by day, and no one could tell why. You remember the evening before his death, how calm and serene and self-possessed his spirit was; and when we laid him in the grave, to which mother and sister and brother were so soon to follow him, we felt that another great promise had passed away unredeemed, and another void opened in longing hearts which never could be filled.

I have told you that Charles Sumner had prepared me to meet an extraordinary person in his brother George. But he did not tell me how like to himself he was in some things and how unlike in others. The dissimilarity began with their persons. Charles was over six feet high, George less than five feet ten. In both the limbs harmonized in just proportions; but George would have been passed over in a crowd, while Charles would have drawn every eye to his massive frame and lofty bearing. Both moved with an elastic step, until disease prostrated the one and suffering the other. In vigor and energy there was very little difference between them. They both brought all their powers to their task, and whatever they did, did it with a will. Few men felt the responsibility of time and opportunity more than they, or sought their rule of life in duty more persistently. Their natural endowments were of a very high order, though George excelled Charles in the quickness of his perceptions. Both had strong memories, and held their acquisitions with a tenacious grasp. Their imaginations were rather the imaginations of the orator and historian than of the poet. Each had the manners and address of the best society, but there was a commanding dignity in Charles which George could never reach. Instead of this, he had a calm, manly tone, and a power of gentle insinuation which was full of charm. Each had a winning smile, which outlived disease and hard wrestling with the world, and lingered around the lips when life was gone.

No term could be applied to both with more propriety than that of men of highly cultivated minds. But in this, also, their resemblances and differences were strongly marked and numerous. Charles laid the foundations of his scholarship in the Boston Latin School; and, passing from thence to the scholarly influences of Harvard, made himself friends in Greece and Rome, and drank at the "pure wells of English undefiled." George stopped on the threshold of his classical studies, and, as yet almost a boy, plunged into the vortex of active life. While Charles was studying men in books, George was studying them by daily intercourse, both to the same end, - that they might be useful to their fellow-men. It was natural, therefore, that one should be a close and independent observer of men and things, while the other saw them through the medium of other minds. Charles was the most assiduous reader I ever knew, and George the closest observer. An honorable ambition entered into the motives of both. Both met on the common ground of duty and principle. Quick in their sympathies, they keenly enjoyed the recognition of their companions in labor.

On all the great questions of the day they felt and thought alike. They were too much in earnest to talk for victory. The conversation of both was distinguished by variety and elegance; by exactness of

thought and richness of illustration. Firmness of purpose, elevation of aim, reverence for the good and holy, moral courage of the highest order, firm faith in the dignity of human nature, belonged to both alike; and to both alike belonged a definite purpose, which could neither be mistaken nor misunderstood, and for want of which many men, otherwise great, have lived and struggled in vain. Charles lived to accom

plish his purpose. Come what may, his place in history is secure. George fell by the way with longings which were never satisfied.

After this just and discriminating statement, graphic and individual, a true life-portrait drawn with an impartial fidelity, yet warm with affection, few words in addition are needed.

At the early age of forty-six, Mr. Sumner passed away. The brief period allotted to him was crowded with activity, and devoted to worthy ends. Thrown absolutely upon his own resources, he fought his way through difficulties, and made for himself a position in every country he visited. Returning to his own land with unusual acquirements, he consecrated them all to his country's service.

Still it may be asked, Was his life a success? If the acquisition of wealth or the holding of high office be the test of success, these certainly could not be claimed for him. If, however, to have led a life of industry, integrity, and honor; to have made the fullest use of every faculty and opportunity; to have won the confidence of men of genius, and the co-operation of the wisest and ablest minds; to have possessed the affection of as pure and true hearts as ever beat; to have been beloved, not only by his kindred, but by a wide circle both of young and old, through widely severed countries; and when struck down suddenly by disease, to have borne it with courage and fortitude, and at last to have met the end with a cheerful and confiding trust, if this be success, then such success was his.

MEMOIR

OF

REV. EDMUND HAMILTON SEARS, D.D.

BY CHANDLER ROBBINS.

EDMUND HAMILTON SEARS was born in Sandisfield, Berkshire County, Massachusetts, the sixth day of April, 1810. He was a descendant from the Pilgrim, Richard Sears, who came over with the last company of the Leyden exiles, and landed at Plymouth, May 8, 1630.*

His father was a farmer in moderate circumstances, but intelligent, independent, public-spirited, of sound judgment and sturdy integrity. Though without the advantage of early education, he was fond of reading good books and had an almost passionate admiration for poetry. He was virtually the founder of the Sandisfield town library, and was honored by his fellow-citizens with various important trusts. The following notices of his character and of some of the incidents of the early life of his son are found among the papers of the latter. It is to be regretted that these autobiographical memoranda are so few:

"My memory reaches back very distinctly to the time when I was five years old, and I have some dreamy impressions of something anterior to that date. My father was then in very moderate, even straitened, circumstances. My mother was industrious and frugal, but she appreciated well the advantages of education, and always kept us at school.

