years-ago state. Now take my advice in opposition, and don t part with one cent of your stock on any account. It is begin ning to divide well and will continue to divide. BALTIMORE, Jan. 12, 1846. To HON. DANIEL WEBSTER. MY DEAR SIR : This morning s mail brought me your kind note. Whether you have been lying at lurch to catch the first trespasser upon your domain, or have taken a peep into Rapin just on purpose to gome over me, I am obliged to confess the Lord Treasurer and to thank you for setting me right Rapin says, " Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset and Lord Treasurer, dying suddenly as he was sitting at the council table, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, succeeded him in his post (1608). He was a lord of great genius, and though crooked before and behind, nature supplied that defect with great endowment of mind." Query which of them was crooked, Sackville or Cecil ? He alludes to the latter, for the Lord Treasurer Cecil was remarked for his deformity, which was somewhat oddly associated with a strong inclination for gallantry, as you may read in the story of Lady Derby, and the miniature which Queen Elizabeth took from her. As you are fond of scenting out a piece of old history I will leave you to find the story where you can, being somewhat inclined to avenge myself for being sacked as the Irish school-master has it so quickly by you. " Tim, you see, went into his entrance examinayshuns, and one of the fellows came to examine him, but divil a long CORRESPONDENCE. 40 5 it was till Tim sacked him. Go back again, says Tim, * and sincl some one that s able to tache me, for you re not. So another greater scholar came to thry Tim, and did thry him, and Tim made a hare si him before all that was in the pl ace five or six thousand ladies and gintlemen, at laste. The great lamed fellows thin began to look odd enough, so they picked out the best scholar among them, but one, and slipped him at Tim : but well becomes Tim, the never a long it was till he had him too as dumb as a post." Now, if you will sack Calhoun, Benton, and Cass, as fast as they are let slip at you in this original examination, we shall say that Tim Kearney himself had better keep out of your way. With kind regards I am, My dear sir, Very truly yours, J. P. KENNEDY. NEW BRUNSWICK, FREDEKICTOWN. ) June 24th, 1847. \ To MRS. KENNEDY. MY DEAR E. : This is the cold, gray north. It has rained every day since we left Boston until to day ; and now we have the most beautiful sun-shine with a pleasant flavor of summer. Bangor is a large town of some 15,000 inhabitants. We left this city on Friday, for Houlton, taking twelve miles of rail road to Old Town, and there a queer steamboat called the Gov- enor Neptune, for Mattawamkeag on the Penobscot. This boat was principally freighted with lumbermen returning home af ter finishing their work for the season. They are an admira ble, hardy, robust class of men very numerous in this State, who dress in a picturesque way in scarlet shirts of some twilled goods of woollen, generally worked about the breast and collar with worsted figures. They wear no coat over this, and all have round hats something like my beaver of last summer, cov ered with oil skin. The Penobscot is full of floating timber which was cut by these men last winter, and which at this sea- 406 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. son is floated down to be caught in booms, generally in the neighborhood of Old Town. The river is very beautiful, showing some severe rapids which our boat breasted very gallantly. The country between Bangor and Houlton is very wild and unsettled, and our last fifty miles, indeed the whole route from Mattawamkeag until we came to the Meduonekeag, which is about two miles from Houlton, is a perfect wilderness, penetra ted only by the military road made by Government a great flat plain, thickly covered with this northern forest of spruce, fir, white pine, larch and hemlock, birch too, and sugar maple. At Houlton the country becomes almost mountainous. We set out, after a short delay, for Woodstock, and had a fine drive over a pretty country and an excellent road. Then a vile dirty inn at Woodstock where the St. John s is to be seen one of the most beautiful of rivers. The scenery reminds one of the North River above Troy. The banks are high and well tilled, the river a glossy black like a raven s wing the glossy St. John s the poets will call it by and by. BALTIMORE, April 3, 1848. To SIR RICHARD PAKENHAM. MY DEAR PAKENHAM : It was about the i3th of February when I received your letter of the nth and 23d of January. Since that date an almost daily vision has been floating in the air before me of a Windle pen with rosewood handle, " the handle towards my hand," and on the nib and barrel gouts of ink, marshalling me the way I ought to go, that is, to sit down and write to my excellent and well -beloved friend at Coolure, Castle Pollard. But as often as the vision came, that devil Procrastination, whispered, " to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow." So there were two of us playing Macbeth to juggle you out of your rights by putting or! an honest ac knowledgment of your kind and most welcome letter. The truth is, the frequency and the certainty of our intercourse across the Atlantic rather encourages these delays. There is CORRESPONDENCE. 4-07 something irresistible both to a lazy man (which is not my quality) and to a very busy one (which is, just now,) in the ready resource of " the next steamer," by which we can write a fortnight hence as well as to-day ; and now that the steamers sail weekly, I am apt to be as negligent as if you were only in Washington. The entire convenience of the arrangement al most suspends correspondence. For this very reason it is that I have not yet made Winthrop a visit this winter. I hope to do so " some of these days," which means within a year or so, certainly. If you would only go to China or the Antipodes. I would scrupulously write by every mail. How have you kept your breath in the grand whirlwind which has just toppled over Louis Philippe ? so near as you were. At this distance we are overwhelmed with amazement, flung off our balance, electrified, and struck, not dumb, but into a universal babblement and gossip of interjections by this stu pendous " coup d etat" Was there ever any thing so sudden, so decisive, so rapid in the catastrophe ? It is a great, gorgeous, crashing, thundering and volcanic opera, apparently got up after full rehearsal in private, with the programme, scenery and decorations carefully prepared. And then it is so truly French, with such a queer mixture of the sentimental and po etical with the actual. There is a frantic poet as the leader of the orchestra, marking time and directing every wild burst of the chorus as well as the softest modulations of the solos. Then we have associated with him Fourier and St. Lucien to assist in the overture, and the base viol in the hands of the great astronomers. You see that gentlest of sucking doves, the mob of Paris, sacking the Tuilleries ; and for the sake of sentiment and theatrical effect, bearing away the throne, to burn it at the base of the column of July ! ! The first act ends with a general chorus of the whole city in the Marsellaise Hymn, sung in the style of the most passionate bravura. Then comes that wild and picturesque torchlight funeral procession, and the dirge of Le Mort de Roland, the embrace of the peo ple with " The Line," and the surrender of the National Guard 408 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. to the Genius of Liberty. This finale seems to have been a dance of all the characters mustache performing a polka with a grisette ; and a steel-cased cuirassier waltzing in sabre and spurs with a marchande des modes. Is it not the most comical and the most sublime pageant, take it altogether, that the world ever saw ? How they will go on in the next stages of the movement, we shall see. So far, I suppose, we have only had what Lam- artine and his friends have been preparing for some time past, in anticipation of the death of Louis Philippe. All this action of the Provisional Government has, most likely, been " cut and dry" for the occasion. But when they come to the Universal Suffrage of the Qth of April, and the Congress of nine hundred Frenchmen on -the 2oth, I apprehend we shall see some lively scenes. They will be able then, pretty fairly, to compute their fitness for Republican government. At least, we, the spectators shall, if they do not. They have laid out a very visible approach to a new Utopia, in the first demands of tha workingmen, short hours and full pay, wages one hundred per cent, increased. Rents reduced fifty per cent. This, too, to be a government measure ! We, on this side of the Atlantic, have a good deal to learn yet, to follow French progress, republicanism must put on seven-league boots. I doubt if Ireland could improve upon these demands. The other nations of Europe, I suppose, will make up their minds to allow this experiment full scope. There is one prominent feature in this Revolution which has been a good omen. It marches by the light of that of 1792, looking to it warily, as a beacon to warn the people against the dangers of the old movement. There is no guillotine, no incivism, no dicta tion of Jacobin clubs, no foreign conquests, annexations as we call them now, as yet! England, / trust, will keep on good terms with the new. nation, whatever shape it takes, and leave the Frenchmen to make a good government if they can, and which I sincerely hope they may make. You will see by the papers how the enthusiasm of France CORRESPONDENCE. 409 affects us. Congress will deliberate very considerately upon the political questions it may raise, and we shall watch events with many hopes and many fears. Very truly your friend, JOHN P. KENNEDY. MAY 9, 1848. To JAMES J. RYAN, ESQ. DEAR SIR ; I perceive by the published account of the proceedings of the friends of Ireland last night, that I was honored with an appointment as one of the Vice-Presidents of the meeting. As I was not present on the occasion, I take this opportunity to return my grateful acknowledgment for this proof of the consideration of those who constituted the meeting, and to assure them that I freely unite with them in their sympathy in the sufferings of that unhappy land of our fathers, and in their earnest wish to see her lifted up from the sorrow and degradation which the accumulated wrongs of centuries have brought upon her. The cause of Ireland has become familiar to every free and generous heart in America, as one which makes the most touching appeal to the sympathy and support of all who admire genius, patriotism and courage, and of all who can feel for the most complicated and intolerable distresses that ever visited a nation. There can be but one sentiment in the breast of this Union in pouring forth a fervent prayer for the complete and perfect redemption of that gallant people from the bitter ness of their present lot, and their elevation to a rank among nations worthy of their spirit and their genius. With these feelings deeply engraven upon my heart, I re gret that I am obliged to dissent from the resolutions which were adopted by the meeting. To say nothing of the neutral ity of our country, enjoined on every American citizen, by our laws, in respect to the domestic quarrels of other nations, and which I hold to be, though a moral, an absolute and peremp tory prohibition against the adoption of any measure (even in 18 410 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. a meeting of private citizens) tending to foment or prepare for a civil war in Ireland. I differ from those who passed these resolutions, on other grounds not less cogent with me. I believe that Ireland can gain nothing by an appeal to arms. I cannot too strongly deplore what I conceive to be the mis taken policy which, in Ireland and in the United States, has suggested this appeal. From the steady, wise and peaceful assertion of her rights, by which Ireland has been distinguished for many years past, I was in hopes she had come to a full con viction that in that career she was to win her noblest triumphs ; that in the majesty of a united people, firmly and intelli gently asserting their unquestioned rights to a free represen tative government, and to all the guarantees of liberty known to a free people, she was destined to a rare success ; and that in the resort to arms no happier issue was likely to result, than increased exasperation, renewed calamities, and the loss of all the advantages her wise moderation had hitherto gained. I could not but apprehend that in the fact of hostile resistance, her future history would become but a repetition of the dark est pages which belong to her melancholy past. Ireland is already divided on this momentous question; and there is too much reason to fear that there are many in the ranks of her opponents who seek no more welcome occa sion than that which shall bring the difference between them to the arbitrament of arms. These once taken up, and the par ties arrayed against each other in the field, humanity may again have cause to shudder at the disasters of an extermina ting war of races and religions, in which, whatever may be the end, the present generation of Ireland will have to weep over a devastated country seamed with the blood traces of rapine, carnage and destruction. I know there are many who hope for better things, and who- have persuaded themselves to believe that a new and more au spicious condition of society may be established by a quick and successful revolution. I find no grounds for confidence in such an opinion, and my hopes are, as my counsel would CORRESPONDENCE. 41 1 be, that Ireland should stillrely upon the justice of her cause and the power of her intellect to commend it to the consid eration of those who have the control of her destiny. The nineteenth century has witnessed many triumphs of truth and reason over ancient prejudices and hatreds. I trust it is re served yet to witness many more in the eventual consumma tion of free government and the peaceful victories of right over might. To distressed and down-trodden Ireland, suffering under the combined miseries of famine and bad government, I should be glad to see her sons in the United States, and all others of our free citizens, tendering the sympathy of feeling hearts and the dispassionate counsels of steadfast, peaceable and legal resistance of wrong, with clear and manly proclama tion of her rights, adjuring her to avoid the sword as the most ineffectual weapon which Christian Irishmen may use to attain their ends. If we have money to give let it be for bread, not blood. If our advice can reach any heart in Ireland, let it speak Peace ! not War. The resolutions of the recent meeting show me that these sentiments are not in accord with the temper which prevailed on that occasion. It is because I differ in opinion with that meeting in these points, that I thought it my duty to address this letter to you as its presiding officer. The subject is too important to allow me to be content under any misinterpreta tion of my views upon it. What I have said here is the con scientious utterance of my own feelings, and I hope it will be received by the Irish citizens of Baltimore, in the same spirit of good-will and respect in which it is offered. Very truly, yours, etc., JOHN P. KENNEDY. BALTIMORE, Dec. 30, 1848. To MRS. N. C. KENNEDY. Just as I was thinking I would write to you your letter came. A happy New Year to you, my dear mother, and all 412 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. manner of blessings to make your old age comfortable. We are all growing old, but it is pleasant tQ think, comfortably, in that way. Lizzy is fat and hearty, and so is Mart. ; her foot has just got well. Mr. Gray has his usual attacks every few weeks, but weathers them wonderfully. Uncle Jo. mopes and grows older, and will do so to the age of Methusaleh. But the world will wag; and, let it, who cares ? Bones will ache, too, as you know right well ; but bones have a right to their own twinges after a certain age, and will have it. I am glad that, with these drawbacks of yours, you write so merrily. So, again, dear mother, God bless you, and a happy New Year to you, with as many returns as you would like to have ! Con gratulate Virginia for us on the multiplication of her boys, though we think she would have been more considerate of her own comfort and companionship hereafter, if she would direct her attention more distinctly, for a few turns, at leastj to girls instead of boys. Tell her that I hate boys if they come any thing short of paragons. There is but one step from the par agon to the imp, in that herd. If she would oblige me, there fore, she. would deal a little more in the fancy article of daugh ters, which I like best." * * * * Ever, my dear mother, most truly and. affectionately yours, JOHN P. KENNEDY. BALTIMOKE, Nov. 28, 1849. To PHILIP HONE, ESQ. MY DEAR FRIEND : I have yours of the 2ist. As to that matter of the pig, you shall have the flitch in the best possi ble state, although if ought, in the due order of the rite, which was long celebrated with such note at Dunmore, to be more properly the peculium of Mrs. Hone, who as a good wife, I doubt not, has been entitled to it a score of times. I will give direction to our learned surgeon and physician of this Bacon family he who dissects and cures the pigs of our establishment, to pick you out the finest at the right time, which, I suppose, CORRESPONDENCE. 413 will be in February or March, and send it to you as the first offering of the season. I don t know how I can get you a copy of " The Old Bach elor," as such commodities are rather scarce with us in this re gion. I think the best thing I can do is to reprint it, which enterprise I am now meditating, with another volume of Wirt s remains, chiefly of a religious or devotional character. <k The British Spy" must b Q , in New York. The Harpers published an edition of it in 1832, and I have no doubt can tell you how to find it. My second edition is in hand, and will show its face, I hope, by the first of January. I have taken your suggestion in regard to the reflection on the Yankees in the first volume, and have directed the printer to leave it out, although I think you misapprehend the reason that led me to introduce it. You will see that it is prefaced with a declaration of its absurdity and with a censure upon the prejudice which it evinced. I intended rather to show off and rebuke the folly and ignorance of such opinions in the South by the contrast, which I was enabled to furnish of Wirt i: own convictions in regard to New England when he came to know the people there by personal acquaintance ; all of which you will see strongly expressed in the fourteenth chapter of the second volume, where he deals in the most lavish praise of those good people, and expresses a sincere and honest contrition for his former errors in refer ence to them. This, doubtless, you have noted as you perused that volume, and it was to give more point to that latter view of New England, that I introduced the first, hoping that it would furnish a lesson worthy of remembrance and imitation to those ultra Southerners, who are accustomed to malign the North and its institutions. However, I have bowed to your better judg ment, and expunged the worst feature of the letter you have remarked upon. Read the fourteenth chapter of Vol. II., again, and tell me if my impression of its effect is not just. Wirt s associations were, for a long time, so entirely local that he had no horizon beyond Virginia, but when he got a view 414 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. of New England, he fell into raptures which are all the more agreeable for being so thoroughly honest, and which triumph over a thousand early prejudices. Yours, ever and truly, JOHN P. KENNEDY. BALTIMORE, Dec. 29, 1849. To MRS. N. C. KENNEDY. MY DEAR MOTHER : I got your letter of the 26th yester day. It is quite a pleasant Christmas gift to get such good tidings from you at this season, for although you tell me you are tied to the chimney-corner, yet that is about the pleasant- est place one can find in this wintry season, and to bones as venerable as yours, it is no small boon that rheumatism should keep at such a respectful distance. So God bless you, my dear mother, and may he make that chimney-corner a fairy land to you through many a winter yet ! The notes of gayety sent forth from the sports of younger generations, do not echo the less pleasantly at our firesides because they are a little way off; not quite out of hearing. I dare say your fancy made your Christmas as comfortable, if not altogether as merry, as that of the young tribes which were assembled at Faulkner s, as it is quite evident that you were there in spirit, while your body was, I have no doubt, more snug at home. Many more such Christmases to you, and Happy New Years to follow them ! and at the end of all, a contented surrender of worldly gifts, for the infinitely richer delights of heaven. Our three- score-and-ten, or four-score years on earth, form but a small item in the sum of existence, and are to be counted rather as the days of the imprisonment of a spirit capable of a range both of thought and enjoyment immeasurably beyond what is allowed to us here. I think the idea is expressed by both Coleridge and Wordsworth, which has often struck me with a singular force derived from some consciousness of its truth in my own reflections ; or, perhaps, from some instinct of my mind, that our existence here is but a fragment of our total roii i :ra i >( >x DENCE. 