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spirited and sensitive man.

Work, however, came to his relief, and in Holland, in spite of failing health, he did his last historical work, "The Life and Death of John of Barneveld." The death of his wife in December, 1874, so far diminished his strength as to make further work almost impossible, and until his death, in 1877, his only attempt was to "create small occupations with which to fill the hours of a life which was only valued for his children's sake."

Much that is painful in Motley's career can plainly be attributed to the wellknown hatred of the average man for the learning, refinement, nobility of bearing and of character which seem to reproach him for his own lack of them.

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CALEB CUSHING

It is with some hesitation that the name of Cushing is here included, because he was best known as a publicist and jurist, although he wrote somewhat in a distinctly literary, if unimaginative vein, and was of high scholarly attainment. Perhaps it would be fair to say that he was a better scholar than writer, since greatness of acquisition often precludes freedom of expression. Even when a child his desire for learning was insatiable, and his capacity boundless. It is told of him that on his appointment to the Supreme Bench of Massachusetts, he scoured the rust off his legal training by carefully going over the Reports of that State at the rate of three volumes a day, until in nineteen days he had finished the task. The chin and lower jaw of his powerful, yet handsome face, gave indication of his aggressive, persistent nature. To other strong qualities must be added a prodigious memory and a limitless ambition; and through this ambition, sometimes clumsily exercised, Cushing's career fell short of its greatest possibilities. It would be stupid to

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call him selfish; he was straightforward and honorable enough, but his desire to attain left him without the niceness to discern when it was wise to remain momentarily in the background.

At twenty-five he was the author of a history of Newburyport, where he had gone to practice law three years earlier. Soon he published "The Practical Principles of Political Economy," and wrote frequently for the North American Review on subjects ranging from the "Decameron" to Bigelow's "Florula Bostoniensis." A year or so of observant travel enabled him to put forth two works, each in two volumes, the one on Reminiscences in Spain," the other a "Review of the late Revolution in France." Then followed busy years in politics and legal practice, until in 1843, rejected as Secretary of the Treasury under Tyler, he was made a commissioner to China, and in the following year negotiated the first treaty between that country and this.

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Forty years after the appearance of those books which stood for the result of

his European experience, he published another on the Treaty of Washington, a natural sequence of his services at Geneva and of his adverse opinion of Lord Cockburn, one of the British arbitrators. Swift upon this came his appointment, in 1873, to Spain, which he accepted with some reluctance. Cushing had been president of the Charleston Convention of 1860, yet in a little more than a decade, with loyalty to the dominant party still running high, he was nominated by Grant to the Chief Justiceship of the United States. In spite of the great services which he had rendered the country, especially during the Geneva arbitration, public protest obliged a withdrawal of his name. There was, however, no lack of admiration for Cushing's great knowledge of external affairs, and of international law. As a publicist he was much respected, and his appointment as Minister to Spain met with approval.

Cushing's normal career was political, and what little ambition for literature he may have cherished was laid aside after he had passed beyond the academic impressions received at Harvard College, from which he was graduated in 1817. Though, from lack of imaginative force, and from the pressure of a busy life, he had left the ranks of letters before his political and diplomatic successes came to him, he retained one form of scholarly ability-an extraordinary skill and accuracy in languages. It was long remembered, with national pride, that his argument in Geneva was made in admirable French. Even when Attorney-General under Pierce, from 1853 to 1857, he was able to sustain conversation with the foreign ministers in their own tongues. There is no biography of Caleb Cushing; there probably never will be a need for such a work: for in a great national crisis he was not to be found among those who, at much personal sacrifice, tried wisely to shape the

country's courses. He seemed devoid of moral enthusiasm.

BAYARD TAYLOR

His first experience in diplomacy ended in disappointment to Bayard Taylor; his second and more important mission was an almost unalloyed satisfaction to him, though it brought him to his death. Like Boker, he was serviceable to the cause of the Union, and reward came to him more quickly than to the other Pennsylvanian, in the shape of an appointment as Secretary of Legation to Russia. To secure material for future writing was one undisguised motive for his acceptance of the secretaryship under Simon Cameron. His astonishing facility for languages stood by him, and four days after his arrival in St. Petersburg he was making bargains in Russian. With the Camerons he was in happy relation, and he seemed to enjoy the exactions of imperial society without feeling obliged to confess himself bored by undemocratic splendor. The secret hope of every secretary is that his minis-, ter will develop an impelling need of rest and travel. Diplomatic relaxation of this sort is apt to mean that the Secretary in the interim is Chargé d'affaires. good fortune came not unexpectedly to Taylor by the return of Mr. Cameron to this country. Something less than a promise, but more than a hope, had led the Chargé to believe that he would be finally appointed to the full rank and dignity of Minister. While not a politician, he understood his work, and was altogether in Russia that "pleasing person" by whom diplomacy sets so much store. In spite of a lack of influence outside the friendly words of literary companions, he dared to hope; but at last, realizing the futility of his aspirations, he began to lose what little political ambition he had begun to cherish. "I

