GREAT AMERICAN HISTORIANS AND BIOGRAPHERS. (continued 2)

At two o’clock the company rose from the table. The Prince led the way, intending to pass to his private apartments above. The dining-room, which was on the ground floor, opened into a little, square vestibule, which communicated through an arched passage-way with the main entrance into the courtyard. The vestibule was also directly at the foot of the wooden staircase leading to the next floor, and was scarcely six feet in width. Upon its left side, as one approached the stairway, was an obscure arch sunk deep in the wall, and completely in shadow of the door. Behind this arch a portal opened to the narrow lane at the side of the house. The stairs themselves were completely lighted by a large window half-way up the flight.

The Prince came from the dining-room, and began leisurely to ascend. He had only reached the second stair, when a man emerged from the sunken arch, and, standing within a foot or two of him, discharged a pistol full at his heart. Three balls entered his body, one of which, passing quite through him, struck with violence upon the wall beyond. The Prince exclaimed in French, as he felt the wound: “O my God, have mercy upon my soul! O my God, have mercy upon this poor people!” These were the last words he ever spake, save that when his sister immediately afterwards asked him if he commended his soul to Jesus Christ, he faintly answered, “Yes.” His master-of-horse had caught him in his arms as the fatal shot was fired.

The Prince was then placed on the stairs for an instant, when he immediately began to swoon. He was afterwards laid upon a couch in the dining-room, where in a few minutes he breathed his last in the arms of his wife and sister.

JOHN FISKE.

DISTINGUISHED LECTURER AND HISTORIAN.

T may be doubted whether even Macaulay exhibited more precocious ability than did the man who for thirty years has held a foremost place among the philosophers and historians of our country. The boy who read Cæsar and Rollin and Josephus at seven, who translated Greek at twelve by the aid of a dictionary which gave only the Latin equivalents of Greek words, who at seventeen had read the whole of Virgil, Horace, Tacitus, Sallust, Suetonius, and much of Livy, Cicero, Ovid, Catullus, and Juvenal, and at the same time knew his mathematics up to and including much of the work of the sophomore year in college, could read the Greek of Plato and Herodotus at sight, kept a diary in Spanish, and read German, French, Italian and Portuguese easily, surely this was one of the boys remarkable in the history of the world. Not only was John Fiske able to work for twelve hours a day and for twelve months in the year at his studies, but in spite of this strenuous application he was able to maintain vigorous health and to enter with enthusiasm into outdoor life.

Mr. Fiske was born in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1842. His original name was Edmund Fiske Green, but when his widowed mother became the wife of Edwin W. Stoughton, he took the name of one of his maternal ancestors and was henceforth known as John Fiske. Until he entered Harvard in 1860 he was an inmate of his grandmother’s home in Middletown, Connecticut. But since that time he has lived almost continuously in Cambridge. After being graduated from Harvard College he spent two years in the law school and opened an office in Boston. He never devoted much attention to the practice of law, however, and used his office mainly as a convenient literary workshop. He had been married while in the law school, and from the first his family depended for support upon his diligence and success as a writer.

His literary work has taken two main directions, his most noted books being studies in evolutionary philosophy and treatises upon special features of American history. For a number of years he was connected with the faculty at Harvard, as lecturer or instructor, and he was for seven years Assistant Librarian, but since 1879 he has only been associated with the University as a member of its Board of Overseers. Thirty-five lectures on the Doctrine of Evolution, delivered at Harvard in 1871, were afterwards expanded and published under the title of “Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy.” Two of his most notable papers are “The Destiny of Man” and “The Idea of God,” but Mr. Fiske is best known for the fresh and vigorous delightful and philosophical way in which he has written of American history. His principal books in this department are “The Beginnings of New England;” “The American Revolution;” “The Discovery of America,” and “The Critical Period of American History.” He has written somewhat for young people, notably “The War of Independence,” and perhaps has conferred no greater favor on his youthful countrymen than in the preparation of two school books, “Civil Government in the United States” and “A History of the United States.” Certainly there could be no more delightful innovation than the way in which he introduces his young student to the philosophy of government. He tells a lively story of the siege and final surrender of a mediæval town, and how the citizen delegated to make the capitulation, a lean, lank, half-starved stuttering fellow, replied to the question of why they had rebelled, with the significant phrase, “Tut-tut-tut-too much taxes.”

The boy who reads this at the opening of his text-book is not likely to imagine that his subject is a dry and uninteresting one, and is ready to accept the author’s definition of government as the power that lays taxes. These books of Mr. Fiske’s, with his numerous contributions to periodicals and his lectures before large audiences in many cities, have done more than perhaps is due to any other one man to make the study of American history popular, and to spread among our people sound ideas on the theory of our government. With his vigorous health and wonderful activity it would seem that very much more is still to be expected from a man who has already done so much, and it is entirely safe to predict that the name of John Fiske will stand in the literary history of this time as one of the most remarkable, most fertile, and most useful men of his age.