41 5 existence, which began before we came here, and which con tinues hereafter ; in fact that our existence here is but an in terval of privation and limited faculty : " Our birth is but a sleep, and a forgetting- ; The soul, that rises with us, our life s star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar." The lines are Wordsworth s. They open a volume of thought, and to me rather pleasant than painful anticipations. This is a great jump, my dear mother, from your Christmas merry-makings. I shall follow it by another, and jump back to a matter of business. BALTIMORE, April 2, 1850. To PHILIP PENDLETON. MY DEAR UNCLE : The life beyond the grave you know I have a strong and perhaps a peculiar belief in it I trust will show all clear, and bring a long and happy indemnity for the brief troubles here. Poor Phil Cooke has gone too, since I wrote you ; another emancipated spirit promoted to a higher sphere and with clearer faculty to see and to enjoy. What a mere stepping-stone is this beautiful world ! If so beautiful the vestibule, what of the Temple ? There are some pleasant con nections with this thought, notwithstanding the gloomy and fearful teachings of education, habit and convention among mankind. We frighten the child with death, and grow to be men in the same habitual terror. My own assurance is strong that no universal decree of nature is evil. Death, the most inevitable of all, is, like every wholesome law of human condi tion, good. I have been exceedingly busy with a multitude of affairs. First, for some ten days, the concerns of the University, and the ceremonies of the Commencement engrossed all my time. I was made Provost when I did not dream of it, and after wards, in full administration of my new office, in presence of 416 LIFE OF JOHN T. KENNEDY. some thousand spectators, amid strains of finest music, and surrounded with all the pageantry of a public show, was dub bed Doctor of Laws still more unexpectedly even, if that could be, than in the matter of the election to the head of the University. All this kept me busy. Then came a matter we have now on hand. The Maryland Historical Society, of which I am Vice-President, is to have a dinner on Saturday, and almost all the arrangements are in my hands, exacting all spare minutes from me. Add to this, a daily supply of letters to write, which I can t escape, and you will understand why I am so tardy with you. ELLICOTT S MILLS, Sept, 29, 1853. To Miss ADELE GRANGER. MY DEAR Miss GRANGER : Some ten days or a fortnight, perhaps, ago, I had just got home from Berkeley, whither I had gone, in great haste, after my return from New York, flying from the general combustion which the sun had taken it into his head to kindle up very suddenly among the vegetables in this region. You know Berkeley has large pools of water where hot people are dipped all the summer, as blacksmiths plunge their hot iron into buckets to give it good temper. I had just got home and was very busy in my study, with some matters in hand which I could not immediately let go, when Mrs. K. came to me with your letter ; and, as she has a trick of doing when she sees the handwriting of a pleasant corres pondent, she opened it and read it to me, and then took her departure, laughing at some of your jokes, and as I say took the letter with her, which, she says, she didn t, and to which I more positively answer, I am sure she did ; and she more positively replies -she is sure she didn t, and tells me to search my pockets, which I do ; and then she tells me to turn out all the scraps of my portfolio, which I also do, and then she says, " look in your trunk," to which I reply, " non sense. I don t put any thing in my trunk at home," and so after going over this dialogue several times, and searching all coEKKsroxi)i-:x( : K. 417 suspected places, she says there is a witch in the matter ; and to that I agree, meaning it is a-Canandaigua witch which has whipt off that letter, and I wouldn t be surprised if it be now "found in your-writing desk at home. The result of it all is, that I can t say I have received yours of the inst, although I hereby acknowledge that it came duly to the hand of Mrs. K. I thank you for it as cordially as if I had it ; and to show my estimation of the favor, I hereby reply to its contents as fully and particularly as if I knew every word and syllable it con tained, which I don t, having only a general recollection that it said many pleasant things in a very pleasant way. As to that recipe for asthma of which you have some tradition import ing that it was given to Mr. Gray, and which you want for Mr. A , there is some mistake in that matter. Mr. Gray says he has nothing special of that kind, and holds asthma to be a companion for better or for worse, to whomsoever it may be wedded, as a thing for life, in no wise to be divorced, put away or even mollified. I do remember that Colonel Per kins wanted, some years ago, to cure him right off of all gout, by a French medicine, which Mr. Gray wouldn t consent to, mainly because he had no gout, in which I justified his pro ceeding as altogether reasonable. And then there came to him once, a prescription, in a severe attack of asthma, which he took, and thought it did some good for a dose or two, but was utterly inadmissible as a familiar acquaintance, being a rank poison. This had a queer name which I forgot, something like hish hash, or hash bash. I know it was a hash of some kind ; but in its translation from the Pagan language which had the hash in it, it was rendered Indian hemp, which all the doctors know is as fatal as American or Russian hemp is often found to be here and elsewhere, when administered by a sheriff under the direction of a doctor of laws. Now, besides this hish hash, I have nothing to send you as a cure for Mr. A , and this I am sure Mrs. A couldn t think such a great cure after all, though, perhaps, there are wives, if common gossip is to be believed, who would regard it as a 1 8* . 4:18 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. most efficacious remedy for many complaints against not belonging to their husbands. I have just written to our good friend, Mr. Grieg, sending him by the same mail, my lecture on Thorn, which you helped to render so effective in the Methodist Church, in Baltimore, by undertaking to lead off the crying in the pathetic parts It will help the success of it with him if you will sit by him with your pocket handkerchief and go through the exercise of wiping your eyes now and then as you look over his shoul der. You got that likeness I sent you. Don t you think the artist had two prominent ideas in view, both tending to signify that the portrait was official in its character and belonged to the cabinet ? First, in the general official austerity and evi dently set-up statesmanship of the thing ; and second, in the ingenious device in giving me exactly the same proportions of body, tournure and exterior aspect, which are invariably given in all the portraits of Mr. Fillmore ? Don t you see that it is a solemn head on Fillmore s shoulders? plainly signifying that it is a part or constituent of the Fillmore administration. That struck me as a highly artistical conceit, a mixture of history and allegory which ordinary workmen in the illustrious line generally overlook. They say that General Cass had a conception of this kind of excellence when he got the plate of a distinguished statesman in England, and had the head taken off it, and set his own in its place, so as to produce a Cass-Peel, or a Cass-Palmerston effect, which he greatly admired. To tell you the truth, I don t think so much of this affair of mine, but I am tired of being idealized, and realized both, and horribly caricatured also, in three several attempts to make something of me; that I think I shall, once for all, get a good, respectable, rather well-looking portrait, made according to some tasteful fancy, taking care to have it about fifty, well dressed, with a good head of hair, a de cent mouth (which I have not), a contemplative eye, and a somewhat engaging figure, and henceforth, give out that as the true image of what I was some years ago, implying that CORRESPONDENCE. 419 it comes from an admirable painting by Inman or somebody else, taken before I had an attack of typhoid fever, which greatly impaired my appearance, etc., etc. For as to the likeness, who cares about that ? especially in a wood cut for Barnum s News or even a steel engraving in a political or literary gallery of Jonathan, purporting to be distinguished men, meaning men who pay speculating Yankee book-makers one hundred dollars to get themselves into these congrega tions of the elect, as I found, to my surprise and horror, on one occasion I was expected to do, and on which one occasion, as the thing was too far advanced to recall it, I did give the man two hundred dollars not to publish the likeness, but break up his plate, which money he took, and nevertheless did publish it, saying the book was already out, and could not be that part of it suppressed. This was the " Whig Re view," some two or three years ago, in which there came forth a horrible, great, hard-favored, wooden, sullen, Presbyterian- preacher-like portrait with my name at the bottom of it. I think your father underwent something of the same process. If he did not, he was lucky. Mrs. Kennedy and I have talked over a dozen times the project of a circuit this fall to Boston, where we had some thought of going, by the way of Canandaigua. How much we should relish it, and what delight we should have in pleas ant autumnal weather in rambling along your beautiful lake with its rural surroundings, and laughing with you in your pleasant Canandaigua coteries. We spent a week at Nether- wood with Mrs. Rowland and her family and the Merediths, and had a most happy time there. What bird of the riverside is that little darling Loo. Brown, and what a chirping set we all were while together with them ! Meredith dressed like -a boy with a conceited straw hat, low in the crown, with broad, black ribbon, and a jaunty, short sack, and that light step, with an affectation of the swagger of a sailor lad just come home from sea ! Mrs. M., in a sort of grand-motherly fidget all the time, as if she thought the height of worldly bliss was to keep 420 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. moving. Three happier people than she, her husband and Emma, inhabiting there, I believe, could not be found in the wide world. It is the highest realization to them of the highest condition of life to be in such comfortable affinities of position and relation as they are there at Nethervvood, with that gay and lovely family administering to them ; and, indeed, I don t know any condition of life better adapted to promote such content. Meredith was delightful in so many easy cares and indolent occupations, with such a world of business which gave him so little trouble, and Mrs. M. never tired in her thousand assiduities to make our visit pleasant Emma vibrated between a gale and a zephyr of good spirits all the time, and talked very confidently of your coming there at an early day, and drew all manner of pictures in her imagi nation of the merry entertainment you were giving just at that time, to W , who, I told her, was then making his venturous visit to Canandaigua. Of Mrs. Rowland we all thought we had never seen a woman more appropriate to the place she filled a very perfection of a kind, considerate, hospitable lady, presiding so cheerfully and so gracefully over such an orderly and joyous household. We spent a day with Mrs. Lewis Livingston, dined there and returned to Netherwood. I could write a chapter upon her and her house to tell you what attractions both had for us. After our visit to Nether- wood, we went to New York and spent a week there, taking a day out of it to go up to Sunnyside and dine with Wash ington Irving, and then turned homeward about a week too soon for the hot weather, which, as I said, drove me to Berkeley. I have seen W , since my return, and have his report. He does not expatiate merely, but flashes his eye very sig nificantly in speaking of his journey, and telling me how pleasantly he passed his time in your village. Considering what -a hot summer we have had, I think we have got along marvellously well in it ; and Canandaigua has certainly helped it along very notably, to all who have had the good fortune to travel that way. CORRKS L ONDKXCE. 421 I saw Pent the other day in Virginia. He is daily expecting the Blackwater Chronicle by the Clerk of Ovenford, which I perceive is advertised in Putnam s September number as nearly ready. He says he will send me a copy. -I must end this long scribbling, which I fear you will think had no need to run into a second sheet, and assure you, my dear Miss Granger, how kindly I remember the good cheer and pleasant reception I found at your home. Mrs. K and I, with the rest of our family, unite in re membrance and regard to your father and yourself. Very truly yours, JOHN P. KENNEDY. BALTIMORE, March 24, 1857. To REV. H. H. MILMAN, Dean of Westminster. MY DEAR DEAN: The arrival of the ducks of which your letter of the 2Qth of December informs me "in admira ble order," is a pleasant demonstration of a fact which I hope will be turned to good account hereafter ; that our countries are not so wide apart as to deny the interchange of good cheer. That is a valuable geographical problem. I earnestly pray that an invariable interchange of the kind feelings expressed in your letter, may ever be as practicable and as grateful to both sides as this fortunate flight of birds. Just now, the omen is unquestionably favorable. I have good hopes of our new administration. You know I was not the political friend of the successful candidate. I may, therefore, claim to be im partial in what I say to him. Mr. Buchanan is fortunate in the antagonisms of his elec tion, and actually derives strength from what appeared to be his weakness. He was elected by a minority of half a mil lion in the estimate of the whole vote, and came in on a plu rality. Either Mr. Fillmore or Fremont would have beaten him in a single fight. The ultras of the South, although they voted for him, have no love for him, n.or confidence in his adminis tration. They took him as *pis alter, and he knows it. The LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. ultras of the North are still more fiercely opposed to him. Taking off what ostensible support he got from both of these parties, and his actual minority at the polls is still more re duced among the people. Between these extremes stand the great mass of solid, national men, who mean to sustain the Union in all contingencies, and against all factions. This body is far the strongest in the country, from its intelligence and patriotism, and its entire independence of official patron age. Its largest component is the old Whig party, once repre sented by Webster in the North, and Clay in the South. The best elements of the Democratic party, now disorganized and defeated, are gradually becoming absorbed in it, and it is therefore very visibly forming a new, compact, and prepon derating power of conservative temper and liberal views, which will overmaster both extremes. Mr. Buchanan is obliged to conduct his administration in harmony with the aims of this party. He has no other support, and this is all sufficient for him. I have it from himself that he desires and intends to make his administration, national, peaceful and conservative. His Cabinet, as far as the material at his choice allowed it, is constructed with reference to this purpose. Mr. Cass, not withstanding his reputation for belligerency, I understand is entirely pacific, and that is the temper of the rest. Lord Na pier s reception, not only in the country, but at Washington, is most cordial; and we are all congratulating ourselves upon the end of strife. Kansas, which never could be any thing else, is now unmistakably arranging itself to be a free State. The Missouri Compromise, of which you have heard so much, is neither practically nor theoretically any longer a thing either for good or evil. All the territory which it was designed to establish as free, is already irrevocably destined to freedom ; so that there is no practical end which it professes to secure, that is not now secured. Oddly enough, the Supreme Court, just at tlrs mo ment, when the Compromise had become spent, has declared it unconstitutional from the beginning, so that it is also theo retically dead. It lived long enough to serve all the purposes 423 of the North, and has been pronounced a dead-letter only at the moment when it became a dead thing. The Northern politicians who found profit in debating the enormity of its repeal by the Act of 1854, and used that repeal as a stalking horse to ride into office, are exceedingly indig nant at the decision of the court, only because it dismounts them from their hobby. I am myself surprised at the decis ion, as I thought the constitutionality of the Compromise above all question ; but I cannot but rejoice in the definitive settlement by so eminent a tribunal, of a question which has been so mischievously used by agitators and demagogues. We shall have some abortive efforts to get up a storm on the decis ion, and may have a year or two of turmoil in the discontented quarters, but no harm will ensue. When I came home, it was not without hope that Mr. Fill- more would succeed to the Presidency. My view was that an election by the people could scarcely be expected. I knew that Mr. Buchanan would carry the Southern Democratic States, that Fremont would take the greater number of free States, and Mr. Fillmore, I supposed, would get the Whig States South, and some of those in the North. In the event it turned out that he was sacrificed by his friends in both. The Whigs of the South were told that every vote which jeoparded Buchanan would strengthen Fremont. In the North they were told the converse of this, that every vote to the prejudice of Fremont would as sist Buchanan ; and so between these opposite appeals, the thousands who preferred Fill more to either, were driven into the anomalous category of voting against him. My own State here Maryland stood firm and gave him the largest majori ty it ever gave to a Presidential candidate. The result of the whole canvass was a very singular one. Mr. Fillmore had undoubtedly, and has now, more solid popularity than either of his opponents, and yet took but a single State. If Kentucky and Tennessee two of our stanchest Whig States had stood their ground as Maryland did, to say nothing of other Whig States equally relied on, the election would have gone to the LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. House of Representatives, where it would, after some three or four days balloting, have been decided in Mr. Fillmore s favor, and the country, with the exception of some exasperated sections, would have been eminently satisfied. Such is the fate of our popular movements. Mr. Fillmore, in truth, elected Buchanan, and we find SOIIIQ motive of consolation in that fact through its influence in shaping the course of his administration. My dear Dean, you must set down this long dissertation upon a subject which, I fear, has no great claims upon your pa tience, to the suggestion of your letter of some little interest in the contest which brought me away from pleasant England only to take my share in a disaster which many of us here la ment as a national misfortune. I wish to persuade you that I bear it well, and am hopeful of the future. To turn to another subject referred to in your letter, my promise to send you something by which you may judge of the license of our elections. I wrote, in 1840, during a most ex traordinary canvass, which brought General Harrison to the Presidency, a playful satire upon the political events of that time. It is a history of the growth of the Democratic party, and their terrible defeat on that occasion. The volume is called " The Annals of Quodlibet." I have a copy put up for you, which I shall send either by a private hand, or, perhaps, through the dispatch mail of the State Department to Mr. Dallas, to be delivered to you. You may expect it very soon after you receive this. I beg to say to you that it was warmly commended by my old friend Mr. John Quincy Adams, for the accuracy of its political pictures, and that he often advised me to continue the Annals. On its literary merit I must bespeak your indulgence as for a trifle almost too light to be criticised. If it afford you a laugh or two, that is as much as it is worth. As I am sure you will require some little preliminary in doctrination in the political questions to which it refers, I thought I could not aid you better in that than by sending with it a speech I made in the House of Representatives a short time before this publication, on most of the topics embraced in CORRESPONDENCE. 425 it. So that I lay before you the graver and the lighter history to assist in teaching,- what I fear, after all, may be hardly worth the pains of learning. Mrs. Kennedy and Miss Gray send kindest remembrances to Mrs. Milman and your family, and with equal regard, I am, my dear Dean, Very truly yours, JOHN P. KENNEDY. BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, March 28, 1857. To THE RT. REV. LORD BISHOP OF OXFORD. MY DEAR LORD BISHOP : After a delay much longer than I had looked for, I have been enabled to collect a few docu ments, which, I hope, will be found to be an acceptable addi tion to the testimony which you have already procured through the Committee of the House of Lords, on the subject of public and private executions. I find upon examination here, a full confirmation of the statements I made before the committee ; although when I was in London I was necessarily obliged to speak upon mere gen eral impressions and without opportunity to assure myself .of that accuracy which would give weight to what I said. The reporter made sad work with two or three points in my exam ination, which, I am sure, you must have perceived, and which I must pray you to overlook, as his blunders and not mine. But as these did not refer to the material facts you were in pur suit of, they are no further worth notice than as one of the an noyances which every man who is " taken down" must occasion ally encounter, and to which, men much before the public must, for their own comfort, gradually grow callous. You will find ex amples of this reporting in the answers set down for me to the questions numbered 443, 444, 450, 456 and 460, in regard to which, without troubling you even with an explanation of their errors, I must throw myself on your kindness and ask you to consider them as careless representations of what I said. I do not know that any State in our Union has actually abolished 426 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. Capital punishment, but from the favor shown to the propo sal to do so in one or two States, I thought it quite probable that the experiment had been made. This is the only asser tion in the report of my evidence I desire to correct, the oth er points are of less concern. I have been engaged during the winter, in an effort to pro cure for you some of the best opinions within my reach, upon the value of the later practice in this country of private execu tion ; and, with that view, I have had a correspondence with the governors of New York and Pennsylvania. These States are both distinguished for the excellence of their penal system and for their careful attention to its operation and the oppor-- tunity of improving it. Their experience, therefore, is entitled to the highest consideration. They led the way in this change, or, at least, were among the first of the States to adopt it ; and their example has been followed so far, that, at this time the spectacle of a public execution is no longer to be seen in one half perhaps more of the States of the Union. Gov ernor King, of New York, and Governor Pollock, of Pennsylva nia, have both kindly supplied me with the reports submitted to their respective Legislatures when the new system was in contemplation ; and at my request, have expressed in their letters to me, their opinions of the effects of the change. These documents you will find with this letter. The reports, in both cases, are drawn up with a careful study of the subject, and embody much information which I hope will be found useful to your purpose ; and the letters give an unqualified approval to the practical operation of the existing laws. Since my return to America, I have conversed with many intelligent friends, in different States, on the subject, and have not found a dissent ing opinion from that expressed in the two letters I have placed in your hands. It is only last year, 1856, when Virginia adopt ed the system, and as she is somewhat noted for moving slowly on the road of innovation, you may take that as a sign of the strength of the current that glides towards the general reform. Here, in Maryland, the custom of private execution COERESPONDENCE. 