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sigh for my felt hat and swear at my uniform every time I put it on," he writes to Mrs. Stoddard. During all this time, with his indefatigable energy, he found opportunity to devote himself to his novel, "Hannah Thurston," and also to various poetical enterprises. His "Poet's Journal," published while he was in Russia, was, to his mortification, interpreted as a sort of transcript of his personal experiences. Cassius M. Clay, who had resigned this post before Cameron's appointment, was again selected for Russia, and Taylor at once resigned as secretary. Intellectually, if not politically, Russia had benefited Taylor.

Between this experience and the last and greatest of his life, Taylor worked incredibly hard, but really against wind and tide.

Ill health in various forms assailed him at times; in spite of his toil, the need of money harassed him; and worse than all, the higher quality of his literary performance failed to remunerate him, as had the earlier books to which he now looked back with something stronger than misgivings. Lecturing, which he had never liked, ceased to be a satisfactory means of making up his deficits. As if in anticipation of his last visit, Taylor went in 1872 to Germany to begin his lives of Schiller and Goethe. On his return he again plunged into lecturing, and in six months cleared eleven thousand dollars, but he was so completely weary of thus knocking about, that after a respite of twenty years from newspaper work, he went back to a desk in the Tribune office. He was rapidly nearing some end, yet still toiling with his superhuman, but no longer buoyant, energy. In 1877 he writes to Lanier as being "weary, fagged, with sore spots under the collar bone, and all sorts of indescribable symptoms." Early in the next year Bayard Taylor received the appointment of Minister to Germany. So incessant and pressing were the congratulations

in the shape of letters, visits and public dinners, that when the new Minister was alone at last in his stateroom, he found that he had barely escaped with his life. It was no secret that Taylor wanted the appointment in order to devote himself to the preparation of his "Goethe." This being so, President Hayes's choice was the most frank recognition of literature as a motive in our diplomatic service ever shown an out-going diplomatist. Taylor enjoyed his duties-social and diplomatic; three months before his death he wrote gaily to a friend: "I shall wear a stovepipe hat of twice the usual size (which indicates a foreign minister), a black velvet coat, embroidered with gold, blue satin vest, lemon-tinted pantaloons, pearly-gray gloves, patent-leather boots, with gilded tips, and a white cravat fastened with a sapphire brooch, . . . but I am not proud." In December of the same year he died, literally of over-work, not from any special task, but from accumulated years of remunerative drudgery. The "stuff of life" for which he craved was taken from him. He lived long enough to see a copy of his greatest single poem, "Prince Deukalion." All his life a traveler, his last words were, "I must be away." Taylor was of extraordinary versatility, but he lacked true philosophy, else he would have lived more peacefully and wisely on the ample sums which he so easily earned. Already he has ceased to be among the lasting names of our literary history. Yet he was essentially an American man of letters. As a journalist he is said not to have been popular, but he held the esteem of most of his contemporaries, and the love of such men as Whittier and Longfellow. In the public mind he was, when he lived, a fascinating and eventful figure, too full of present force and vitality, of too little persuasive calm and strength, not to be soon forgotten.

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GEORGE HENRY BOKER

There were convincing reasons why George Henry Boker was a good man to send to Turkey in 1871 and in 1875 to Russia. He had had an excellent political training, and had been a loyal supporter of the Union cause during the Civil War. His reputation as a scholar and man of cultivation was soundly established. He was, moreover, a gentleman both in appearance and in fact-uneffusive if not reserved-one of the type, in short, which we like to call "American." it was no wonder that the Union League of Philadelphia, of which he was one of the earliest members, sought to pay him distinguished honor on his departure in 1871. Boker had worked unremittingly to make the influence of the Union League powerful for loyalty. To the force and insight of his annual reports while secretary, Morton McMichael paid an extended tribute. The desire to honor Mr. Boker led his fellowcitizens to outdo themselves. The banquet room was a "scene of bounteous splendor which has probably never been equalled in Philadelphia." Wayne MacVeagh, his predecessor, touched on "his unfailing courage," while Bayard Taylor, long his friend in literary paths, spoke for his associates in letters:

Who, knowing him as man and poet long, As man and poet claim to love him best. There is no continuous account of Boker's diplomatic services. His friend, Charles G. Leland, speaks of the cleanliness of his political life abroad. While they were in Egypt, Leland addressed Boker as "Your Holiness," and replied to an astonished official who questioned him as to the title, that all Americans were appointed on the ground of their personal piety. The official replied that Boker was the first convincing instance of this practice which he had met. In Russia he made a most favorable impres

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sion. Prince Gortchakof's regret at his departure is well known. Through this statesman Boker was enabled to checkmate Spain in the "Virginius" affair, and even to bring about an apology from her to the United States. Of Boker, Ignatieff said once: "He is a man composed of true diplomatic stuff."

Born in 1823 and a graduate of Princeton, he chose without much delay the career of letters. In 1856 his dramas and also his poems were brought out in two volumes, which in 1869 had passed to a third edition. His renown as a dramatist was practically at its height before the war broke out. R. H. Stoddard has called him the "creator of our poetic drama." With the war began a new phase of his literary life-the writing of patriotic songs, of a popular, inspiriting and yet not sensational type. "On Board the Cumberland," "The Black Regiment" and "The Ballad of New Orleans" had their day of influence, and deserve security from oblivion by an occasional reprinting in our patriotic an

thologies. There was an element of deliberation in Boker's thus stepping aside from his social fastnesses to enter the lists as a writer of war songs. Someone in the Atlantic Monthly points out that Boker sedulously tried to show that one might observe all social usages and yet devote himself earnestly to literature. He recognized, doubtless, the old antagonism between "society" and the life of the imagination. Excellent as some of his work has been, especially in his sonnets, it is undeniable that Boker's work has not been taken with entire seriousness; the division of his abilities between two such divergent exactions explains in part his lack of a fast reputation. He was versatile beyond question, even attaining to a high degree of skill as a mechanic.

His personal appearance had something to do with his successes. Early in his life Willis had declared him "the handsomest man in America." He was six feet in height, and Leland calls him "distingué," and, again," the American Sidney of his time." Modesty was characteristic of him, and he never was first to allude to his writings. In his shyness he has been compared to Hawthorne.

During his missions he found little time for literature. In 1882, three years after his return from Russia, he issued a volume of sonnets, his latest work. He had in his prime, according to Stoddard, the essentials of great ability, " fecundity of conception and rapidity of execution."

As a representative American abroad he was irreproachable, and in attainments and social training he has been favorably compared with Motley. "Respectability" may have proved his bane in literature, though it was the mainspring of his social and political life.

JOHN LEAVITT STEVENS

Law has been the main road to success

in American politics and statesmanship; literature seems to have been in many cases a natural avenue to service abroad. The career of John L. Stevens was progressive from the desk of a Maine newspaper to the filling of two important foreign missions. Ill health compelled him to give up his duties as a clergyman and at thirty-five years of age he was associated with James G. Blaine in the editing of the Kennebec Journal. Later he became editor-in-chief, and held the position for many years. In 1870 he was sent as minister resident to Uruguay and Paraguay. His political abilities were of the persuasive order, and enabled him to bring about peaceful relations in disaffected portions of South America, to the distinct advantage of American interests. in that troublous portion of the earth. One is reminded here of the earlier yet important services rendered in Spanish-American disputes by Squier and the other John L. Stephens, whose valuable lives are necessarily excluded by the limitations of the present sketches. He remained only until 1873, though he might have remained longer had he chosen to do so. From 1877 to 1883 he was minister resident to Sweden and Norway; and during this period he wrote his. "History of Gustavus Adolphus." On this single volume rests Mr. Stevens's claim to be here introduced, but it by no means represents the sum of his intellectual attainments. He was a ready master of languages, a diligent student of literature, pure and applied, and left at his death in 1895 an excellent historical library. The "Gustavus Adolphus" was received with commendation, even by the Nation, with the qualification that Mr. Stevens had succeeded better as a biographer than as a historian. It was a creditable work, and preserved the traditions of our representatives who have wisely brought back from abroad some intellectual fruit of their labors.

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