LAND DISCOVERED.¹

FROM “THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.”

Y September 25th, the Admiral’s chief difficulty had come to be the impatience of his crews at not finding land. On that day there was a mirage, or some such illusion, which Columbus and all hands supposed to be a coast in front of them, and hymns of praise were sung, but at dawn next day they were cruelly undeceived. Flights of strange birds and other signs of land kept raising hopes which were presently dashed again, and the men passed through alternately hot and cold fits of exultation and dejection. Such mockery seemed to show that they were entering a realm of enchantment. Somebody, perhaps one of the released jail-birds, hinted that if a stealthy thrust should happen some night to push the Admiral overboard, it could be plausibly said that he had slipped and fallen while star-gazing. His situation grew daily more perilous, and the fact that he was an Italian commanding Spaniards did not help him. Perhaps what saved him was their vague belief in his superior knowledge; they may have felt that they should need him in going back....

At daybreak the boats were lowered and Columbus, with a large part of his company, went ashore. Upon every side were trees of unknown kinds, and the landscape seemed exceedingly beautiful. Confident that they must have attained the object for which they set sail, the crews were wild with exultation. Their heads were dazed with fancies of princely fortunes close at hand. The officers embraced Columbus or kissed his hands, while the sailors threw themselves at his feet, craving pardon and favor.

These proceedings were watched with unutterable amazement and awe by a multitude of men, women and children of cinnamon hue, different from any kind of people the Spaniards had ever seen. All were stark naked and most of them were more or less greased and painted. They thought that the ships were sea-monsters and the white men supernatural creatures descended from the sky. At first they fled in terror as these formidable beings came ashore, but presently, as they found themselves unmolested, curiosity began to overcome fear, and they slowly approached the Spaniards, stopping at every few paces to prostrate themselves in adoration. After a time, as the Spaniards received them with encouraging nods and smiles, they waxed bold enough to come close to the visitors and pass their hands over them, doubtless to make sure that all this marvel was reality and not a mere vision. Experiences in Africa had revealed the eagerness of barbarians to trade off their possessions for trinkets, and now the Spaniards began exchanging glass beads and hawks’ bells for cotton yarn, tame parrots, and small gold ornaments.

Some sort of conversation in dumb show went on, and Columbus naturally interpreted everything in such wise as to fit his theories. Whether the natives understood him or not when he asked them where they got their gold, at any rate they pointed to the south, and thus confirmed Columbus in his suspicion that he had come to some island a little to the north of the opulent Cipango. He soon found that it was a small island, and he understood the name of it to be Guanahani. He took formal possession of it for Castile, just as the discoverers of the Cape Verde islands and the Guinea coasts had taken possession of those places for Portugal; and he gave it a Christian name, San Salvador.

THE FEDERAL CONVENTION.¹

FROM “THE CRITICAL PERIOD OF AMERICAN HISTORY.”

HE Federal Convention did wisely in withholding its debates from the knowledge of the people. It was felt that discussion would be more untrammeled, and that its result ought to go before the country as the collective and unanimous voice of the convention.

There was likely to be wrangling enough among themselves; but should their scheme be unfolded, bit by bit, before its parts could be viewed in their mutual relations, popular excitement would become intense, there might be riots, and an end would be put to that attitude of mental repose so necessary for the constructive work that was to be done. It was thought best that the scheme should be put forth as a completed whole, and that for several years, even, until the new system of government should have had a fair trial, the traces of the individual theories and preferences concerned in its formation should not be revealed.

For it was generally assumed that a system of government new in some important respects would be proposed by the convention, and while the people awaited the result the wildest speculations and rumors were current. A few hoped, and many feared, that some scheme of monarchy would be established. Such surmises found their way across the ocean, and hopes were expressed in England that, should a king be chosen, it might be a younger son of George III. It was even hinted, with alarm, that, through gratitude to our recent allies, we might be persuaded to offer the crown to some member of the royal family of France. No such thoughts were entertained, however, by any person present in the convention. Some of the delegates came with the design of simply amending the articles of confederation by taking away from the States the power of regulating commerce, and intrusting this power to Congress. Others felt that if the work were not done thoroughly now another chance might never be offered; and these men thought it necessary to abolish the confederation and establish a federal republic, in which the general government should act directly upon the people. The difficult problem was how to frame a plan of this sort which people could be made to understand and adopt. At the very outset some of the delegates began to exhibit symptoms of that peculiar kind of moral cowardice which is wont to afflict free governments, and of which American history furnishes many instructive examples. It was suggested that palliatives and half-measures would be far more likely to find favor with the people than any thoroughgoing reform, when Washington suddenly interposed with a brief but immortal speech, which ought to be blazoned in letters of gold and posted on the wall of every American assembly that shall meet to nominate a candidate, or declare a policy, or pass a law, so long as the weakness of human nature endures. Rising from his President’s chair, his tall figure drawn up to its full height, he exclaimed in tones unwontedly solemn with suppressed emotion: “It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If, to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterward defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair; the event is in the hand of God.”