427 has, it seems, as I conjectured, been practised without Legis lative direction. The sheriffs, assuming a discretion over the subject, have chosen to conduct their executions in conformity with the opinion that prevails in favor of privacy, and have therefore, for several years past, confined them to the yard of the jail. They are so well sustained by the popular judgment of this community that no question has been raised to disturb their proceeding. I do not doubt that our Legislature, when ever the subject is brought to its notice, will sanction it by express enactment. With the packet I send you, I enclose an abstract or sy nopsis of the laws of Pennsylvania and New York directing these executions. These will show you the form of proceeding and the nature of the return The laws of several other States, which I have examined, are of the same chacacter, and very similar in their provisions. You will also find an account of an execution which took place recently in the interior of Mis sissippi on a scrap I have cut from a newspaper. The narra tive will show you a remarkable case of a culprit actually electioneering by a stump speech, delivered from the gallows, addressed to the multitude in the way of an appeal to stay execution. This is a new phase of the egotism and self-glorification of which, I think, all public executions, in greater or less degree furnish an exhibition, and suggest an additional argument against the practice. As I perceive Governor Pollock s secretary enumerates Mississippi as one of the States which have adopted the change, this case, if he be not in error, must have occurred in some county where the jail and its appurtenances (no unusual thing in the South) were too small to allow the execution in pri vate. I have now given you, my dear Lord Bishop, all that I have been able to supply towards you purpose in the investigation ; hoping that you will find in these papers a corroboration of your own views upon the subject, and be able to turn them to useful 428 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. account; and I heartily join you in the wish that Parliament may speedily put an end to a practice which, I am persuaded, has the most unhappy effect upon the character of great num bers of the population of the country, and especially upon the young. Both for the salutary terror of the law, and the pres ervation of the minds of the people from the defilements of coarse stimulants, I cannot doubt the good policy of removing these exhibitions from public view. With the highest respect and regard, I am, my dear Lord Bishop, Very truly yours, JOHN P. KENNEDY. PATAPSCO, our Summer home, ) ELLICOTT S MILLS, Md., our P. 0., Thursday, Sept. 27, 1859. ) To MRS. HENRY DUNCAN. MY DEAR MRS. DUNCAN : Your welcome letter of the 1 7th, from Newport, laden with the kmd regard of a friend ship which I hold to be one of the best fruits of two voyages across the Atlantic, came into my library through the window, a few mornings ago, like a bird. It seemed to have chosen the first sunshine after that long and dreary equinoctial gale, and so to have timed its visit as most appropriate to the pleasant tidings it was commissioned to bring us. It is only a few weeks since I returned from the White Sulphur and other Springs of Central Virginia with Mrs. K. and her sister, and, still later since I got home from a supplemental visit to Berke ley, whither I had gone to spend a short period with some of my own relatives. I can hardly yet say that I have got com pletely back to the habitual life of home, which is to me al ways an agreeable alternative of work and amusement, adjusted to the most healthful equilibrium both of body and mind. You have left Newport by this time and are to be in New York until the tenth of October. After that you go south. Now this arrangement admits a visit, en passant, here. We have all agreed that it would be impossible for you to do a CORK KSPONI )ENCE. 429 greater amount of good, or procure yourself a more happy con science, than by this exercise of your charity. So, we plan it for you, entreat it, and, in fact, peremptorily determine it that in your flight towards the tropic, you and Mr. Duncan are to give us as much time as you can cut off from other people, and to come directly to us. You will find us pleasantly entrenched in our cottage close down on the banks of the Patapsco, in one of the most romantic and beautiful nooks in the world. You shall have all manner of rural felicities, among which I enumerate the war of waters and spindles, rich cream, ham and chicken, much talk, plenty of books, pen and ink, back gammon, etc. The railroad is only distant by the span of our bridge ; our country store is within a hundred and fifty yards, where you will find a most choice assortment of fashionable tinware, nests of buckets and all kinds of calicoes, straw bon nets, coffee and cheese. The turnpike road gives a delightful publicity to this magazine of fashion, and affords an opportu nity twice a day to observe that striking wonder of civilization, the omnibus, surcharged, inside and out, with the elite of our village. My library, which I shall put entirely at your dispo sal, is full of miracles of art in a choice collection of photo graphs, stereoscopes, portraits and inkstands. It has two win dows, each opening on a balcony, one of which looks towards the mill-dam through pendant willows, glorious to behold, the other, at the bridge, which is the most romantic and pic turesque of pontificals. Our cottage you must come and see it for yourself. I wont attempt to describe its extraordinary labyrinths and perplexities, which the oldest of our" visitors have never been able to unravel. There are things in this world which one must see, they cannot be taken upon trust. Now, if you are the true woman which I know you to be, these hints will whet your curiosity to that point, at which indifference is not to be expected of human nature, and sedate resistance ceases to be a virtue. So, my dear Mrs. Duncan, give way to your impulses and come. Tell Duncan I can t shoot, but I can tell him where the partridges are, and can lend him 430 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. a revolver or a rifle, and a capital young terrier famous for barking and snapping at the heels. If he is not up to the per fection of field sports on this scale, perhaps a game of whist may be found a sufficient substitute. We remain in the country this year longer than usual as we wait for the finishing of a house in town, which is now building for us, to be ready by the first of November. After you have made us this visit we shall go to New York, under the pretence of buying some furniture, and there while away the time until the house seems habitable. In pursuance of the suggestions of that nomad character which the ladies have insensibly contracted in the last three years, we propose in February to go to Cuba, to return by New Orleans, and to make a voyage up the river to St. Louis. After that the world will be before us and Providence our guide, most probably once more upon the waters to merry England and the mountains of the Tyrol, all which projects will form a theme for our discourse with you when you come, as, of course, you will do. Touching that letter of mine from the Isle of "Wight last year, and that pleasanter one from you, to which you allude, the two stood in this strange category, in that each was an answer to the other. I wrote mine to you a few days before yours came to hand ; but yours being older in date for it had been delayed a month in Liverpool left me nothing to add except the acknowledgment of its receipt, which I charged Winthrop in a later letter to him, to communicate to you. I suppose you had left Nahant before he could do so, and as we returned home soon after that, I was obliged to dismiss all pleasanter correspondence for the matter of business which has grown up in the long period of my absence. Ever since my return I have been busy as far as my health and occasional journeying would allow, in the endeavor to complete some literary tasks which have dragged slowly along amidst many interruptions. I still have the project before me, as my em ployment during the approaching winter, to write some sketch- CORRESPONDENT K. es of European life not exactly in the shape of travels, but more in the nature of dissertations upon men and countries abroad. Perhaps I may succeed in getting these into a read able volume which I may commend to your friendly notice. Those Springs ! You ask me how I like them. Well, I will tell you in confidence, Not at all. The discomfort of getting there, the worse discomfort when we accomplish this, the scant and mean provisions, the extortion, the untidi ness, the swell and swagger, the eternal, pervading, persistent, exclusive talk about negrodom and its nonsense ; the flash dressing of the women : the " grand, gloomy and peculiar" of the " big men ;" th e everlasting intervention and non-inter vention little giants and gigantic dwarfs, slave-trade, Cuba and Knights of the Golden Circle, etc., etc., so wearied, si lenced and disgusted me, that I never wish to go again into a concourse of men or women either, for the women, in the few intervals of release from the labors of the toilet, were too often sounding these discords, " like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh," where such topics form the theme of common conversation. Have we no Brutus to give us back our freedom ? Is social life in our country to be always the theatre of angry passion and melancholy raving? Are the amenities, the charities, the pleasant fight-hear tedness and cheerful, innocent frivolities of good society never to reign again over our good people and among our pleasant scenes of nature where all might find so much enjoyment ? But I am sick of what goes by the name of politics, as I am sure you are, and will not allow myself to grow grave in thinking of them. I prefer other studies, and more genial friends, and, for a while at least, to look at other lands. The ladies of my household are remarkably well in health, healthy I may say both in body and spirit ; doing all the good that falls in their way, and sometimes even going out of it on errands of benefaction ; and as I am a believer in the treas ury of good works, I take heart in the thought that, being of the fellowship, I may come in for a small share of the reward 432 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. hereafter, as I certainly do for much of the content of the present. My fever in Rome, like some other of the works of the Eternal City, has shown its consequences in new forms of malady here. Last winter, for the first time, I was assailed by a series of pretty sharp attacks of rheumatism, which have dis abled me for active exercise. My journey to the Springs is followed by an improvement, which I hope will finally over come the Roman taint. I have grown robust, though not as strong as I was, and have indulged the caprice of cultivating a beard, wh ; ch, I fear, will come under your censure for its ferocity. It is not patriarchal, nor of the chivalric cast, but rather leonine, or, perhaps I might say more correctly, of the grizzly bear quality, which quite endangers my iden tity. You will laugh when you see it, as many old friends do, and perhaps extenuate its faults when I tell you how much it adds to my comfort. I can trust you that you will set down naught in malice. This matter of face involves a philosophy in which the world has a clear right to its opin ion ; as faces are manifestly to be ordered for others as much as for ourselves. I have written you a long letter, to repair my omission of last year, and to show you how honestly I appreciate your remembrances of me. Give me a line in return, to say that you will be with us on or about the nth of October, and I will then arrange for you the mode of reaching us from Baltimore. The ladies join me in kind regards to your self and Mr. Duncan. Very truly, your friend, JOHN P. KENNEDY. BALTIMORE, Jan. 12, 1860. To G. S. BRYAN, ESQ. : How I should refresh my soul, Bryan, in a talk of six consecutive winter nights with you here in my library, which, both mechanically and spiritually is one of the most comfort- CORRESPONDENCE. 433 able, snug and suggestive apartments enclosed within four walls, in any part of this distracted and threatened Union. If you were but here, that we might make each other hopeful that the madness of the country had passed the flood-tide, and was beginning the ebb towards sanity and sober estimate of duty. Your mention of the excellent persons you have seen, who spoke kindly of us after the summer was gone, revives some cherished memories of Charleston and its connections. Even the White Sulphur, with its inconceivable deficiencies as a place of such universal fame, becomes a pleasant retrospect in its association with the Izards, the Pringles, good Mrs. Grayson, and that most intelligent of women, Mrs. Holbrook, whom you do not name, and Miss Rutledge, her niece. South Carolina is always paramount .in the congregation of the elect, and most to be admired in the true nobleness of its aristocracy. The gentleness and refinement of high breed ing, attract such instant regard, when brought into contrast with the vulgar ostentation which seeks to supplant it, and which is everywhere so obtrusive and ambitious an element of what claims to be our upper society, that I more than ever regret the sectional spirit which keeps the real gentry of our country, North and South, so distinctly apart, and prevents such missionaries as your old families can supply, from uniting with their kindred classes " across the line," to inspire- a national esteem for the elegancies of character, love of what is good, scorn for what is base, purity of taste, and contempt of all make-believe. Let such teachers take the field in cordial co-operation, and I am convinced they will clo more to nationalize the country, and vanquish the vulgar ism which is at the bottom of the whole crop of false phi losophies, efforts at notoriety and mischievous popularities, than any other power in our social organization. You were up at Columbia, and only heard of my delight ful and beautiful friend Mrs. - . I wish you had seen her. She would have left a memory upon your eye and heart that would have driven your appreciative fancy into 19 434: LIFE OF JOTIN P. KENNEDY. stark poetry ; a genuine beauty, with a keen wit, and a most lofty sense of the nobleness of her sex. I owe her a letter, which I mean to acquit myself of as soon as I get through this, when I shall tell her what she missed in getting away before your visit. That gold-headed cane came somewhat mysterious ly by express in advance of your letter ; and but for the famil iar handwriting of the address, would have seriously disturb ed the sleep of the ladies of my household, among whom was Mrs. Stanard, of Richmond, I believe an acquaintance of yours, or, at least ought to be, speaking in reference to your proclivity towards fine women. The neatness of the box, and the deliberation with which I opened it, added to the eager ness of their suspense. I thought it a Malacca, not dreaming that the Palmetto could turn out such a staff. A thousand thanks, my dear Bryan, for this welcome remembrance." VISIT TO CUBA. 435 CHAPTER XIX. Visit to Cuba ma. New Orleans. TTT was the intention of Mr. Kennedy to embark for Europe in, - the autumn of 1865, but business engagements and ill-health led to a postponement of the design ; and he finally decided to substitute for this trip, a visit to Cuba, by the way of New Or leans. By invitation of the President of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, in which enterprise he had proved an efficient coadjutor, he, with his wife and her sister, accepted a free ticket to Bellair ; being furnished with notes of introduction, to the officers along the line and attached to connecting roads, their wants were anticipated, their comfort promoted, and they were furnished with good rooms where they stopped. After seeing their relations at Martinsburg, they proceeded to Cincinnati and St. Louis. Mr. Kennedy describes their voy age down the Mississippi, the scenery, fellow-passengers, and especially the difficult navigation and a collision on the river, with its consequences ; he draws graphic portraits of a " gentle man in liquor," and a " nigger-hater ;" describes the effects of the siege on the aspect of Vicksburg, and dilates on the prev alent state of political feeling in the Southwest. At New Orleans he encountered several old friends and was most hos pitably entertained. " On the Mississippi, in the Ida Handy, Dec. 12, 1865," he writes : " In a casual conversation with our fellow-passenger to-day, I was given another insight into this feeling of hatred for the negro, who is set free by the war. This man was going, he told me, to Arkansas. He had been a captain in the Rebel army, and had lost nearly all his men" (he told me this with 436 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. evident aim to impress me with the desperate and daring char acter of his command : I think he said he had but ten left out of forty-three) ; " that after the war he thought he would settle in Iowa, and tried it, but he could not stand being pointed at and called a damned rebel ; it stood to reason, no brave man could endure it ;" so he determined to go to Arkansas. " There," said he, " we can fix the niggers. I tell you how it is done : Hire em by the year, you to find them, and charge them with every thing, and deduct the amount of their wages at the end of the year. This brings them in debt to you, and then, you know, they can t leave you ; got to stay no steam boat will take em, and nobody can give them any thing to go off with. We ll have an understanding in the neighbor hood, so that they can t get away, so long as they are in debt. Don t you see," said he to me, as if he thought I would be de lighted to hear such an excellent device, "how that will fix the nigger, and make them better for us than they were before ?" I suggested as a necessary addition to this ingenious plan of " fixing" them, that, if the State would help it along by pass ing a law that no negro should have a right to bring a suit in any court, or give testimony in any case, that would clinch the plan and make it certain. " Yes, sir," said he : " that s what we mean to do, and then we ve got em." I have reason to fear that this man was disclosing to me a scheme and a pur pose which was conceived by men of more power and influ ence than himself. New Orleans, Dec. 31, 1865. One day this week Dr. invited me to dine with him at Victor s, a noted res taurant here. He promised that I should meet Beauregard, who, however, did not come. I believe he was out of town ; but we had an intelligent gentleman, Mr. and his son-in- law, Mr. , a colonel in the late rebel army. Mr, is an old Whig, and an admirer of Mr. Clay, and we soon found our disagreements, touching the rebellion, merged in our po litical affinities. is the son of an old acquaintance of mine, originally from Maryland, and for some time Senator VISIT TO CUBA. 437 from Louisiana. I find these gentlemen moderate in tone, good-humored and well disposed to make the best of their overthrow. Indeed, I believe that everywhere, the old Whigs are sincerely disposed to sustain the Union. They have really had no desire for disunion, and in the great majority of cases, they have been seduced or driven into the war by false repre sentations or by force of circumstances they could not resist. Several I have met, have protested to me that they were al ways opposed to the secession movement, and were rejoiced at the restoration of the States to their present political status, and hoped to see the Union made stronger than ever. The Democrats are not as weil advanced in loyalty as this. They cannot conceal their sense of defeat. They are generally silent, often angry and defiant when in a position to speak their minds. Of course, there are notable exceptions to this temper, and especially among the men who have been in the actual, conflicts of the war. The women of this party betray, or, rather openly and somewhat exultantly announce, the sen timent which it is manifest is most indulged by the discon tented rebels at home. They mutter their hatred of the Yan kees on the streets, in the