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My father was a man of sound judgment and very strong feeling. Though his early education was scanty, he became a man of considerable information, and had some taste for books. He had a natural love for poetry, and I have no doubt that was one of the circumstances which went to determine my tastes and pursuits. My earliest recollections are associated with his reading, or rather chanting of poetry,

*The patronymic was variously spelled: Sarre, Sarres, Syer, Sayer, Scears, Seers, Sears. The last mode of spelling was adopted by the children of Richard.

for he never read without a sort of sing-song tone. He was a great admirer of Pope's Iliad, and would read it by the hour. Sometimes when busily engaged he would break out in a chant of several lines from that poem; and the lines,

"Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring,' &c.,

became familiar to me before I knew aught else of the Grecian hero. And the lines,

"Haste, on thy life, and fly these hostile plains,
Nor ask presumptuous what the king detains,'

became nursery rhymes, and I was afterward surprised to find them in Homer. He was also a great admirer of Watts's Lyrics, and some of them he was for ever repeating. Almost the first emotion of the sublime that was ever awakened in me was by hearing him read with great gusto one of Watts's Psalms, declaring it equal to Homer. It is the nineteenth. The original ought to inspire any translator who had but a single spark of genius. I recollect a few lines to this day, which would not out of my memory. Homer's description of Jupiter giving the nod is indeed tame in comparison, or the descent of the gods, and their taking part in the engagement, in the twelfth book of the Iliad. The following are passages of the psalm:

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"To earth he came, the heavens before him bowed,

Beneath his feet deep midnight stretched her shroud:
Cherubic hosts his sun-bright chariot form,

His wings the whirlwind, and his voice the storm.
Around his car thick clouds their curtains spread,
And wrapped the conclave in a boundless shade.

"Before His path o'erwhelming splendors came,
The clouds dissolved, all nature felt the flame,
From his dread throne a voice in thunder broke,
The wide world trembled when the Eternal spoke.'

"About this time my father brought home from the library Pope's Works, in two volumes, and I was completely bewitched by the harmony of the numbers. I was just old enough to be charmed with sound without sense, and the Pastorals' I thought equal to the music of the spheres.

"Sappho to Phaon' and 'Eloise to Abélard' I thought incomparable, and would almost have given my life to have written the 6 Messiah' or 'Windsor Forest.' Afterward I began to read Pope's Homer myself, and became so familiar with its contents that I could repeat whole books from beginning to end.

"This rhyming propensity, early waked up within me by Pope, proved a benefit to me of a kind which I was then little aware of. It did not, as I then thought it would, make me immortal, but it gave me a command of the English language such as I could not have gained by being drilled, during these romantic years of boyhood, through all the Latin class-books in existence.

"In puzzling my head to find a word that rhymed, I was taking the best course to enlarge my vocabulary and acquire a graceful and nervous style. My ear became unusually quick to the harmonies of language, and I do not think I could have had a more profitable exercise in the best classical school in New England. I was mastering the English tongue, and making it flexible as a medium of thought, without any disgusting associations of crabbed lessons and pedagogues.

"The most profitable works furnished me by the public library. books of history, biography, and travels were read by me with increasing interest and excited many high resolves and bright anticipations. Such books as Waldo's Lives of Perry and Decatur, and the Life of Putnam, caused many a throb of patriotism and made me quite proud of my country. But all along I had aspirations which my natural shyness would not suffer me to disclose. I actually fell to sermonizing when not more than twelve years old, and among others wrote a discourse in full from Luke xvi. 25, which I delivered to a full assembly of alder-bushes, but which no one else ever heard. My manuscripts were all carefully hidden away from the family for fear of ridicule, to which I was keenly alive. I copied Governor Brooks's message entire and delivered it to the Legislature of both Houses assembled in imaginary conclave. I had pleadings and counter-pleadings before imaginary judges, and, in fine, there was nothing in the department of law, theology, or of poetry over which my fancy did not rove for laurels.

"But all this time I was kept steadily at work on my father's farm. My father had become engrossed in public business; my elder brother had gone South; my other brother, a year and a half older than myself, was left with me exclusively to take charge of affairs at home."

It is seldom that the circumstances which shape the character of the future man are so distinctly seen as in the case of Mr. Sears. In addition to those which are brought to view in the foregoing reminiscence, not only the pure and simple habits of the guardians and companions of his childhood (which constituted the healthful moral atmosphere which he breathed) but also the grand and beautiful scenery of his native place had a not unimportant part. The mountains, among which Sandisfield lies embosomed, especially impressed his youthful imagination. He looked upon them at first with a feeling of veneration which was afterward mingled with love. He referred to them often in conversation with evident delight, and their images frequently reappear in his writings. They were evidently associated with his early religious feelings, and seem almost to have had a subtile connection with his youthful consecration to his Master's service. He fondly clung to their old Indian names, and regarded with indignation the proposal to substitute for them