This outburst of noble eloquence carried conviction to every one, and henceforth we do not hear that any attempt was avowedly made to avoid the issues as they came up. It was a most wholesome tonic. It braced up the convention to high resolves, and impressed upon all the delegates that they were in a situation where faltering and trifling were both wicked and dangerous. From that moment the mood in which they worked caught something from the glorious spirit of Washington. There was need of such high purpose, for two plans were presently laid before the meeting, which, for a moment, brought out one of the chief elements of antagonism existing between the States, and which at first seemed irreconcilable. It was the happy compromise which united and harmonized these two plans that smoothed the further work of the convention, and made it possible for a stable and powerful government to be constructed.

JOHN BACH McMASTER.

HISTORIAN OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.

OHN BACH McMASTER is one of the few men who excel in widely different fields. To be a teacher of English grammar, a college instructor in civil engineering, to do the work of a specialist in the United States Coast Survey, to write a monumental history and to build up a great department in a leading university, surely this is a sufficiently long catalogue for a man forty-five years old. The father of Prof. McMaster was, at the beginning of the Civil War, a banker and planter at New Orleans. The son, however, grew up in the Northern metropolis, and was graduated at the College of the City of New York at the age of twenty, in 1872. After a year devoted to teaching grammar in that institution he took up the study of civil engineering, and began, in the autumn of 1873, the work of preparing his “History of the People of the United States from the Revolution to the Civil War.”

He was appointed, in 1877, Instructor in Civil Engineering at Princeton, and became, in 1883, Professor of American History in the University of Pennsylvania. Besides the four volumes of his “History” already published, he has written a “Life of Benjamin Franklin” for the “Men of Letters Series,” and has been a frequent contributor upon historical topics to the leading periodicals. His “History” is not a story of political intrigue, of the petty jealousies of neighboring communities, of our quarrels with each other or with the Indians, but tells in a clear and strikingly pictorial manner the story of the people themselves, of how they lived and dressed, what they ate, what were their pleasures, their social customs, how they worshipped, how they grew to be a mighty nation and became the people that we are. It is a wonderful story, and not only is every page filled with living interest, but any chapter might well be a monument to the painstaking accuracy, the devoted labor, the historical insight, and the literary skill of the author. But if Prof. McMaster has been in love with his work as a historian he has none the less been devoted to his office as an instructor of youth. During the years in which he has filled a chair in the University of Pennsylvania, the department of history of the United States has assumed such proportions that it may fairly claim to outrank any similar department in any other institution in the country. In this way and as a lecturer before bodies of teachers, Prof. McMaster has held a foremost place in the movement which has demanded, and successfully demanded, that in the lower schools greater attention shall be paid to the history and institutions of our own country, and which is bringing about a more intelligent patriotism and a widespread interest in the way in which we govern ourselves. The boy who applies for admission to the University of Pennsylvania, if he imagines that the history of his country consists of a list of dates of explorations, battles, and of presidents, and of the names of generals and politicians, will be astonished when he is asked to draw a map showing how the United States obtained the various portions of its territory, to tell what were the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, and to outline the relations between the President and the two houses of Congress in our government. But the trembling applicant will find his blundering answers leniently judged, and when he looks back from the eminence of his graduation day upon this time of trial, he will agree that the view of history taken by Prof. McMaster is the true one, and that no man has done more than he to bring the intelligent people of our time to that opinion.

THE AMERICAN WORKMAN IN 1784.¹

(FROM “A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.”)

HERE can, however, be no doubt that a wonderful amelioration has taken place since that day in the condition of the poor. Their houses were meaner, their food was coarser, their clothing was of commoner stuff; their wages were, despite the depreciation that has gone on in the value of money, lower by one-half than at present. A man who performed what would be called unskilled labor, who sawed wood, dug ditches, who mended roads, who mixed mortar, who carried boards to the carpenter and bricks to the mason, or helped to cut hay in harvest-time, usually received as the fruit of his daily toil two shillings. Sometimes when the laborers were few he was paid more, and became the envy of his fellows if at the end of a week he took home to his family fifteen shillings, a sum now greatly exceeded by four dollars. Yet all authorities agree that in 1784 the hire of workmen was twice as great as in 1774.