theatre, and in the public saloon of the hotel, with but little caution against being overheard. New Orleans, Dec. 31, 1865. * * * , formerly of Elk Ridge, in Maryland, called with his wife so see us. I found him well informed on the condition of the freed negroes, and well inclined to aid the Government in the effort to im prove their condition. He told me that these poor creatures were often treated by the planters with great injustice ; and he confirmed the impression I had derived from my fellow-pas senger on the Ida Handy, of the settled purpose of many to oppress them. He said that he knew of cases on the river, in which planters engaged negroes even as high as thirty dol lars a month, with the condition to pay at the end of a year, and, in the mean time, to furnish them food and clothing, and deduct the amount at which these are valued, out of the sum due at the expiration of the year. When the time of settle- 400 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. ment came, the laborers found themselves brought into debt, instead of having wages" to receive. This, he said, was brought about by charging every thing at exorbitant rates ; as, for in stance : pork at 40 cents a pound ; and whiskey (which was sup plied bountifully) at $2.50 a bottle, whiskey which did not cost $1.00 a gallon! He said he was ashamed to recount such facts, but they were too significant of the cause of the disorganized labor of the country, to be concealed." Ey way of finale to these sketches of a characteristic ex perience in this region of the country, still rent and ravaged by the late civil war, after describing his arrangements for the voyage to Cuba, and their departure, he thus vividly portrays A Week on the Bar. On board the Morning Star at the mouth of the Missis sippi, Jan. 9, 1866. While we were sitting at breakfast on the morning of the third, I felt a sense of gradually retarded mo tion in the keel, which brought the exclamation to my lips : " We are aground in the mud !" It was a curious conscious ness of a great body sliding with its natural momentum into a yielding bank that gave no sudden resistance, no shock, or unpleasant disturbance, but which, in a few seconds brought the invading force to a state of rest. We all felt it, and it re quired no announcement to assure us that we were fast upon the " Bar." Upon going on deck, we perceived a large ship some fifty or a hundred yards behind us, fast as ourselves. It seems that she had come to a halt in the narrowest part of the channel, and in our attempt to pass her, we had deflected from our proper course, and were caught on the bank, about half-way between this vessel and a conspicuous buoy set up to mark the spot where George Hollins, of the Confederate Navy, had ingloriously sunk his iron-clad ram, after being whipped by a little squadron under the command of Craven, in an early stage of the Rebellion. I think Hollins s vessel was called, probably as a nickname, the Mud Turtle. Every one will remember his gasconading account of this exploit, pub lished in the New Orleans papers before our capture of that VISIT TO CUBA- 439 city, and the ridiculous comment upon it, which the sinking of his ship, and his own flight soon afterward supplied. It was between these two the sunken Mud Turde and our stranded neighbor that we were forced into an unwelcome cradle. It was a beautiful day, a little cold, cold enough for a good fire in the saloon, and for a great-coat on the deck, but pleas ant and bright. Soon a norther set in, altogether unmistak able. The wind was fresh from the north, and the weather- wise on board, all said it was undoubtedly good for three days. Then again, the captain and pilot assured us that this wind blew the water off the bar, and we had no hope of extrication as long as it lasted ; so we resigned ourselves cheerfully to our fate, and made the best of it. With this temper, our little community became quite happy. The scenery had something attractive for my eye. The great river upon which we had al ready travelled fourteen hundred miles, was here poured into the ocean over a broad but well-defined channel, which separ- rated into three divisions or forks, was marked by long and narrow strips of low, sedgy, marshy land, projecting far into the sea. Ours was the main pass, and we could see its full extent. The Southern Pass was barely definable to our eyes by the low streak of land lying far off in the direction of Tex as. The Pass 1 Outre lay north of us, more distinct, but still too far off to be described in any other way than that of a spit of land visible on the northern horizon. Immediately around us, and on our right and left, the sunken shores were broken into small sand banks and islets, some of them bare, others covered with long grass or cane (I suppose), and most of them marked by the driftwood that projected out of the mud, near the water-line. Everywhere along this line of slimy coast, we saw troops of pelicans, herons, gulls, ducks, and other fowl of the sea. I imagine this to be a pretty accurate representation of the site of Venice, before the fishermen had conceived the idea of laying the foundation of a city at the mouth of the Po. It was one of the amusing fancies of our sojourn here, to pro ject the New Venice, which some centuries hence may be rearing its palaces on this watery base. 440 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. There is just before us, a bark, a steamer that some weeks ago struck on Hollins s Mud Turtle and sunk in a few minutes, luckily, just before she got over the bar; and she now lies fast in the mud sunk to her bends and leaving her deck dry, on which we now find a number of persons, busy, I suppose, in getting away her cargo and equipments. This wreck we propose as the nucleus or central point of our future city. It is a little tantalizing to us to know that our present resting place is not more than two lengths of our ship from the outer edge of the bar. We have some very clever officers to our ship. The cap tain Captain Quick is a modest, sensible and polite gen tleman, who attracts universal esteem both for his professional and personal excellence. Rich, the first mate, is a New Eng land man of rare quality, well educated and self-reliant, and greatly respected. Selden, our purser, is a good fellow, very obliging, and Thornton, the steward, worthy of all trust. The stewardess is a trump. It is a singular fact that when E. and I crossed the Atlantic in 1857, with Comstock, in the Baltic, Mary, the stewardess, attracted our particular notice by her activity and kindness ; and that she is now in the same posi tion, with the same charge, in The Morning Star. It is also curious that just after Lady Franklin left us in Baltimore, where she spent a week in our house, to go on her voyage to California round Cape Horn, she had Mary with her, and we thus learn a good deal of Lady F. s movements after her de parture from us. Our position here is not without interest. The norther blows steadily without any sign of change through the whole week, but the weather is beautifully clear, and we find our as sociations very pleasant. The ship is profoundly at rest, and we have, consequently, no sea-sickness. We make, also, new friends. The B s are people of refined life ; and there are several other agreeable companions in our little domain. Among these we find a gentleman who lives part of his time in New York and part in Cuba, Mr. J B . It was an un- VISIT TO CUBA. 441 expected coincidence to find him on board, as C had told me, in New York, that I might find him in Havana, and recom mending him warmly to our regard, requested me to hunt him up and use his (C. s) name for an introduction. Upon this foundation we have made a pleasant acquaintance, with the promise of profit from it hereafter. I find that we have on board a detachment of about sixty colored soldiers of various regiments, who are just dismissed from the hospital in New Orleans, and who are now about being sent to Pennsylvania to be discharged and paid off. Among these, some are quite sick with chronic dysentery. I take some of the weakest of these in charge, so far as to engage kind attention to them from the steward, and to get them more suitable provisions than their rations. Every morning when we come on deck, we are amused to find an additional fellow-sufferer with our selves, in the occasional ship which daily gets on the bar, and sticks there long enough to give us a little of that amiable amusement which conies from seeing a neighbor in distress. Some mornings we have such a congregation of these unfortu nates as to raise an illusion that our New Venice is already begun, and that her docks are already crowded with shipping. It is something of a trial to our equanimity, however, to see these little fleets gradually working out of their trouble, and leaving us still here to watch their receding volumes of smoke as they move off, both seaward and up the river. But we walk our deck, enjoy the weather, have excellent fare four times a day, and a game of Bazique every evening, not so bad after all! We have encountered one quite serious drawback. Poor Kate Martha s maid was taken with a chill on the next flay after our coming on board, and this has been followed by a low fever that prevailed all the week. Luckily, I find a French physician .on board, Doctor Lefebre, to whom I apply for assistance, and he devotes himself to our service with the kindest interest. He watches our patient every hour, and as there is a good medicine chest aboard, he is enabled to treat 19* 442 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. the case as well as if we were on shore. He tells me it is a typhoid fever, which must run its course, and which he appears to manage with confident skill. He is obliged to maintain a running warfare against the attacks of Mary, the stewardess, who thinks feeding the sick as sublime a charity as feeding the hungry, and who therefore keeps the doctor, who believes in starving a typhoid, constantly on the alert to protect his pa tient from Mary s foraging propensities, and her stealthy sup ply of soups and meats from the kitchen. The doctor at tempts English in these conflicts, and as he has not come to a definite settlement of his pronouns, he says to E. and M., " Katy must no heat, if he heat it will do him hurt no food as is hard, it inflame his stomach ; vary leetle, soft, yes gruel for htm best." Very lucky for Katy this Doctor Lefebre hap pens to be aboard. Poor Martha, who is so tender-hearted and sympathetic, distresses herself greatly at this inopportune sickness, and nurses Katy as gently and unceasingly, night and day, as if the girl was her sister ; and "E., who is never happy unless she sees everybody else so, is disturbed and dis tressed that she cannot relieve M. by sharing her watch. The case is a light one, the doctor says, and shows no symptoms of a dangerous kind. We have had half a dozen tugs at us, but as yet with no better result than to give us a list to larboard and drag us deeper into the mud. Day after day rolls on without material change. The wind blows persistently from the north, in de fiance of all predictions to the contrary, and directly in the teeth of what the pilot affirms to be its long-established habit, and against every idea, in these parts, of its respectable de portment. But we are all remarkably good-natured, and be have ourselves like a company of philosophers. One of our party, only, is fractious. I do not notice some slight murmurs which prevail, for an hour or two, every morning, and an oc casional intimation from a few to get up a card to censure Mr. Courtenay, the agent in New Orleans, for overloading the ves sel, and also for sundry false promises. They all subside in a VISIT TO CUBA. 443 short time, and are merged in the kind feelings we all have for Captain Quick and his officers. But there is one man more testy than the rest, who, on the fifth day, swears he won t stand it, and actually has his baggage transferred the next morning to the Costa Rica, a large steamer which has been on the bar for two days, about a hundred yards or so distant from us, and which is bound up to New Orleans. Our fretful com rade is convinced that she will get off and take him back to New Orleans in time to be transferred to the next Havana packet, and enable him to come down the river and arrive at his destination before we shall get away from here. So off he goes in a pet, and we all laugh at his hopes for the future. This is one of our items of news to keep us alive during the morning ; and as each day shows us the Costa Rica in her muddy cradle, still quiet and submissive, we wonder if our de parted friend begins to repent, and, if he does, will his pride allow him to come back to us. I am pretty sure he is sorry enough, but that he won t come. I utter this opinion to a group of quidnuncs with the gravity due to so profound an observation of human nature. Sunday comes, a beautiful, mild day. We must have the church service, and Captain Quick being diffident, comes to me, as the oldest and most proper person on board, to ask me to officiate in this duty, which I readily consent to do. We have some dozen of our passengers of the English church, the rest are chiefly Roman Catholics, none of whom, I be lieve, come into the saloon to unite with us in this worship. A reading-desk is improvised in the middle of the saloon, a box inverted and covered with our flag, the stars and stripes, and a chair converted into a prie-dieu. It is the first time I have ever done this, but I believe I perform my duty to the satisfaction of all certainly, with reverence and sincere pur pose. About noon of this day, Sunday, we find the norther freshening again, after it had almost come to an end. The captain determines to make a new effort with the tugs. This he does in the evening, but without effect. Monday he talks 444 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. of telegraphing up to New Orleans for lighters to be sent to us. But we wait another day. On Tuesday the captain takes the boat and with one of our fellow-passengers, sets off to the telegraph station at the light-house, some two hours sail distant, to despatch a demand for help. We all go to din ner at three. The captain has not yet returned. While we sit at table, some one from the deck rushes to the companion- way and shouts down to us : " We are off, the ship s afloat !" We don t believe it, think this is some wild enthusiast, de ceived by his wishes. Several run up the steps to see for themselves, I among the rest. The ship is in full motion, free of the bar, and standing seaward. We have rounds of ap plause, clapping of hands. She has "brought down the house." After dinner we are all on deck. We glide slowly round and round waiting for the captain. We think of our misguided friend in the Costa Rica, which is still on the bar. It is sundown, or near it, when the captain arrives. He did not believe that we were really free until he came within a few miles of us. It was so unexpected, so little to be ac counted for. All our tugs did nothing, but the water came in from the Gulf, apparently, against all rule, and lifted us out of our bed. So now we are in a fair way for Havana. An hour s progress shows us that the wind has changed, and this moved the volume of water on the bar before the change reached us in the air. We have a head wind and a rough, chopping sea." The approach to Havana; the street scenes, vehicles, population, ice factory, hospitalities and economics are very clearly and carefully delineated ; but they are too familiar for quotation ; we have a bull and cock fight noted, in all their peculiar details ; and the modus operandi of a great segar factory minutely revealed : " after we had gone through the establishment," says his journal, noting a courteous custom, " and returned to the office where we had first entered, we were surprised by the compliment of a presentation to each one of our party, including our servant, of a roll of one hun dred cigarettes, put up in the usual style, and having our names VISIT TO CUBA. 14:5 respectively done in colored lithograph on the wrapper ; each roll was adorned with a picture of national costume or local subjects." They experienced much kindness and visited different parts of the island, enjoying the soft warm climate, examining estates, and finding a novel pleasure in the contem plation of tropical scenery and vegetation. Having a special letter of introduction to the Captain-General, whose name subsequently became so well-known in connection with the suppression of the rebellion then fomenting, Mr. Kennedy gives an interesting account of a dinner to which he was invited by this functionary, and of the visit of Mr. Seward, which happened to occur during his stay : Havana, January n, 1866. The first impression made on me, as I pass through the narrow streets and under the great arcades, is that I have landed in Algiers or Constanti nople. Every "thing is thoroughly foreign. The architecture is Moorish ; the bright colors, the low buildings, varied with many structures quite majestic in breadth and height ; the high balconies, the tile roofs, the universal absence of any show of wood in the exterior of the house, except the great doors and shutters, and the invariable grating of the windows with iron bars, all these are so entirely un-American, in our sense, that I feel as if I had landed in Gibraltar, or on the Morocco coast, among a people who had grown old under the influence of centuries of mutual suspicion and distrust and too inveterate in custom to attempt any step in the path way of modern progress. Another foreign feature is exhibited in the uncouth and oppressive harness of the poor little horses that are driven through the streets under loads that seem to crush them to the earth. There is an expression of weariness and pain in these patient beasts that goes to the heart and gives a stranger an unpleasant conviction of the habitual and unconscious cruelty of the people. Havana, January 20, 1866. If I were asked after my observation of a week, what are the most characteristic occu pations of the busy world of Havana, I would say ist, res- 446 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. taurants; 2 d, barber-shops; 3d, cigar shops ; 4th, tailors; 5 th, retailers of ladies wear in lawns, cambrics, penas and mus lins. After these come the heavy business of commerce, situated along the front of the harbor. On Wednesday dur ing this week, I called at the Palace to present my letter of introduction to the Captain-General. I was informed by Mr. Minor, our Consul, that General Dulce was very easy of access, and that my presentation needed not to be formal all that was necessary was to go to the Secretario Politico and make known my purpose. I accordingly asked for him and was shown into his ofjfke, in an entresol opening on the court yard to the right of the great entrance. On reaching this exterior, I found several persons waiting at the door. I passed these and entered an ante-chamber, where several clerks were seated at their desks. I said : " I wish to see the Secretary." They all understood enough of my French to point me towards an inner room, and to give me some instruction in Spanish, which left me as wise as when I came in. I passed on, a second chamber with clerks as before. I approached one with my card. " Do me the kindness to give this to the Secretary," I said in French. He understood my card, if not my language, and took it into another room, from which I heard a conversation going on in Spanish between the Secretary and some visitors. Presently a gentleman appeared at the door of this room, who bowed very civilly and asked me in the language of the country, to come in. I presented my letter from my friend Phelps, saying that I had come to make my respects to Son Ex cellence le Capitaine-General, and to deliver that letter. The Secretary took it, read it, bowed, and said he would immediately place it in General Dulce s hands. He added that the Captain-General was not very well, and it was doubtful if he could receive me to-day. " I would not incommode him, I would call some other day !" " Oh ! no, sir, wait, I will see him." I took Mr. Seward s card, which he had given me in New York, with a brief introduction written VISIT TO CUBA. upon it, and told the Secretary that Mr. S. had desired me to present that with his respects. I begged him, therefore, to give it to the Captain-General with my letter. He left me and returned in a few minutes with the Cap tain-General s compliments, and the expression of his wish to see me. I asked the Secretary if the Captain-General spoke English. No." Nor French ? " No, nothing but Spanish." " It is unfortunate ! I will accompany you," said he in French, so taking a little winding-stair from the entresol to the floor above, we emerged upon a broad corridor that open ed upon a suite of very large apartments, handsomely fur nished in the style of the country, and all paved with marble. We entered one saloon some sixty feet, I should say, in length, by twenty in breadth. There were four gentlemen walking abreast toward the upper end. They turned round as soon as we entered, and one of them advancing in front of the others, approached me with a kind regard, while the Secretary intro duced me to him as the Captain-General. The Captain-Gen eral left his party, and invited me to a seat on the sofa where I sat beside him, with the Secretary at my left hand. Our conversation was conducted in French on my part, and inter preted in Spanish by the Secretary, answered in Spanish, and brought to me by the same aid in French. The Secretary spoke no English, although he told me he could read the lan guage. The interview lasted half an hour. The Captain-Gen eral was very cordial and kind. I told him I was commis sioned by Mr. Seward, the Secretary of State, at Washington, to express to him the grateful emotion with which our Govern ment had received his letter of condolence on the death of Mr. Lincoln. This, of course, was received by him with the gravity due to the reference to such a subject. He sympathized very deeply with the people of the United States, in the loss of so distinguished and so beloved a President, and he was struck with horror at the dreadful crime of his assassination. In a moment afterwards we came to lighter topics, and our countenances