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pation for hours of leisure,- of instructing the minds and forming the intellectual character, not merely of the generation now rising, but of that which shall take their places, when the heads of those dear children, who so lately passed in happy review before you, shall be as gray as mine, and of other generations still more distant, who shall plant kind flowers on our graves, it is the property you have laid up in this investment, which will embalm your name in the blessings of posterity, when granite and marble shall crumble to dust. Moth and rust shall not corrupt it; they might as easily corrupt the pure white portals of the heavenly city, where "every several gate is of one pearl." Thieves shall not break through and steal it; they might as easily break through the vaulted sky, and steal the brightest star in the firmament.

The great sententious poet has eulogized the "Man of Ross" the man of practical, unostentatious benevolence above all the heroes and statesmen of the Augustan Age of England. He asks —

"Who hung with woods the mountain's sultry brow?
From the dry rock, who bade the waters flow?

Not to the skies in useless columns tost,

Or in proud falls magnificently lost,

But clear and artless, pouring through the plain
Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.”

But your Man of Ross, my friends, has taught a nobler stream to flow through his native village—the bubbling, sparkling, mind-refreshing, soul-cheering stream, which renews while it satisfies the generous thirst for knowledge, that strong, unquenchable thirst "that from the soul doth rise," which gains new eagerness from the draught that allays it, forever returning though forever slaked, to the cool, deep fountains of eternal truth.

You well recollect, my Danvers friends, the 16th of June, 1852, when you assembled to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the separation of Danvers from the parent stock. Your pleasant village arrayed herself that day in her holiday robes. Her resident citizens with one accord took part in the

festivities. Many of her children, dispersed through the Union, returned that day to the homestead. One long absent was wanting, whom you would gladly have seen among you. But you had not forgotten him, nor he you. He was beyond the sea, absent in body, but present in spirit and in kindly remembrance. In reply to your invitation, he returned, as the custom is, a letter of acknowledgment, inclosing a sealed paper, with an indorsement setting forth that it contained Mr. Peabody's sentiment, and was not to be opened till the toasts were proposed at the public dinner. The time arrived,· the paper was opened, and it contained the following sound and significant sentiment: "Education, -a debt due from the present to future generations."

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Now we all know that, on an occasion of this kind, a loose slip of paper such as a sentiment is apt to be written on, is in danger of being lost; a puff of air is enough to blow it away. Accordingly, just by way of paper-weight, and to keep the toast safe on the table, and also to illustrate his view of this new way of paying old debts, Mr. Peabody laid down twenty thousand dollars on the top of his sentiment; and, for the sake of still greater security, has since added about as much more. Hence, no doubt, it has come to pass, that this excellent sentiment has sunk deep into the minds of our Danvers friends, and has, I suspect, mainly contributed to the honors and pleasures of this day.

But I have occupied, Mr. President, much more than my share of your time; and, on taking my seat, I will only congratulate you on this joyous occasion, as I congratulate our friend and guest, at having had it in his power to surround himself with so many smiling faces and warm hearts.

OBITUARY NOTICE OF MR. DOWSE.*

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

MR. DOWSE lived but a few months after the transfer of his library to the Massachusetts Historical Society, which forms the subject of the remarks on page 417 of this volume. He died at his residence in Cambridgeport, on Tuesday the 4th of November, 1856, in the eighty-fourth year of his age. An appropriate communication of this event was made to the Historical Society by its President, (Hon. R. C. Winthrop,) at the next monthly meeting on the 13th of November, after which Mr. Everett spoke as follows:

THE event to which you have alluded, Mr. President, in such feeling and appropriate terms, calls upon the Historical Society to perform the last duty of respect and gratitude to our most distinguished benefactor, as you have justly called him. Since we last met in this place, he has paid the great debt of nature, and it now devolves upon us to pay the last debt to his memory, by placing upon our records a final and emphatic expression of the deep sense we entertain of the excellent qualities of his character, the liberality and refinement of his pursuits, and especially of the munificence and public spirit evinced in the disposal of his library. You have already, Mr. President, said all that the occasion requires; and I am not without fear that I may seem to overstep the limits of propriety, in doing more than lay upon your table the resolutions which I hold in my hand. I have so recently

Remarks made at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical Society on the 13th of November, 1856, being the next monthly meeting after the death of Thomas Dowse, Esq.

spoken to you on the subject of Mr. Dowse, that I may seem to monopolize that pleasing office, to which so many gentlemen present are fully competent to do justice. But it is many years, — an entire generation,- since my acquaintance and my friendly relations with him began. I saw the progress of his library, not certainly from its commencement, for that took place more than sixty years ago (he told me himself that he devoted his first earnings to the purchase of books), but from a time when it had not reached half its present size. In earlier life, I passed many happy, perhaps I may venture to say profitable, hours in it, consulting choice volumes not elsewhere accessible to me at that time, and I cannot repress the desire, before this occasion is swept down the current of human affairs, -to dwell a moment on the recollection.

I will not, however, take up again the train of remark which occupied our thoughts when the Society was called together on the fifth of August. I shall ever look back to that meeting, at which Mr. Dowse's intention to bestow his library upon the Historical Society was announced to us, as one of the interesting occasions of my life. This collection had, for at least sixty years, been in progress of formation,for half that period its value had been known to the public. Mr. Dowse's personal career and history awakened interest,— the manner in which he acquired his beautiful gallery of water-color paintings,- his persistence in increasing his library, the uncommonly select character of his books, these were circumstances, which, at least for a quarter of a century, had given his collection a certain celebrity. It was an object of curiosity, - it was justly deemed a privilege to have access to it, strangers were taken to see it; and the inquiry, "what will Mr. Dowse, being childless, do with his library," had, I imagine, passed through the mind of most persons who knew its value. But, amidst all the conjectures as to the mode in which it would be disposed of, I presume that it never occurred to any one that he would dispossess himself of it while he lived. If ever there was a "ruling passion," it actuated him in reference to his books, -it led him, impelled him, to devote his spare time, his thoughts, his means, to the

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formation of his library, and, in obedience to that law of our nature by which, according to poets and moralists,

"We feel the ruling passion strong in death,"

no one, I presume, ever thought for a moment that Mr. Dowse, while he lived, would divest himself of his property in it; no one doubted that he would cling to that, with a pardonable intellectual avarice, with his dying grasp, and that when he was gone, it would perhaps be told of him that he had exclaimed, in his last moments,

"Not that, I cannot part with that,' — and died."

But Mr. Dowse felt and acted otherwise. Endowed, in many respects, with superior energy of character and firmness of purpose, we beheld him, in the course of the last summer, his bodily strength indeed failing, but in the full enjoyment of his mental powers, calmly divesting himself of the ownership of this much loved library,—the great work of his life, the scene and the source of all his enjoyments, — and placing it, without reserve, under the control of others. He had reason, no doubt, sir, as you have intimated, to feel confident, that, while he lived, the delicacy and gratitude of the Society would leave it in his undisturbed possession; but he made no stipulation to that effect, he gave it in absolute and immediate ownership to the Society.

But I believe, sir, our friend and benefactor reaped, even during the short remainder of his life, the reward of this noble effort. I had the privilege of an interview with him a few days after the donation was consummated, and my own observation confirmed the testimony of our much valued associate, Mr. Livermore, who saw him daily, and your own impression, that he seemed to find relief- to derive strength-from the completion of this arrangement; and that, in a state of health in which continued existence hangs upon a thread, it had very possibly added some weeks of tranquil satisfaction to his life. I have not seen him for years in a happier frame of mind than he appeared to me that day.

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