On such a pittance it was only by the strictest economy that a mechanic kept his children from starvation and himself from jail. In the low and dingy rooms which he called his home were wanting many articles of adornment and of use now to be found in the dwelling of the poorest of his class. Sand sprinkled on the floor did duty as a carpet. There was no glass on his table, there was no china in his cupboard, there were no prints on his wall. What a stove was he did not know, coal he had never seen, matches he had never heard of. Over a fire of fragments of barrels and boxes, which he lit with the sparks struck from a flint, or with live coals brought from a neighbor’s hearth, his wife cooked up a rude meal and served it in pewter dishes.

He rarely tasted fresh meat as often as once in a week, and paid for it a much higher price than his posterity. Everything, indeed, which ranked as a staple of life was very costly. Corn stood at three shillings the bushel, wheat at eight and six pence, an assize of bread was four pence, a pound of salt pork was ten pence. Many other commodities now to be seen on the tables of the poor were either quite unknown or far beyond the reach of his scanty purse. Unenviable is the lot of that man who cannot, in the height of the season, when the wharfs and markets are heaped with baskets and crates of fruit, spare three cents for a pound of grapes, or five cents for as many peaches, or, when Sunday comes round, indulge his family with watermelons or cantaloupes. One hundred years ago the wretched fox-grape was the only kind that found its way to market, and was the luxury of the rich. Among the fruits and vegetables of which no one had then even heard are cantaloupes, many varieties of peaches and pears, tomatoes and rhubarb, sweet corn, the cauliflower, the eggplant, head lettuce, and okra. On the window benches of every tenement-house may be seen growing geraniums and verbenas, flowers not known a century ago. In truth, the best-kept gardens were then rank with hollyhocks and sunflowers, roses and snowballs, lilacs, pinks, tulips, and, above all, the Jerusalem cherry, a plant once much admired, but now scarcely seen.

If the food of an artisan would now be thought coarse, his clothes would be thought abominable. A pair of yellow buckskin or leathern breeches, a checked shirt, a red flannel jacket, a rusty felt hat cocked up at the corners, shoes of neats-skin set off with huge buckles of brass, and a leathern apron, comprised his scanty wardrobe. The leather he smeared with grease to keep it soft and flexible. His sons followed in his footsteps, and were apprenticed to neighboring tradesmen. His daughter went out to service. She performed, indeed, all the duties at present exacted from women of her class; but with them were coupled many others rendered useless by the great improvement that has taken place in the conveniences of life.

She mended the clothes, she did up the ruffs, she ran on errands from one end of the town to the other, she milked the cows, made the butter, walked ten blocks for a pail of water, spun flax for the family linen, and, when the year was up, received ten pounds for her wages. Yet, small as was her pay, she had, before bestowing herself in marriage upon the footman or the gardener, laid away in her stocking enough guineas and joes to buy a few chairs, a table, and a bed.

“THE MINISTER IN NEW ENGLAND.”¹

(FROM “A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.”)

IGH as the doctors stood in the good graces of their fellow-men, the ministers formed a yet more respected class of New England society. In no other section of the country had religion so firm a hold on the affections of the people. Nowhere else were men so truly devout, and the ministers held in such high esteem. It had, indeed, from the days of the founders of the colony been the fashion among New Englanders to look to the pastor with profound reverence, not unmingled with awe. He was not to them as other men were. He was the just man made perfect; the oracle of divine will; the sure guide to truth. The heedless one who absented himself from the preaching on a Sabbath was hunted up by the tithing-man, was admonished severely, and, if he still persisted in his evil ways, was fined, exposed in the stocks, or imprisoned in the cage. To sit patiently on the rough board seats while the preacher turned his hour-glass for the third time, and with his voice husky from shouting, and the sweat pouring in streams down his face, went on for an hour more, was a delectable privilege. In such a community the authority of the reverend man was almost supreme. To speak disrespectfully concerning him, to jeer at his sermons, or to laugh at his odd ways, was sure to bring down on the offender a heavy fine. His advice was often sought on matters of State, nor did he hesitate to give, unasked, his opinion on what he considered the arbitrary acts of the high functionaries of the province. In the years immediately preceding the war the power of the minister in matters of government and politics had been greatly impaired by the rise of that class of laymen in the foremost ranks of which stood Otis and Hancock and Samuel Adams. Yet his ♦spiritual influence was as great as ever. He was still a member of the most learned and respected class in a community by no means ignorant. He was a divine, and came of a family of divines. Not a few of the preachers who witnessed the Revolution could trace descent through an unbroken line of ministers, stretching back from son to father for three generations, to some canting, psalm-singing Puritan who bore arms with distinction on the great day at Naseby, or had prayed at the head of Oliver’s troops, and had, at the restoration, when the old soldiers of the protector were turning their swords into reaping-hooks and their pikes into pruning-knives, come over to New England to seek that liberty of worship not to be found at home. Such a man had usually received an education at Harvard or at Yale, and would in these days be thought a scholar of high attainments.