had all resumed their proper cheerfulness. I then 448 LIFE OF JOHN P. KK.VXKDY. ventured to say that I had another charge from Mr. Seward : to thank him for the three boxes of cigars which His Excellency had sent as a personal token of his sympathy in his, Mr. S. s affliction from the hand of the assassin. I said Mr. Seward was a great smoker, and was very happy, in the progress of his recovery, to be supplied with such an enjoyment from the friendly Governor of Cuba. The Captain-General smiled, and said it gave him great pleasure to hear this ; that he had great respect for Mr. Seward. I answered that Mr. Seward spoke in warm terms of his regard for the Captain-General, and that no person would be welcomed at Washington by the Administration, with a more friendly reception than His Ex cellency would find, if he could make it suit his occasions to visit that city on his way back to Spain, whither, it was now understood, he was soon about to retire. " In a few months I hope to be relieved from duty here," he said, " and I propose to visit the United States in my homeward route. I have a great desire to see New York, Philadelphia and Washing ton." As Mr. Seward is now making a voyage among the islands of this region, and is understood to have a visit here in con templation, I asked the Captain-General if he had received any message from him. He said he had, and expected him here every day ; asked me if I knew where he would stay in Ha vana ? I did not. He would like to make him his guest ; would be glad if I would let him know if I heard any thing of Mr. S. s plans, which I promised to do, if I learned any thing before the Captain -General himself, and so we ended our interview. In the early part of this conversation, I happened to say to the Captain -General that I had made a visit to his Quinta, a pretty villa on the Pasco, where he resided in the summer, and that I admired it very much. To which he immediately replied, " Wouldn t I do him the favor to take possession of it, during my sojourn in Cuba. I would find it very pleas* ant." This was a Spanish compliment which rather star- VISIT TO CUBA. 449 tied me, and which I met, as he doubtless intended I should, by thanking him for the kindness of such a friendly offer, adding the expression of my regret, that it was riot in my power to avail myself of it. Before we parted, he wished to know if I would not do him the honor to dine with him at some day when his health would permit him to ask of me that gratification ; to which I replied I should be very happy to enjoy that pleasure. " I will hold you to your promise very soon." Havana, Jan. 27, 1866. Mr. Seward had arrived on Sat urday, and was to spend only three days, and this was a dinner offered to him by General Dulce, the Captain-General. Fred erick Seward and his wife and her sister accompanied the Sec retary of State. They were in the frigate De Soto, Captain Walker, and had been making a circuit round the islands, St. Thomas, San Domingo and Cuba, and were on their return to the United States. When E. and I called on Saturday morning at Mrs. Al- my s, where they had got rooms, to see them, they were all abroad, and it was not until evening, when we repeated our call, that we found them. Mr. S. was looking very well, although having a strong mark on his right lower jaw of the terrible wound made by the brutal rebel who sought to assassinate him. Frederick had also received great benefit from his voyage, and was apparently completely restored to health. There was, at both hours of our visit, a crowd of persons, Cubans, I sup pose (as they are said to be particularly anxious to demon strate their respect for the United States, and also their hope from that quarter), in the entrance to the hotel, and press ing up stairs, to get a bow, if no more, from our Premier. I told Mr. S. what interest the Captain-General expressed to me, in his visit to the island, and his, the Captain s, wish, that Mr. S. would remain here for some days, which I also recommended to him, if he could properly give himself the time. But Mr. S., as he said, was obliged to get back to Washington, where matters of business were now urging his i fc return. 450 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. The dinner on Monday was an occasion of great state. I happened to arrive at the entrance of the palace, just at the moment when Mr. Seward, Frederick, and Mr. Minor, our American Consul, alighted, and I followed them up to the drawing-room. Here were already assembled a large number of guests, I should say about sixty ; an assemblage of exceedingly dignified and really striking persons. Among them I noticed many officers, military and naval, in splendid uniforms, and prominent in the group, the Captain-General, with richly-embroidered blue coat, garnished with scarlet and gold, and conspicuous also for the broad red ribbon across the breast. He received me with great courtesy, and his Sec retary, or friend for the occasion, M. Isnaga, who speaks English very well, by his direction introduced me to a num ber of dignitaries around him ; to Admiral Herrera, to Gen eral , the commander of the troops here, to the Gover nor of the city, Signer , a very handsome man. Mr. Seward and his son were subjects of great interest to the company, and everybody was presented to them. Captain Walker also, of the De Soto, attracted attention, of which he was well worthy, as a fine specimen of our naval men. The Captain-General put me under charge of M. Isnaga, and we were invited into the dining-room, a large saloon very splendidly set off by the dinner-table which was loaded with rich plate, beautiful porcelain and a fine display of flowers. The Captain-General Marquis of Castel Florete, to give him his proper title sat in the middle seat of the side of the table, with Admiral Herrera immediately opposite to him. Mr. Sew ard was placed upon his right, I upon his left, with Mr. Is naga next to me. On the admiral s right was Captain Walker ; some Spanish naval officer, perhaps, or general, for I did not know the difference, on his left. Our consul, Mr. Minor, was next to Mr. Seward. The dinner was unexceptionable, every thing admirable, and its general aspect very brilliant. It had also the recommendation of being short. The Captain-General is in delicate health, and neither eats or drinks to the soberest VISIT TO CUBA. 451 measure of a festival. I observed that he refused almost every dish and confined himself to what was specially furnished him, a thin rice soup and very little meat. We had some fine light wines, one round only of champagne, and some very delicious but very short-lived sherry. I think that was all. Our host rose to his feet as soon as we had come to the des sert, and made a speech in Spanish which I could only trans late so far as to perceive that it referred in complimentary terms to Mr. Seward. M. Isnaga rose and gave the sub stance of it in English, in a conversational tone, to Mr. S. Whilst he was struggling through his task, Mr. S. whispered to me that he would reply to the governor s speech with ref erence to our government, but that I must speak for him in the personal reference to himself. Mr. Seward then rose and made an excellent speech, in which he managed with great tact, to speak of Spain, her queen, and the relations of the United States to both, with his usual address. M. Isnaga was again called into requisition to turn all this into Spanish for the ben efit of the company, which he did very well. Then came a speech from the admiral, of which I did not understand one word, and which was not translated ; whereupon I took the floor and gave the company about as much edification as the ad miral had given us. What I said particularly concerned Mr. Seward. I spoke specially in reply to the compliments to him. I found out afterwards that the admiral had been saying some thing in commendation of our navy. The Cambre, Matanzas, Feb. 23, 1866. On this ridge of the Cambre is a sugar plantation, belonging to a gentleman in Matanzas. Don Cosme had his volante to add to our convey ance, and he took us to this estate, and brought us into the House or Quinta, where he produced a lunch which he had brought with him. Here we visited the grinding mill and saw the negroes at work, no better off in any respect than the mules that were harnessed to the beam that turned the mill. All work together, cattle and negroes, under the same crack of the whip, and the overseer stalked about the scene of labor 452 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. with a sword girded around his waist, the most sullen and in compressible of despots. One poor, meagre, feeble and deject ed woman, apparently a mother of a family, some fifty years old, was toiling in a most laborious task of gathering the cane, which lay in heaps near the mill, in armfuls, and tak ing them up several steps to the hopper of the mill and throw ing them in to feed the grinding. It was a heavy weight which exacted a painful stooping to the ground and toilsome ascent of the steps, and all this she was doing without cessation, and burdened with an iron band around her waist from which was suspended a chain of several pounds weight, the lower end of which was attached to her ankle by a ring. This, I suppose, "was a punishment for some offence, perhaps an at tempt to escape, which is regarded as the greatest of crimes a slave can commit ; or it may have been for too slow work and love of rest, which an overseer regards as a most heinous and unnatural proclivity in the negro. The poor woman s counte nance expressed her anguish, but expressed it in vain, and to a taskmaker whose heart was stone. We visited the quarters of these poor wretches. There was a stone wall some ten feet high, enclosing a square of about an acre. The entrance to this was a large iron-barred gate or grille, through which we could look into the enclosure. This was opened, and we were admitted. The space within was dreary and dismal, without a tree or shrub, not even grass. There was a stone or brick furnace in the centre which supplied the means of boiling food in a large cauldron which seemed to be the only cooking uten sil. Here, I suppose, the corn, or whatever provision was giv en, was prepared for the whole community of negroes who were driven into the enclosure every night, as oxen are driven into a stable. The sleeping quarters were miserable sheds a few feet wide, and some eight or ten feet long, which were built up against the wall. These sheds, of which we examined some two or three, were black, dirty, and even loathsome to look at, and contained such uncouth sleeping accommodations as could be composed out of tattered and coarse blankets and VISIT TO CUBA. 453 rags of worn out coverlets. Some swing in a kind of hammock, others in rough plank or log bedsteads, and all as dingy and black as if they were used in a stable. Such wretchedness, I have never seen, such parsimony and such cruel neglect. I thank my God that ? at last, the day has dawned, which having driven the abomination of slavery from our land, is soon to witness its extirpation in this, its most painful and wicked abode. Our great achievement in the cause of human rights and universal freedom is yet to find its crowning glory in the ulti mate expulsion of African slavery from the face of the earth." The journal of this trip includes the period between Nov. 28th, 1865, and April 8th, 1866. Their return through the Southern States was attended with much discomfort, owing to the bad state of the railroads and unfrequent accommoda tions ; but their course of travel led them through the region over which Sherman s troops had passed, and where many of the memorable scenes of the war occurred ; at Montgomery, Atlanta and Charleston, they saw the vestiges, material and moral of the fierce struggle, and visited the shattered fortress of Sumter where it so ruthlessly began. Charleston, April 5, 1866. We have had some opportu nity to observe what overwhelming loss and privation has been brought upon this community. A large portion of the city is in ruins, from the fire as well as the bombardment. We have spent one day in an excursion to Fort Sumter, and other places in the bay, where the ravage of the war is most com plete. It is sad to see such an utter prostration of a thriving community, under any circumstances, but to find it visiting our fellow-countrymen, worthy and excellent people, and brought upon them by their own folly renunciation of country and extravagant claim of a right to destroy the work of their fathers, an enterprise in which success could only bring unmixed disaster, and in which failure could be attended by no consolation of a virtuous aim to mitigate its disgrace, these considerations make the shattered and suffering city now in our view, the saddest of monuments ever given to defeated 454: LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. pride. History has no record of a rebellion so base in its purpose, or so silly in its prosecution. All that can be said of it by friends or apologists will fail to rescue it from the terrible disgrace of a war got up in the happiest epoch of na tional peace and prosperity, by men professing to stand before the world as the special champions of free government, and as the children of the greatest republic known in human an nals, a war of unexampled passion and ferocity got up by such men and waged with such cruelty and persistence, as was never equalled, for four years, to do what ? To perpet uate slavery, and to extend it over that great domain from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the most glorious empire of the fu ture to which the whole world will look with a religious hope as to a happy refuge against oppression and wrong for many ages to come, and to plant there the great political curse against which our fathers protested as a prominent justifica tion for our separation from England nearly a century ago. Yes, this wretched rebellion which we have just vanquished, originated in no better aspiration than the permanent defence of the great crime of slavery. And it had no nobler hope before it than, for this end, to create a political disintegration which would have banished peace from our continent for cen turies to come, and have led to such petty rivalry among States as to have rendered national unity and free government impossible." On the road North, April 6, 1866. We left Charleston last night a little before midnight. We had hardly got well on our course before I heard two travellers who were sitting before me conversing about an attempt to do some mischief to this train the night before, by firing into it as it passed upon the road. This conversation was scarcely concluded, before I heard, as I sped rapidly along, three shots, in succession, apparently directed against us. I learned afterwards that these shots both evenings were supposed to be discharged at the persons managing the engine, some political grudge, perhaps, as I understand such incidents are common at this VISIT TO CUBA. 4H5 time. General Ames, who commands at Columbia, told me a few nights ago, when I met him at the Mills House, that during the winter just gone, there were two hundred negroes shot within the range of his command in the upper country, and chiefly by pistols or rifles fired into the railroad trains in the cars appropriated to the blacks ; that these acts were per petrated out of sheer malice towards the negroes, against whom the hostility of the people was displayed, not on indi vidual grudge, but in hatred of the changed condition of the race. Of the two hundred shot, some eighty were killed the others wounded." 456 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. CHAPTER XX. Last Visit to Europe ; Last Public Appearance ; Failing Health ; Last Illness ; Death ; Burial at Green Mount ; Tributes. IN the seventh of July, 1866, Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy and Miss Gray sailed from New York, in the Arago, to make a more extensive tour as well as longer sojourn than they had been able to do on previous occasions. After landing at Havre on the twenty-first of the same month and resting a few days at Paris, they went to Switzerland, to the Italian lakes ; and returned across the Splugen. Of this delightful summer tour, commencing at Geneva and ending at Salzburg, Mr. Kennedy kept a vivacious chronicle, wherein his love of nature and his discriminating observation of society, are agreeably evident. Every now and then, his attention is excited by political events at home, and the earnestness of his comments show how much his heart was absorbed in the wel fare of his native land ; and how many thoughts regarding her past and future, foreign experience suggested to his mind. Often, too, his literary tendencies are awakened and some scene or subject gives him hints for a tale or an essay. Mr. Kennedy prepared for and regulated his visits abroad with characteristic method ; he was richly supplied with de sirable introductions : he was usually accompanied by a charming young friend ; his notes of routes and expenses are careful and authentic ; few Americans go abroad with such a thorough knowledge of their own country, with a more in telligent pride in her growth and destiny ; and so admirably equipped with genial social qualities, whereby to represent and vindicate American principles. Moreover, for many years, LAST VISIT TO EUROPE. 457 he had entertained, in a delightful manner, the most eminent of our trans-Atlantic visitors ; as a member of Congress and Secretary of the Navy, he had been brought into contact with diplomatic residents, had corresponded with influential people abroad, and therefore found himself at once at home where so many of our travelling countrymen are strangers. The ladies of his family were excellent travellers ; and on board the steamer at sea, at the literary breakfasts and state dinners, on excursions, by the way, and at the fireside, he was always the favored guest and favorite companion. While at Nice Mr. Kennedy met the officers of the Ticon- deroga, among whom were several of his old naval friends ; and attended a pleasant fete on board, of which he writes : " They have cotillions and waltzes on deck, under a canopy of flags. The women were very pretty much more striking than any other nationality could supply here. Altogether the meeting of our society, under their own flag, was very effect ively conducted and a source of great enjoyment." The journey into Italy was made very delightful by friend ly encounters along the route ; and in his journal Mr. Ken nedy does ample justice to his impressions of Mentone, Monaco, St. Remo, Parma, Bologna, Loreto, and Terni, while his experience at Rome is given in detail ; he became well acquainted with the leading artists, carefully explored galleries, palaces and churches, and became heartily weary of the car nival follies. His account of their presentation to the Pope is very graphic. He was interested at Florence in attending the Italian Parliament, and on returning to Paris, found that city of art crowded, and the Great Exposition in the full tide of success. His appointment as United States Commissioner, gave him many social privileges, and an insight into political, scientific and literary life. He became well-acquainted with Guizot, Chevalier, Rouher, Jules Simon, Garnier-Pages, Pelleton, Gi- rardin and Guilliare, the sculptor. For many weeks his life was a whirl of social excitement and official work ; as one of the 20 458 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. jury on Sculpture and a Uniform system of Weights and Meas ures, he was brought into intimate contact with many conti nental celebrities. At the same time he enjoyed the choicest society among his own countrymen and the English visitors. He soon made apparent his superior method and facility in the discharge of his duties, and won at once the confidence and respect of his colleagues. The period to which this part of his journal is devoted, may justly be considered the cul minating era of the Empire, when its material prosperity reached its acme ; the first fatal incident prophetic of its downfall the execution of Maximilian, and failure of the Mexican expedition, followed swiftly upon the gayeties and triumphs of the Exposition. It is interesting and suggestive, in view of the present calamities of France, to revert to these reminiscences of her proud and palmy days, and recall Paris in the height of imperial embellishment and eclat. With other United States Commissioners, Mr. Kennedy received the compliment of being made Chevalier cle 1 ordre de la legion d honneur ; " what for," he writes, " I am unable to say, unless it be, as the minister s note describes it, as a mark of benevolence for assisting at the Exposition, and to show respect for our country." He had frequent interviews with Hector Bossanger and his son at their publishing house, with reference to the selection and supply of books for the Peabody Institute. Later in the summer our travellers visited some of the En glish watering-places, and then, by way of Calais and Brussels, the German Spas ; at Baden and Homberg, they met a host. of old friends ; and in the autumn went to Spain through the south of France, Bordeaux, Pau and Biaritz. The cities of Spain, the gallery at Madrid, Seville, Cordova, Malaga, Grenada, the Escurial, cathedrals, the bolero, a bull fight, the peasants, the gypsies and the dons, the scenery, and all the as pects and adventures incident to such a tour, find charming record. Irving s memory made the Alhambra more fascina ting to his friends, and the picturesque mountains of Valencia^ LAST VISIT TO EUROPE. 459 with "the blooming almond-trees and great orchards of olives," charmed their senses. The peculiar interest of Mr. Kennedy s journal is, that he has a special as well as a sym pathetic eye for nature and life ; the economies and discom forts of his journey are as truly noted as the beauties of na ture and art are gracefully described. A memorable episode of his last experience abroad, was a trip to Tangier. The period of this final visit to Europe, just before the subsequent politi cal and ecclesiastical agitations and the recent war ; the many interesting social experiences recorded, and descriptions of places not in the familiar route of European travel, combined with the fact that the journal may be considered the latest of his deliberate literary undertakings, make it both appropriate and desirable to publish the record, or at least portions of it, in a separate volume, which cannot fail to interest and gratify the author s many friends. May, 1868, found Mr. Kennedy and the ladies again in London, where their former social in tercourse was renewed and extended. In June they visited the North of Europe and found novel pleasure in the scenery of Norway, the capital of Sweden, and the historic localities of Denmark. After an interesting sojourn at St. Petersburg?!, they returned by the way of Frankfort, to Homberg, and thence hastened to Paris to fulfil "innumerable commissions," and returning to London, soon afterwards embarked for home. Their old friend, Sir Richard Packenham, came to Liverpool to say farewell, whence they sailed on the fifteenth of October for the United States. When Mr. Kennedy found himself at home again after an absence of twenty-six months, he said to his wife, on arriving at the house, " No. 90 Madison Street once more ! I was -afraid I would die abroad. I am so glad to be under my own dear roof once more !" And he adds (Baltimore, Oct. 24, 1868) : A week at home ; delightful weather, greetings of friends. In many particulars great changes have occurred. The city has increased very greatly, both in population and in buildings.. The acerbities of the war have not altogether disappeared. There is no very 400 L1KK OF -IOILN 1 . KKMXKDY. cordial surrender of the hostilities that have prevailed between many whose friendships were obliterated by the quarrel. Still, there is some advance toward a better state of feeling." Soon after his return, Mr. Kennedy made his last public appearance. The occasion and scene are thus noted in his diary : Nov. 2, 1868. On Thursday last I received an invitation from the Republican Committee, to preside over a great meet ing of the party appointed to be held in the theatre on Front Street, on Saturday evening the 3ist of October. This was to be the last great meeting of the canvass. I accepted, and at the appointed time repaired to the theatre, accompanied by two gentlemen of the Committee of Management. The scene was very brilliant. Every seat in the large theatre was filled the boxes presenting an array of pretty women ; the house brilliantly lighted ; a fine picture of General Grant over the stage, on one side a soldier in full equipment, on the other side a sailor of the navy with a boarding-pike, both men provided for the occasion, served as supporters to the scene. The effect of this was very good. The stage was occupied by some hundred or more gentlemen, who were invited to serve as Vice-Presidents, Secretaries, etc. There were also a num ber of persons who were to address the meeting ; besides these some conspicuous citizens. The Committee, after a pre lude from a fine band of music in the orchestra, announced, through General Andrew W. Denison, their chairman, the pro posal of my name as President, which, of course, according to the established usage of such occasions, was received with great enthusiasm. This was followed by the nomination of some seventy Vice-Presidents and between twenty and thirty Secretaries. A unanimous vote was given for the whole list, accompanied by " deafening cheers," in the midst of which I took my seat ; and when this complaisant and excited as sembly had subsided into calm, I arose and made the follow ing remarks * . * * which I would insert here if they were not too long, and if they were not already reported and faith- LAST PUBLIC Arri .AKANri:. fully given in the newspapers of this morning " from which the following extracts are taken : Fellow-Citizens: It is a subject of pleasant reflection to me, that after an absence of more than two years from my own country, I should be greeted, in almost the first moments of my return, with an invitation to preside over such a meeting as this, composed as it is of personal and political friends, with many of whom I have acted on the theatre of public affairs dur ing a great part of my life, and to whom I may, therefore, ap peal as witnesses to the integrity with which I have ever ad hered to my own convictions of the right, and performed the duty which those convictions imposed upon me. (Applause.) Such an invitation, I think, I have good reason to regard as things go in these days of versatile politics and fickle politi cians as an opportune and honorable testimony from the Central Committee to the constancy of my devotion to the principles in which I have been educated, and for which I have, on several occasions, been honored with the charge of impor tant posts in the administration of both the National and State Governments. (Cheers.) I think it opportune just now be cause I observe in some quarters that my name has been regis tered among the crowd of recent converts from the Democratic party who are, it is said, daily sliding into the ranks of Grant and Colfax. (Cheers.) Now I take this occasion to say, with all respect for the Democratic party, among whom I have many valued friends, that I have never held a fellowship with it in any phase of its varied and changeful career ; and I may add that if my meditations had ever led me into that alliance, I should most certainly have turned my back upon it and made a rapid retreat, when it committed the folly of nominating Sey mour and Blair. (Applause.) It is not my purpose, fellow-citizens, to use the privilege of my present position in the attempt to make a contribution to the business of this evening by any thing that might claim to be called a speech. Unfortunately for myself, but perhaps for tunately for you, I have neither the strength nor the voice for 462 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. such an essay in this spacious theatre, and before such a con course as now fills its seats. The treatment of the subjects appropriate to the occasion I leave to the younger and more practised friends of our cause, who have tendered their ser vices for this duty. You will hear from them much more to interest you than any thing I could say. I shall, however, ask your indulgence for a few cursory remarks upon a topic which has been very prominently brought to my notice in my late visit to the other side of the Atlantic, and which I think worthy of an attentive consideration by our countrymen at this time. No one who has had opportunity to observe the impression made upon the mind, I may say, of the civilized world, by the events which have transpired in our country during the last eight years, could fail to note the very remarkable change these events have produced in the general estimate of the character and val ue of our Union. (Applause.) However sad these events may have been to us in the acting, they have proved to be above all price to the nation in what I may call their histori cal results. They have shown our Union to be what was not believed before a real government permanent, indissoluble, invincible, and fully adapted to all the emergencies of national life. (Cheers.) Never before has it been so universally ac knowledged to be the symbol, the bond and supreme glory of a great NATION a nation that has, to the astonishment of nearly the whole of the old world, suddenly emerged from what they regarded as a doubtful and undetermined destiny into a paramount and predominant master State, peer to the proudest empires of Christendom, whose alliance is courted and whose influence is felt over the whole globe ; whose word is almost a command, and whose favor is a reward to be coveted in the diplomacy of nations. It is now both admired and feared as an exemplar of re publican power, able to cope with " mightiest monarchies," and as a model of free and prosperous government. Its predestined mission is believed to be to lead in the advance of the civili- LAST PUBLIC APPEARANCE. 463 zation of the world, and to make popular freedom the final heritage of all nations. (Cheers. ) All reflecting men see in our recent history, in the terrible trials of our unhappy strife, and the courage and endurance with which, on both sides, they were met and mastered ; in the exhaustless resources that war brought into view ; in the singular magnanimity and clem encywithout a parallel in history practised by the govern ment to the vanquished at its close ; and in the ease with which the nation threw aside its armor and its military ambi tion when the task of war was finished ; in all these events sa gacious men see with a profound interest the uprising of a new political wonder ; the day-spring, or rather the meridian glory, of a new era, a new revelation, and a new world. (Ap plause.) This is the fame already won by our great Republican Union in the suffrage of all enlightened people abroad. I have brought this significant fact to your view because I desire to impress it upon you and the country as our most earnest duty to justify, vindicate and protect this fame at home. (Cheers.) We may congratulate ourselves upon the present aspect of affairs, which seem so auspicious to the full realization of that happy future, which our friends abroad have thus pictured, and which our patriotic citizens at home are now laboring to secure." With these characteristic and consistent sentiments, Mr. Kennedy took leave of his fellow-citizens, impaired health thenceforth confining his activity to his library and the social and domestic circle. That he was aware of his failing strength notwithstanding the uniform cheerfulness which marked his intercourse with family and friends, is apparent from the fol lowing note in his journal : Baltimore, February i, 1869. I find myself so frequently assailed by that infirmity which troubled me before I went to Europe, a weariness consequent upon any close application of mind for a few hours, that I have been obliged to econo mize my capacity for labor and to avoid or abandon every thing Kke study, beyond an hour or two in the morning. And LTFE OF JOHN P. KENNED V. besides this, I am so often affected by an unsteadiness of nerve as to render the effort to write so painful and slow as to compel me to relinquish it sometimes every day for a week. It has thus happened that I have laid my journal aside, only to be taken up at such intervals as I find propitious to my work." The cause of this feebleness was not, as might be inferred, a natural result of advanced life and a constitution always delicate. An internal tumor had formed in the abdominal viscera and occasionally produced functional derangement. Still there were long intervals of comfortable health and scarcely any perceptible decrease of vivacity of mind and buoyancy of spirits. Mr. Kennedy set out upon his usual summer visit to Sharon in July, i860, and while there the fatal malady first declared itself. A subsequent visit to Sar atoga proved highly beneficial ; and he passed the months of August and September very agreeably at Newport, re turning to Baltimore in October. But, during the ensuing winter, he suffered repeated attacks from the same local cause and lived quietly and carefully at home. Every even ing his old friend Pennington came to play bezique with the invalid ; and he found no small cheer and charm in the society of his fair cousin and adopted niece and her children. While at Saratoga, in the month of July, 1870, he had a very severe attack from the cause we have mentioned ; and, for some time, great anxiety was felt by his family and friends ; after one of the paroxysms of pain, he said to his wife : " Lizzie, you cannot wish me to live, to go through, every few weeks, such pain." He however rallied, and arrived at Newport later in the month, much improved. The pleasant cottage of his sister-in-law was soon frequented by a host of his old friends ; all manifested so much regard and sympathy that he was, perhaps, never more happy than during these last \veeks of his life. It was remarked that he was singularly cheerful and enjoyed conversation with unusual zest. He LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH. 465 made his friends oblivious both of his age and infirmities ; so that his death was to them as much a shock as a grief. The Sunday previous to his last attack, he was as usual, the life of the house. He gladly welcomed the young family of his kindred who had so gladdened the confinement of the winter. He merrily questioned " that bewitching child," as he used to call his favorite little Bessie, in French, Italian and Ger man ; and when, a day or two after, as he lay feeble unto death, she, having caught the idea of his approaching departure, looked pleadingly in his face and said, " Don t go away, Uncle John, I don t want you to go away," he gazed earnestly upon her, but was silent, while her mother hurried her from the room. He took a walk on the cliffs Sunday afternoon ; but, on the following morning, his symptoms became threatening ; the former remedies did not remove the functional obstruction ; he suffered very much during one day ; but, after that, pain ceased and exhaustion commenced ; his mind was clear and calm. On Thursday morning he partook of the Holy Com munion with a happy and child-like faith that impressed all around him ; and at ten o clock the same evening, August 1 8th, 1870, he peacefully expired. His funeral took place at Baltimore, very quietly, on the following Sabbath ; and his remains were placed in the beau tiful cemetery of Green Mount, of which he said, thirty years before, in his Dedication Address : " Here, within our enclos ures, how aptly do these sylvan embellishments harmonize with the design of the place ! this venerable grove of ancient forest ; this lawn shaded with choicest trees ; that green meadow, where the brook creeps through the tangled thicket begemmed with wild flowers ; these embowered alleys and pathways hidden in shrubbery, and that grassy knoll studded with evergreens and sloping to the cool dell where the foun tain ripples over its pebbly bed : all hemmed in by yon nat ural screen of foilage which seems to separate this beautiful spot from the world and devote it to the tranquil uses to 466 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. which it is now to be applied. Beyond the gate that guards these precincts we gaze upon a landscape rife with all the charms that hill and dale, forest-clad heights and cultivated fields may contribute to enchant the eye. That stream which northward cleaves the woody hills, comes murmuring to our feet rich with the reflections of the bright heaven and the green earth ; thence, leaping along between its granite banks, hastens towards the city whose varied outline of tower, steeple, and dome, gilded by the evening sun and softened by the haze, seems to sleep in perspective against the southern sky : and there, fitly stationed within our view, that noble col umn, destined to -immortality from the name it bears, lifts high above the ancient oaks that crown the hill, the venerable form of the Father of his Country, a majestic image of the death- lessness of virtue. Though scarce a half hour s walk from yon living mart, where one hundred thousand human beings toil in their noisy crafts, here the deep quiet of the country reigns broken by no ruder voice than such as marks the tranquillity of rural life, the voice of " birds on branches warbling," the lowing of dis tant cattle, and the whetting of the mower s scythe. Yet tidings of the city not unpleasantly reach the ear in the faint murmur which at intervals is borne hither upon the freshening breeze, and more gratefully still in the deep tones of that cathedral bell, Swinging glow, with sullen roar, as at morning and noon, and richer at eventide, it flings its pealing melody across these shades with an invocation that might charm the lingering visitor to prayer." Nor can I refrain from quoting the pleasant meditations this consecrated scene inspired in a mind and heart whose purity and truth seemed prophetic of the immortality he so trustfully greets : " Kind is it in the order of Providence that we are, in this wise, bade to make ourselves ready for that inevitable day BURIAL AT GREEN MOUNT. 467 when our todies shall sleep upon the lap of our mother earth. Wise in us is it, too, to bethink ourselves of this in time, not only that we may learn to walk humbly in the presence of our Creator, but even for that lesser care, the due disposal of that visible remainder which is to moulder into dust after the spirit has returned to God who gave it. Though to the eye of cold philosophy there may be nothing in that remainder worthy of a monument, and though, in contrast with the heaven-lighted hopes of the Christian, it may seem to be but dross too base to merit his care, yet still there is au acknowledged longing of the heart that when life s calenture is over, and its stirring er rand done, this apt and delicate machine by which we have wrought our work, this serviceable body whereof our humanity has found something to be vain, shall lie down to its long rest in some place agreeable to our living fancies, and be per mitted, in undisturbed quiet, to commingle with its parent earth. . The sentiment is strong in my bosom, I doubt not it is shared by many, to feel a keen interest in the mode and circumstances of that long sleep which it is appointed to each and all of us to sleep. I do not wish to lie down in the crowded city. I would not be jostled in my narrow house, much less have my dust give place to the intrusion of later comers : I would not have the stone memorial that marks my resting-place to be gazed upon by the business-perplexed crowd in their every-day pursuit of gain, and where they ply their tricks of custom. Amid this din and traffic of the liv ing is no fit place for the dead. My affection is for the coun try, that God-made country, where Nature is the pure first born of the Divinity, and all the tokens around are of Truth. My tomb should be beneath the bowery trees, on some pleas ant hill-side, within sound of the clear brattling brook ; where the air comes fresh and filled with the perfume of flowers ; where the early violet greets the spring, and the sweet-briar blooms, and the woodbine ladens the dew with its fragrance ; where the yellow leaf of autumn shall play in the wind ; and where the winter snow shall fall in noiseless flakes and lie in LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. unspotted brightness ; the changing seasons thus symbolizing forth even within the small precincts of my rest, that birth and growth and fall which marked my mortal state ; and in the ^ renovation of Spring giving a glad type of that resurrection which shall no less surely be mine."* How resigned Mr. Kennedy had become to the encroach ments of ill-health upon his activity ; and how undiminishecl were the warmth of his friendship and his sense of duty to others, is apparent from the final notes he addressed to two of his most faithful and valued correspondents ; and the very last letter from his pen, written to his godson. BALTIMORE, April 2, 1809. To GEORGE S. BRYAN, ESQ. MY DEAR BRYAN:* * * * But in this matter of punctual work and faithful correspondence I find and it is quite a startling disclosure to me, who have not quite got rid of the conceit that the man and boy in me have never entirely parted company that three-score-and-ten with some odds besides, are really open to the suspicion of the delinquency of old age. I never suspected it until the demands of my almost daily letters brought me to that shuffling evasion of duty which, for a while, I was willing to set down to voluntary laziness (a miserable hypocrisy that Bryan ; for you know I haven t a lazy bone in my body), but which, at last, I am obliged to confess comes from failure both of head and hand and there, you have the secret of my reticence, as the fashionable. phrase is. **#*****## BALTIMORE, June 16, 1870. To HON. R. C. WINTHROP. MY DEAR WINTHROP : It is but small consolation to me when I look at my letter file and see some three or four of your letters asking for a word of recognition from me, to argue my good intentions and my infirmity of hand for that silence Address at the Dedication of Green Mount Cemetery, July 13, 1839. LAST LETTERS. 4-09 which I daily resolve to break for it is so persistently fol lowed by a new delinquency in the breach of my resolve, as to bring me nothing better than a new regret. But I know you will pardon these habitual short-comings like the good and trusty friend you have always been, and indulge me in that constrained silence which is in truth only the sign and warning of the more inevitable that comes with gentle step and I trust a friendly message to make it welcome. My health is greatly impaired within the last year, and I have almost renounced all work or at least all obligation towards it, and keep myself as useless as my laziest acquaint ance masterly inactivity for the rest of my life. Your letter of the roth shows you in . pleasant contrast with me, busy as ever in your vocation, which certainly makes large demands upon you. The account of the Codex Diplo- matices Cavenses is very interesting, and we shall be de lighted to have it in the " Peabody" so I beg you to put us down for a full copy. I don t understand what is meant by the Astor subscribing for three volumes at thirty francs each. Does that include the whole work or only some special de partment of it ? From the description as published in the pamphlet I should suppose there would be many volumes in the series. I must leave it to you to determine for us, if there be any reason for discrimination of subjects, only saying to you, that we prefer to have all that properly belongs to any projected compilation. Perhaps it will be the best direction I can give at present to say subscribe for us as Ticknor has for the Boston Public Library. We all leave next week. Miss Gray is to go to Newport, Mrs. Kennedy and I to Saratoga, where I am directed to go by my physician to spend some weeks; after that we join Miss G. for the summer. Sharon does not agree with me, and so we keep away. The doubt is, whether my trouble is organic or functional, to which I say that at seventy-five or thereabouts, the difference is not worth a debate. I hope we shall all meet this summer at Newport or Boston, or both ; and I do 470 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. most heartily wish that Mrs. Winthrop would find some cure for that terrible privation she suffers in the weakness of the eye. It is beautiful to see how patiently and cheerfully she bears this affliction, which really her friends seem to complain of more than she does herself. We all send her love and sympathy, with kindest regards to you, and I am, my dear Winthrop, Very truly your friend, JOHN P. KENNEDY. NEWPORT, August llth, 1870. To J. P. KENNEDY BRYAN. MY DEAR KENNY : I would long ago have written to tell you how much I was gratified by the good report of your letter of July 1 2th, if it had not been for the irksomeness of the labor of my pen. The difficulty of writing seems to increase every day, so I am obliged to economize my work and so level it, as to kill two or more birds with one stone. I have waited there fore till now to say " Well done my boy !" and to admonish you of the near approach of your sophomoric race for which you must prepare yourself. You must come on here a few days in advance of the term, as you did last year, in order to be put in efficient condition for your move to the front. Write me a line, before you come, to let me know when to expect you. Give our love to your father and mother and the rest, and tell the judge that I am happy to assure him, that the current of pub lic opinion in this family very fully coincides with that of the Greenville editor, in regard to the propriety of his journey (which he neglected to pursue) to Flat Rock. Very truly, my dear Kenny, Yours, J. P. KENNEDY. The Baltimore American thus announced his death : " Our distinguished fellow-citizen, John Pendleton Kenne dy, has gone to his rest. In these days of intense and one sided development is there not a lesson for us in his useful TRIBUTES. 471 life ? When the material progress of the age overshadows the growth of individual character, is it not well to pause and ask ourselves what is the secret of this life in which personal influ ence seems to make the man so much greater than his works ? It is that he was not an extremist, that he gave scope to the development of his character ? A man of wealth, he did not" labor to acquire untold riches ; a man of leisure, he was not an idler, but dedicated his energies to politics and literature. His worthy ambitions and noble aims were not debased to the passions of power and success. His was not a surface life, but was softened by the Rembrandt back-ground of calm re pose and social culture. His genial humor, his happy smile, his boyish elasticity of temper make his death almost incredible. Where is the young man of to-day who is so young as John P. Kennedy was at seventy-five ? This sweet, sound old age was due to the healthy moral, physical and intellectual development of his faculties ; none were left dormant and none were over strained. He might have written better novels if all his ener gies had been given to novel writing ; he might have held high offices if he had taxed his strength in the race for power ; he might have become a merchant prince if he had consecrated his life and wealth to the mammon of unrighteousness ; but, in each instance he would have sacrificed himself. We hesitate to invade the sacredness of his home but to those who dwelt within its circle, there, too, he became a living example. His personal friends will remember him with a sense of loss, and yet of completeness. These words are addressed to that large and aimless class termed " men of leisure," that is, men who are not workers of necessity men who in America become either luxurious idlers or the slaves of self-imposed ambitions. To such as these the lesson of John P. Kennedy s life is full of instruction." The public attestation of his worth and loss was not the only or the most impressive testimony thereto ; wherever the sad news of his death became known, it elicited heartfelt tributes of sorrow and eulogy most of them sent in the form 472 LTFE OF JOHN P. KKXXKDY. of letters of condolence to Mrs. Kennedy ; they came from plantation and mart, from manor-house and official bureau, from the homes of luxury and culture and the modest haunts of frugal toil ; from young and old, eminent and obscure, all breathing a sincere grief and an earnest sympathy : " Since I had the happiness of meeting him once more, after our great struggle," writes Judge Bryan, from South Carolina, " I was troubled by the conviction that his life held by the most brittle tenure ; I have since accepted every day of his continued life, as a special bounty of a gracious Providence. Perfect as he was in the nearest and clearest relation of life, so perfect was he as a friend ; it is for such a friend I mourn ; and it is for the loss of such a husband, that I mingle my tears with yours, and commend you to that unfailing source in whom he trusted and who gave peace to his last hour." " For more than thirty years," writes the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, " his constant friendship has been one of my most cherished treasures. I have never known a kinder or a truer heart, or one whose affection and sympathy I shall more miss in what remains of life." " How kind he was in taking notice of me," writes a gifted lady, " and writing me ; out of his full rich life I know how to appreciate all this." And his life-long friend, Josias Pennington, in acknowledging his farewell gift, says : " I cannot tell you how much I was affected by this evidence of his remembrance of me, among the solemn thoughts of his preparation for an event too soon to follow ; and still more by his desire to be remembered by me, after our long earthly intercourse should cease." " I have felt personally afflicted and have mourned as for a kins man," writes Bishop Coxe, of western New York. " In my last visit to Europe, I often named him as one of those Ameri cans worthy of European regard and universal esteem ; I was so happy, too, to hear him spoken of as such. If he were but with us, he would be my candidate for the embassy to St. James. Mr. Kennedy s part in the late war has never been properly celebrated. It pains me to see meaner men so much TRIBUTES. 473 over-praised; while his eminent deserts are fully understood only by those who knew Baltimore in those horrible clays." " His words of encouragement and wisdom," says his godson, " I can never forget ; they impel me to earnest effort that I may be accounted worthy of the name I bear and the high privilege I enjoy through that name." " My sister," writes a lady, of one of his old travelling companions, "will never forget how kind he was to her, and even her little child s heart was saddened by the knowledge that she should see him no more. "I shall always esteem it a matter of thankfulness," says Bishop Whittington, " that Mr. Kennedy honored me with his kind regard ; and remember, with undiminished pleasure, the various occasions on which I had the pleasure of enjoying his genial and instructive conversation." " To me," writes David Strother, " whose dawning tastes and boyish eiforts were en couraged by his kindly appreciation ; whose mature career was directed and stimulated by his approbation ; who, in the last and crowning struggle of my life, was strengthened and cheer ed by his enlightened and noble patriotism, the loss is, in deed, irreparable. I feel as if a light had gone out j yet this is but the light of a personal friendship ; while for his country and the world, the light of his life will continue to burn the brighter as time shall justify his wisdom and posterity set its seal upon his genius." " I was not unaware," observes Rev. Dr. Leeds, Rector of Grace Church, Baltimore, " many months before his death, that his strength was failing. He had always a habit of- so happily disguising any bodily ailment, by a flow of spirits or mental vigor, that I was put off my guard in watching his slow decay. He was a noble Christian man ; to his robust princi ples he added a child-like trust." And, in a sermon by the same friend, it is well said, " No line has he written which in death he needed to erase ; no sentiment had he to recall which either principle condemned or charity disallowed; he was consistent without harshness, and true without needless of- 474 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. fence." " Most heartily do I unite," writes Goldwin Smith, " in all the tributes which have been paid to his high qualities moral and social ; most sincerely do I mourn his death, and most cherished will be the memory of the days which I passed in his society." APPENDIX. APPENDIX. Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. At a stated meeting of tlie Massachusetts Historical Socie ty, on the 8th of September, 1870, after the transaction of the formal business, the President, the Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, announced the death of Hon. John Pendleton Kennedy, who was elected a Corresponding member of the Society in 1858. After an authentic and eloquent sketch of his life and estimate of his character, by the President, remarks of a highly appre ciative kind were made by Prcf. Lovell and Hon. George S. Hillard, and a letter to the same effect, from O. W. Holmes, was read. Proceedings of the Board of Trustees of the Pealody Institute, of the City of Baltimore, on the announcement of the death of Hon. John Pendleton Kennedy, late President of the Board. At the regular meeting of the Board of Trustees, of the Peabody Institute, held on Thursday, the 3d day of November, 1870, the Vice-President read the following Communication : To the Trustees of the Peabody Institute : I perform a sad and painful duty, in officially commu nicating to you the death of our late President, John Pendle ton Kennedy, which occurred on the i8th of August last, at Newport, in the State of Rhode Island. You are all aware of this mournful event, of the great loss our Institute has sustained by the removal of one so active and instrumental in elevating it to its present state of efficiency and usefulness. I am sure you will avail yourselves of this, the "first meet ing of the Board since his death, to pay a suitable tribute to his long and faithful services to the Institute, and to his uni form kindness and courtesy in our official and personal inter course with him. J. PENNINGTON, Vice-President. 478 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. The communication was referred to a committee of three, composed of Messrs. Thomas Donaldson, George W. bobbin, and George Wm Brown, with instruction to report thereon at an adjourned meeting of the Board, to be held on Wednesday, the 23d instant. At the adjourned meeting, held on Wednesday, the 23d day of November, 1870, Mr. Donaldson, as Chairman of the Committee of Three, appointed at the last meeting, read the following REPORT: In the death of the Hon. John P. Kennedy, our country has lost one of its most distinguished ornaments. He was a scholar of extensive and varied attainments ; a statesman, well versed in the history of his country, and thoroughly informed on all public questions ; an author, who, as an essayist, was strong in reasoning and clear and forcible in style, and, as a writer of fiction, showed a vivid imagination, great descriptive power, and a genial sense of humor ; and, to crown all, he was a man, benevolent in feeling and action, and of a pure and blameless life. But, while, in common with our fellow-citizens both of this State and of the country at large, we lament the loss of a dis tinguished statesman ; whose labors entitled him to the public gratitude, and of an author whose writings have enriched the national literature ; and, while, together with all who enjoyed his familiar acquaintance, we hold in pleasing remembrance his refined, but cordial hospitality, and those personal qualities which are so attractive in social intercourse ; we, above all oth ers, have reason to grieve at the blow which has deprived us of one, who for so many years presided over our Institute. On terms of intimate friendship with the noble founder of the Institute, Mr. Kennedy was Mr. Peabody s chosen and trusted counsellor, when the foundations of the grand project were laid : and the same confidence was reposed in him to the last day of Mr. Peabody s life. Nor was the confidence misplaced. Taking the deepest interest in the education of the people, understood in its most comprehensive sense, entertaining the most liberal views in regard to the advancement of science, and the cultivation of the arts which elevate and refine human life, and, at the same time, feeling a strong affection for and pride in his native city, no fitter person than Mr. Kennedy could have been selected as the head of an Institution like ours. The last ten years have shown the wisdom of our choice ; and, dur- APPENDIX. 4:79 ing all that time, his devotion to the interests of the Institute, and his active, untiring, and always intelligent zeal in its ser vice, suffered no abatement, even in the midst of advancing years and failing health. Of this there could be no better il lustration than his admirable address read at our last anniver sary meeting, in which he reviews what has already been ac complished, and sketches with a master s hand a plan for our future organization and government. No one was more eager than he for the full realization, at the earliest possible date, of all the benefits designed by our munificent founder ; but he knew that time is always a necessary element in the suc cess of so great a work, and also that prudence in the manage ment of our resources was absolutely essential to secure the desired result. When our Institute shall have reached its full development, and the benefits conferred by it on the communi ty shall be gratefully acknowledged, it will not be forgotten how much we owe to our late President, and to his zeal, ability, and prudence. The following resolution was then adopted : Resolved, That the Report of the committee just made be entered upon the records of the Institute, as the unanimous sense of the Board of Trustees, and that the same be printed in pamphlet form, and published also in the newspapers of the city. CHARLES J. M. EATON, Secretary. Proceedings of the Maryland Historical Society. ROOMS OP THE MARYLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, ^ BALTIMORE, October 8th, 1870. \ MRS. JOHN P. KENNEDY, BALTIMORE. MADAM : I have the honor to say that in conformity with my instructions I now have the sad satisfaction of waiting upon you with the following Resolutions, which were unanimously adopted at the last regular meeting of the Maryland Historical Society, held on Thursday, the 6th inst. Resolved, That this Society has heard with profound regret of the death of the Honorable John Pendleton Kennedy, one of the active founders of this Society, and for many years its Vice-President, and one of its most efficient friends and sup porters. Resolved, That in his death our city has sustained the loss of one of its most respected citizens, and our country the loss 480 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. of one of its most accomplished scholars and ablest states men. Resolved, That the Secretary of the Society communicate to the family of the deceased, a copy of these Resolutions, and the assurances that this Society sympathizes most seriously in its sad bereavement and irreparable loss. I have the honor Madam, to remain very respectfully, Your ob t servant, E. H. Dalrymple, Cor. Sec. M. H. S. MR. KENNEDY S WILL. The following is his will, as filed in the Orphans Court : " I have reason to thank God for many blessings ; for kind friends, worthy kinsmen, prosperous and contented life ; for a cheerful temper, competence of worldly goods, a fair share of health, interrupted only by such alternations as have taught me the more to value it ; for some stock of good reputation ; for opportunities of public service, afforded me through the confidence of my fellow-townsmen in more than one honorable trust ; and above all, for a home made clear to me by the af fectionate and constant devotion of a wife who has done eve ry thing in her power to render me happy, whose rare virtues of mind and heart have given the most complete success to her endeavors. For these blessings I am devoutly thankful to my Maker. I pray to Him daily to render me more worthy of them. ; I have striven so to order my life as to live always above the fear of death, and have sought that consummation in culti vating Christian faith and duty as sincerely if not as diligently as my infirmities would allow. And although I am deeply sensible how for I have fallen short of my obligation, and how often, by reason of the frailty of my nature, I have foiled to stand upright, yet, placing my trust in the mercy of my God, I reverently hope for that forgiveness which through no worthi ness of my own I might ask, and therefore abide the issue of my life with humble resignation to the will of Him who gave it. " That my worldly concerns may in no case stand in the way of my contentment, nor ever be found unprovided for, I do make the following disposition of them, publishing and declar ing this to be my last will and testament : APPENDIX. 481 " All my property and estate, of whatsoever description, real, personal or mixed, which i may possess at the time of my de cease, I give to my wife Elizabeth, her heirs, executors, admin istrators and assigns forever. And I request her, after she shall have enjoyed the same for her life, to distribute, either by will or gift, what may remain, among such of my relatives as she may think most worthy of her care and remembrance. She will also gratify a purpose which I entertain, and which I confide to her accomplishment, by making gifts in my name of certain portions of my effects in the manner which I may suggest to her from time to time, either orally or by memo randa expressing my wish, but which I do not design to make a part of this testament. " And I do hereby constitute my wife Elizabeth the sole ex ecutrix of this my last will and testament. " In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal, in the city of Baltimore, on this 25th day of October, in the year 1845. " [Seal]. JOHN P. KENNEDY. " Signed, published and declared by the testator, as and for his last will and testament, in our presence, who in his pres ence and in the presence of each other, and at his request, subscribed our names as witnesses hereto : "E. J. DUBOIS, "WILLIAM M. EDWARDS, "JOHN H. ROGERS." Accompanying and forming part of the above will are two codicils, dated i4th June, 1866. At the bottom or on the last page of the first is a note stating that on the 315! of July, 1865, he made two codicils, the first of which he cancelled, and sub stituted in lieu the subsequent one, retaining the second one to provide, as expressed therein, for a contingency which might happen, though not probable. In the first codicil, respecting the disposition of his prop erty, he states : " By that will I have given all my property of every kind to my dear wife, Elizabeth, trusting that if she survived me, she would, by will or otherwise, make such a distribution of the estate and effects left to her by me, or what should remain of them, as would gratify my wish in regard to my relatives and friends ; being guided in such distribution by my requests ver bally communicated to her, or by letters, or such occasional 21 482 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. memoranda as I might make for that purpose. As that will makes no provision for the disposal of my estate in case I should survive her, now I design this codicil to provide for such a contingency, and I declare the devises and bequests contained in this codicil to be made only to take effect in the event of my decease and my wife Elizabeth not surviving me long enough to make the distribution of it, I have suggested in my will, or propose or suggest in this codicil. With this view and in this contingency I devise and bequeath all my estate, that is to say, all my property, real and personal and mixed, which may belong to me at the period of my death, as follows : I desire ana! hereby will and direct that as many of my stocks, bonds and other securities, as may be necessary to the purpose, and which may not be herein specifically other wise bequeathed, shall be applied arid appropriated to the pay ment of the following legacies ; provided, that the amount to be derived from my said stock and other security not other wise bequeathed be sufficient to meet the same, and if not, then I desire that the said legacies be rateably or proportion ally reduced to the sum that may be raised from the same." In the first codicil he directed the sale of Shock Hill, and the proceeds of the whole property to be divided between his nephews and nieces, so as to give hotchpot, as the law phrases it. As a testimony to the patriotism and gallantry of his ne phew, Dandridge Kennedy, of the navy, and of his cousin, Charles Henry Pendleton (son of Dr. E. Boyd Pendleton), also of the navy, both of whom distinguished themselves by their good conduct and faithful service in the late civil war in crushing the rebellion, he gave each of them a lien on his share or portion of the Valambrosa lands, which heretofore belonged to the Berkeley Coal and Iron Company, in Berkeley and Morgan Counties, Virginia, purchased under a judicial sale by Edward Gray, Philip C. Pendleton and himself, to the amount of $2,500 each, if his share in the same should pro duce that amount on the sale of the property, which he de sired to be sold whenever the other parties should agree to do so, and get a reasonable price therefor. To his cousin, Dr. E. Boyd Pendleton, he devised his farm in Sleepy Creek, known as Bow Wow, of about one hundred and eighty acres, adjoin ing the Valambrosa tract ; to his nephew, John Willoughby Kennedy, he gave all his interest and estate in a tract of land in the locks above Valambrosa, called by him Vancluse, about one thousand acres ; to his young cousin, Nathaniel Pendleton, APPENDIX. 483 (son of Boyd Pendleton, in Martinsburg, a fine, gallant boy, who rendered a most important service to General Kelly at the time of Lee s invasion of Berkeley), he gives his bounty land in Nemaha County, Kansas, one hundred and sixty acres, given to the testator for his services as a private in the war of 1812 ; to his sister Martha he devised his dwelling-house, on Madison Street, Baltimore, with all the furniture, pictures, plate and other articles of ornament, as also his interest in his carriages and horses. Out of a fund derived from the estate among other pro visions, he directed that $5,000 be reserved to defray the expenses of a full publication of his writings or literary works. In a subsequent item of the codicil he states : " I wish to have a full edition made of my writings, containing what has been already published by Putnam and the Lippincotts (and which are now announced to be in a course of republication by Hurd & Hough ton), and those also which yet remain in unpublished manuscript, containing also what I have hereto fore published in pamphlets and detached volumes and in news papers. Also containing selections from my letters or private correspondence, preserved in volumes of press copy, in loose sheets, portfolios, and in the repositories of my friends ; also embracing selections from my note-books and other manu scripts. If I live to be able to accomplish this task I will undertake it myself. I have already prepared in part an ar rangement or classification of those writings which I suppose would add four or five volumes to those heretofore published. This arrangement I have described in a small MS. volume of memoranda, giving a list of these writings, classed according to their characters, political or literary. I propose, in addi tion to this series of volumes, to have a handsome illustrated edition of i Swallow Barn. Now with a view to this enterprise, if I should not complete it myself, I commit it to my friends Robert C. Winthrop, of Boston, Josias Pennington, of Balti more, and Henry T. Tuckerman, of New York, requesting them to superintend and direct this publication in such man ner as they may consider best to promote the purpose I pro pose, and, if necessary, procure and employ some discreet and competent person to assume the labor of its accomplishment ; and for defraying the expense of this undertaking, I place at their disposal the $5,000, herein above directed to be reserved, authorizing them to use the same, or as much thereof as may be necessary, for the purpose of securing a complete publica- 484 LIFE OF JOHN P. KEXXKDY. tion of what they may deem worthy to be collected and pub lished of my writings, and if this sum should be found insuffi cient to defray the necessary expense of such a publication, my executors are hereby authorized to supply what may be necessary. I have confidence, however, that my friends above mentioned will find no difficulty in procuring this work to be done with the fund I have appropriated above. " And I further direct that my said friends, Winthrop, Pen- nington and Tuckerman, or each, or either of them as may oblige me by accepting this commission, shall be put in pos session of all my printed works, my manuscripts, journals, books containing newspaper articles, pamphlets, note and common-place books, to be discreetly and confidentially used by them in making up the volumes for publication, and that they shall also have possession of all stereotyped plates, and all pictorial illustrations, on wood or steel, of my books which belong to me, and which are now in the custody or care of Messrs. Hurd & Houghton, of New York. " And if it should not be convenient for my friends above mentioned, or either of them, to undertake this task, then I wish my executors to procure some competent, discreet and friendly person of literary talent and repute to perform it ; and 1 authorize them to make provision for a proper compen sation for such a work, and I enjoin it upon them to impress upon such person as may be employed to treat the letters, journals and other private papers of mine submitted to his inspection and use as confidential communications, to be used directly and solely for the purposes above described. And when these papers have been used for the above purpose and there is no further need or occasion to refer to them for that purpose, it is my wish that the manuscript volumes containing my journals, my note or common-place books, and the several volumes of my own letters in press copy, as also all my other letters, such as may possess any interest or value (which I desire to be bound in volumes) that are now in loose sheets, shall be returned to my executors, who are requested to have the same packed away in a strong walnut box, closed and locked, and then delivered to the Peabody Institute, to be preserved by them unopened until the year 1900, when the same shall become the property of the Institute, to be kept among its books and records. All the rest of my manuscripts, letters and other papers I give to my nephew, John W. Kennedy, to be disposed of in such manner as he may think proper. APPENDIX. 485 If any profit should result from the publication of my writings, as herein provided for, I desire that it be disposed of or appropriated in such manner as my three friends above men tioned, or the survivor of them, if they shall have assumed or procured the. publication, may appoint or direct, or if the publication be made under the superintendence of my execu tors, then said profits shall be brought into the general fund of my estate. " Among the avails of publication will be the final disposal of the stereotype plates and engraved illustrations of my books belonging to me." To his adopted niece, Sally Pendleton, wife of Eugene Van Renssalaer, he gave $1,000, and the same amount as a present to the wife of his nephew, Andrew ; also the same amount to his godson, J. P. Kennedy Bryan, son of his friend, Judge George S. Bryan, of Charleston, South Carolina ; to his niece, Mary Cooke, $5,000 ; to the children of his late niece, Annie Selden, $3,000; to his niece, Sarah Selden, $3,000 ; to his nephew, John Willoughby Kennedy, $3,000 ; to his nephew, Andrew E. Kennedy, $3,000 ; to his nephew, Edmund Ken nedy, $3,000 ; to his nephew, Dr. Dandridge Kennedy, $3,000 ; to his niece, Agnes Kennedy, $5,000 altogether $28,000. " I give to the Peabody Institute," says the will, " my library, comprising all my books, pamphlets, maps and charts, ex cept what I may hereafter dispose of otherwise, and this I give as a special donation from me for the use of the Insti tute, but not to be kept as a circulating library, by which I mean, not to be taken out of the library rooms of the Insti tute for ordinary use. " I also give to the Institute my several bound volumes of the manuscripts of my printed works, which I have preserved in the original MS. copies, as also my two bound volumes of autograph letters which have been written to me. These I give to the Institute with a special request that they be care fully preserved as a testimony of my interest in its success. I wish to except from this donation of my library to the Pea- body Institute one hundred volumes, to be selected by my wife Elizabeth, as a present to my godson, J. P. Kennedy Bryan, and in the making of this selection I wish that he also may be consulted. My portrait, painted by Mathew Wilson, I give to the Peabody Institute ; that by Tilyard, taken about the year 1827, I give to my adopted niece, Sallie Van Rens salaer. The two portraits of Elizabeth and myself, taken by 486 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. Hubbard, in 1835, I give to my nephew, John Willoughby Kennedy. My oil and water color paintings in the house on Madison Street, and all the engravings, prints and photographs in portfolio, or hung upon the walls in the- house, I desire shall remain therein as part of the furniture of the same as long as the house shall be retained by my sister, Martha Gray, if she should survive Elizabeth and myself; but after the decease of Martha, in that event, or of my decease, if I should be the last of our little family to occupy the house, then I give the paintings, engravings and photographs to my niece, Sally Pendleton (Mrs. Van Renssalaer). " I give to my said niece Sally, Mrs. Van Renssalaer, all my objects of virtu, small pictures, ornamental or curious toys ; in short, I give her whatever she may choose to select among the ornaments, pictures and photographs, and other articles of interest belonging to me and usually kept in the drawing- rooms and chambers of the house in Madison Street. " I give to my brother Anthony my small portfolios of auto graph letters, which I have preserved among my papers, among which are found many from Washington Irving, Prescott, Ever ett and others of our own country, as well as collections of notes and letters from distinguished persons abroad. These are contained in small volumes, octavo and duodecimos, in their separate sheets unbound, and are generally deposited in my safety closet. " I give to my niece, Sally Van Renssalaer, the books be longing to me, and usually kept in the book-case in the draw ing-room of my house in Madison Street. But I desire to have it understood that these books, as well as the objects of virtu and ornaments in the house, are intended to be included by me in the devise and bequest to my sister, Martha E. Gray, as set forth and declared in the seventh article of this codicil, in which I give her the same during her life ; and it is only after she has ceased to hold them that I intend they shall go to my said niece Sally. I give, also, on the same condition, to my said niece Sally, whatever plate may belong to me ; and I give her also, in like manner, any such articles or portions of the furniture of my house on Madison Street, not exceeding five hundred dollars in value, as she may desire to possess and may select, after which selection the residue shall be sold as provided in the seventh article. " I give to my sister Martha, if she should survive me, the use of the wines and spirits in the house in Madison Street APPENDIX. 487 during her life, and after that I desire that the residue thereof may be sold and the proceeds be brought into the account of my estate. " My books contained in the book-case of the library in the country house of the factory, I give to my brother Anthony Kennedy, and also all the engravings in that library, and the busts of Webster and Adams there. " I give to the Aged Men s Home, the institution lately es tablished in the western part of this city, one thousand dollars, which I desire shall be permanently invested by the trustees or managers of the establishment, and out of the yearly inter est thereof there shall be supplied a bowl of punch every year, on Christmas Day, for the refreshment and comfort of the pensioners or inmates of the house at their Christmas dinner; and that the residue, whatever may be left of the yearly inter est, I desire may be applied to the purchase of medicine for the institution. In like manner I give one thousand dollars to the Aged Women s Home, to be also invested and the year ly interest to be applied to supplying a proper quantity of wholesome wine for the Christmas dinner in each year of the pensioners or inmates of that house, and the residue of the in terest to be appropriated to the medical supplies of the insti tution. And I hope that these old people of both sexes will kindly remember me in the enjoyment of the solace which this donation may annually afford them. " If the two legacies or either of them mentioned in this section seventeen should lapse by reason of the failure of these societies, then I desire that they shall be transferred to such similar institution, one or both, as the case may be, as the Mayor of the city of Baltimore may select, and this transfer to be repeated totics gastus, as often as the lapse may occur ; and in order that the legacies may be perpetuated, I request that the corporation of the city will. take charge of and securely in vest the fund whenever the failure of the institutions above named should render it necessary. "It is my wish, and I so direct, that a complete copy of my works, substantially bound, be presented in my name to Har vard University, as a token of my respect for that great national school and an acknowledgment of my gratitude for the honor it has done me in conferring on me the degree of Doctor of Laws. " I give my Winthrop chair, purchased by me in Maine some thirty years ago, to my friend Robert C. Winthrop, or in case 488 LIFE OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. of his death to his eldest son ; to Judge Bryan, of Charleston, S. C., a copy of my works, neatly bound ; also to General D. H. Strother, Porte Crayon, as he is known in the artist world, as also the two paintings of the Artist Studio in Paris, which were painted by him and purchased by me some years ago." He left also $1,000 to be paid to the manager of the factory on the Patapsco, Mr. Bone, or if not living, to the President of the Company, to be appropriated for the benefit of the school of the factory, to be applied for the education of the children of such of the families as have been longest resident at the fac tory and engaged in its service, and to such meritorious chil dren as the managers may commend for the donation ; also $100 each to the old servants, Annie and Nellie, and a like sum to William Brown, a dining-room servant. By the codicil Josias Pennington and Thomas Donaldson are appointed executors of the last will of the deceased, who concludes with the declaration that the codicil should only take effect in the contingency that he should survive his wife, but if, on the contrary, she should survive, then it is his wish that she should regard this codicil only as an indication of what distribution he should like her to make, if she sees no good reason to the contrary, of his effects ; also his hope that she will add to these gifts and dispositions of his such others as may occur to her to be worthy of her and his regard ; and also that she will not scruple to make such changes in his arrange ment as to persons, manner and objects, as well as in amount, as may be commended by her own judgment. He particularly wishes that she should assume a full control over the publica tion of his works and the distribution and disposal of his man uscripts and papers, looking, as he is sure she will to what she may think best for his reputation and the preservation of a kind memory for what he had done and what he had wished to do for his country and friends. She will also, he knows, fulfil any wish of his in regard to the distribution of his property which he may hereafter make known to her by letter or verbal request or memoranda in writing. In the second codicil, executed the same day (i4th June, 1866), he provides for the contingency of his wife surviving him, and dying intestate, which, he states, " I know could only happen by some accidental loss or destruction of her last will and testament under circumstances that did not admit of its reproduction. In such an event both her wish and mine APPENDIX. 489 would be seriously frustrated, as we have both executed our testaments by mutual understanding and arrangement of their respective provisions. Therefore, with a view to guard against this accident, and in no wise to impair the complete substan tial enjoyment and control, which it is the purpose of my will dated of the 25th of October, 1845, of which this is a second codicil, to give to my wife Elizabeth over all the property and estate which T have therein devised or bequeathed to her, I do hereby will and direct if by any accident the last will and testament of my dear wife, or paper in the nature thereof, should be lost or destroyed at a time or under circumstances that do not admit of means to repair such loss or reproduce such will or testament, and if by that or any other reason my said wife Elizabeth should die intestate, that then and in such case the property and estate, so far as aforesaid devised and bequeathed by me to her, shall pass in the manner set forth and required by my first codicil executed on this day, and shall go to the second devisees and legatees therein mentioned, and the execution thereof shall vest in the same executors, who shall be charged with all the duties therein described as fully as if all the provisions, conditions, bequests, devises and di rections therein written were here specifically repeated." This codicil re-appoints Josias Penninjton and Thomas Donaldson as executors. 490 LTFK OF JOHN P. KENNEDY. A chaste and appropriate monument of white marble marks the grave of Mr. Kennedy at Green Mount, which bears the following inscription : IN MEMORY OF JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY: Born 25th October, 1795 j Died i8th August, 1870. / Author, Statesman, Patriot. He adorned every path which he pursued ; and, after a prosperous and happy life, died in all the blessedness of a Christian s hope. " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." THE END. HON. JOHN P. KENNEDY, A new and uniform edition, handsomely printed on tinted paper (exclusive of the Ambrose Letters). 9 vols., 12mo. Cloth, $18.00; half calf, $36.00; or separately. HORSE-SHOE ROBINSON, 1 vol. $2.25 SWALLOW BARN, - - - * - 1 " 2.00 ROB OP THE BOWL, - - - - 1 " 1.75 QUODLIBET, - - - - - 1 " LIFE OP WILLIAM WIRT, - - - 2 " MISCELLANIES, - - - - - 1 " 1871 POLITICAL PAPERS, - - - - 1 " LIFE AND LETTERS, BY TUCKERMAN, - 1 " MR. AMBROSE S LETTERS ON THE REBELLION. 1 vol., 16mo. Paper, $1.00; cloth, $1.50. His "Horse-shoe Robinson" and "Rob of the Bowl" will live with the sea romances of Cooper. Philadelphia Press. Few of our gifted countrymen, with so many and such varied excellence, are chargeable with so few defects. He is at the same time a bold and exquisite painter; his touches, to suit the subject and occasion, equally free and delicate. His style, as fine and chaste as Washington Irving s, and finished as is his most elaborate efforts, is always full of life. Southern Quarterly Review, 1852. The talent of our author is probably not inferior to that of Mr. Irving. Some of the smaller compositions, in which the author depends merely on his own re sources, exhibit a point and vigor of thought, and a felicity and freshness of style, that place them quite upon a level with the best passages in the " Sketch Book." N. A. Review, 1833. " Swallow Barn" describes, with a pleasant vein of humor, country life in Vir ginia, as it existed in the first quarter of the present century. . . . Let us take this living picture of local manners, from the hands of our author, and thank him for drawing their likeness before they had wholly passed away. New York Even ing Post. Of the Ambrose Letters on the Rebellion, "The Nation" says: We do not know of any other two hundred and forty-six pages, of small size, In which so much wisdom and historical fact and substance have been compressed as in this unpretending book. We have here pages which show the statesman and the jurist. Mr. Kennedy s long experience as a member of Congress and of the Cabinet, and his intimate connection with Southerners, being himself a Balti- morean, have enabled him to produce a treatise on Secession which we could wish to see in the hands of every reflecting Southerner and of very many North erners. GK P. PUTNAM & SONS, 4th Avenue and 23d Street, New York. BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY. The Diary and Correspondence of Samuel Pepys, Esq., L F.R.S., Secretary of the Admiralty in the Reigns of Charles II. and James II., 1659 to 1703. Large I2mo, cloth extra, $2.50; half calf, $4.50. T^UTNAM. The World s Progress. A Dictionary of Dates j being a Chronological and Alphabetical Record of Essential Facts in the History of the World and the Progress of Society, from the Creation to the Present Time. A new edition, continued to 1867. In one large volume I2mo, cloth, $3.50; half calf, gilt, $5. "A more convenient literary labor-saving machine than this excellent compilation can scarcely be found in any language." New York Tribune. " It has been planned so as to facilitate access to the largest amount of useful information in the smallest possible compass." Buffalo Courier. "The best manual of the kind that has yet appeared in the English language." Boston Courier. " An exceedingly valuable book ; well-nigh indispensable to a very large portion of the com munity." New York Courier and Enquirer. "It is absolutely essential to the desk of every merchant, and the table of every student and professional man." Christian Inquirer. "It is worth ten times its price. . . It completely supplies my need." 5. W. Reigart, Principal of High School, Lancaster, Pa. TUCKERMAN S BOOK OF THE ARTISTS. Comprising Bio- graphical and Critical Sketches of American Artists; preceded by an Historical Account of the Rise and Progress of Art in America. With an Ap pendix containing lists of Pictures and Private Collections. By Henry T. Tucker- man. Large 8vo, cloth extra, gilt top, $5.00; half calf extra, -$8.oo; large paper, cloth, $12.00. The same with photographic portraits by Sarony and by Rockwood. Royal 8vo, morocco extra, $30. Among the prominent names included in this volume, are : Malbone, Trumbull, Cole, Page, Leutze, Stuart, Copley, Sully, Leslie, Inman, Durand, Weir, Kensett, Greenough, Powers, West, Huntington, Morse, Church, Crawford, Allston, Biers tad t, Chapman, Elliott, Palmer. Vanderlyn, "No American author is better fitted than Mr. Tuckerman for the task he has undertaken ami so ably executed." AT. Y. Times. "Mr. Tuckerman, than whom no writer could bring to the consideration of his subject more diligence or a more hearty love, of art, has prepared a compendium of the history of American painting and sculpture, which supplies a want in our literature. His Book of the Artists is a fulJ and interesting record of the progress of Art in the United States." Evening Post. WARTON. The History of English Poetry, from the Eleventh to the Seventeenth Century. By Thomas Warton, Poet Laureate. From the last London edition. Three vols. 8vo., complete in one volume large I2mo, 1027 pages, cloth extra, $425; half calf extra, $6.50. "A most curious, valuable, and interesting literary history." Lowndes- HOME USE CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT MAIN LIBRARY This book is due on the last date stamped below. 1 -month loans may be renewed by calling 642-3405. 6-month loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk. Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date. ALL BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO RECALL 7 DAYS AFTER DATE CHECKED OUT. SEP i ? STACKS PR 1976 E&CUL MAY 1576 s a -cary LD21 A-40m-8, 75 (S7737L) General Library University of California Berkeley tUfornia