of the mind is served up to all alike, as Spartans served their food upon the public table. Here young Ambition climbs its little ladder, and boyish Genius plumes his half-fledged wings. From among these laughing children will go forth the men who are to control their age and country; the statesman, whose wisdom is to guide the senate; the poet, who will take captive the hearts of the people, and bind them together with immortal song; the philosopher, who, boldly seizing upon the elements themselves, will compel them to his wishes, and, through new combinations of their primal laws, by some great discovery, revolutionize both art and science.*

Until his eighth or ninth year Seargent continued so lame that he could only walk by means of crutches; a little carriage was, therefore, provided, and for several winters his elder brother was in the habit of drawing him to and from school. At length, he was able to move freely by the help of a single cane. No sooner was this the case than he conceived the greatest passion for roaming abroad in the fields and woods,--but especially for gunning and fishing. The principal game, which he went in quest of, were partridge, wild duck, grey squirrel, and wild pigeon. In the time of harvest, immense flocks of the latter would fly over the country, and thousands of them alight in the neighboring woods. It was the custom of his brother and himself, as soon as the wheat-fields were reaped, to raise two dead trees, and prepare beneath them a long bed of earth, covered with grain and tinctured with certain fragrant oils, which the pigeons were supposed to scent from afar. Hard by, a booth was built, in which they could conceal themselves and await the coming of their prey. When a goodly number had alighted on the bed, a net was sprung upon them. Seargent's excitement was always irrepressible; the instant

Address before the New England Society of New Orleans.

the string was pulled, he could be seen,-there are some, who, in the mind's eye, see him even now-leaping from the booth, and hurrying at the top of his speed to survey the haul. Sometimes, instead of a net, the old farm gun was resorted to, and, although it had a habit of "kicking" badly, having dislocated his brother's shoulder, and repeat edly knocked him to the ground, he would never be per suaded to give up using it--even his attachment to his mother was here at fault.

But his greatest delight was in angling. Old Izaak Walton could hardly have excelled him in devotion to this "treacherous art," or in the skill with which he pursued it. There were two trout streams in the vicinity, whose names will recall many a happy day to some readers of this memoir, the Branch, and the Great Brook; the latter,including Jordan's Brook,-was Seargent's favorite resort. He pronounced it "the most classic stream in North America." It took its rise in a forest, called the Haith, and, after winding through fields, woods, and pasture lands, for several miles, emptied itself into a neighbouring river. It was, indeed, a notable stream; abounding in trout of unequalled flavor, and whose quick, dashing bite was the admiration of all true anglers. There were certain holes, often at unsightly points, and quite hidden from the eyes of the uninitiated, which rarely failed to furnish a kingly victim. How well remembered are these favored spots! There was something almost mysterious about them; they were never approached but on tiptoe, stealthily, and with eye half-averted; or, if concealed amid the tangled brushwood, one must creep towards them on all fours; and then with what an anxious glance and careful hand was the fatal lure let down into the water. There was hardly a foot of the Great Brook which Seargent had not traversed again and again; not a nook or bend with which he was

not familiar. When talking of it once, in Mississippi, he maintained that, even in the night, he could find his way direct to the old holes, and, kneeling down, put his hand upon the identical hooks which had been caught and lost in them twenty years before. Many and many a long summer's day did he spend in wandering slowly up and down the Great Brook; and never, in after life, was the subject mentioned without reviving some of the pleasantest memories of his youth.

Captain Prentiss brought up his sons to working on the farm; but, in consequence of his infirmity, Seargent was, in great measure, exempt. There were a few things, however, which he was able and accustomed to do; such as, riding the horse to plough and harrow, dropping seed in plantingtime, husking corn, weeding and bunching onions. He loved none of these employments, but of the last he had a cordial detestation. The only relief he found in it was to get through his stint in season to go a-gunning, or fishing. He was utterly insensible to the dignity of labor.

His parents now cast about to see what should be done with him, his lameness and his character alike warning them that he would never be a farmer. Conscious of his remarkable qualities, they felt a strong wish to give him a liberal education. But the family had become large, its expenses heavy, and the farm swallowed up well-nigh all the profits of the ocean. Capt. Prentiss had undertaken, iike many before and since, to combine two things essentially incompatible-to cultivate at the same time the sea and the dry land. He thus gained for his children, health, plain habits, and the many other blessings incident to a country life; but he lost money. The question, however, after remaining for a year or two in debate, was at length decided in Seargent's favor. But, in any case, he had

resolved upon going to college, often declaring to his mother, that, if there were no other way, he would learn shoemaker's trade, and work at the last, until the means were acquired of accomplishing his purpose.

His preparatory studies were pursued at Gorham Academy, distant some two and a half miles from the farm. In the winter he boarded at the village, but the rest of the year at-home, one of his brothers usually conveying him on horseback, and going to meet him on his return in the evening. How vividly does the writer recall those summer rides. It seems but yesterday, as it were, that he took them; and he can almost fancy his arms still clinging for support around that form of youthful genius, as they were wont to do thirty years ago. Every step, each turn and aspect of the road, every successive landscape; the pleasant glimpses of Portland, in going; the beautiful mountain-prospect, in returning; all are engraven upon his memory as "with the point of a diamond!"

Gorham Academy was one of the foremost institutions of the kind in Maine. It was, at this time, under the charge of the Rev. Reuben Nason-a ripe scholar, an excellent preceptor, and a truly good man. Hundreds of his pupils, scattered all over the Republic, still live to cherish and revere his memory. There was much about him to remind one of the old English head-master, of whom we read in books. He had a similar predilection for classical learning, the same pride and delight in a promising boy, a like intolerance of blockheads, and, occasionally, the same impatience and sharpness of temper. He has been known (haud ignota loquor) to flog a delinquent with the Bible, when no profaner weapon was at hand. He usually prayed with one eye, at least, wide open, on the look-out for transgressors; and often was "Amen" followed instanter

by the imperative "Come up, sir !" and the quick report of birch, or ferule. But, for all that, he was a man of genuine kindness, and always had an encouraging, friendly word for those who were worthy of it. No one enjoyed more, or had a keener appreciation, of a good joke, or a well-told story. Many are the traditions of the readiness and dry humor with which he would meet the pranks, sometimes played off upon him. On entering the Academy, one summer morning, he found the school all assembled, and his desk pre-occupied by a notorious donkey. Naught disturbed, he at once exclaimed, with a sarcastic laugh,-" Well, young gentlemen, I compliment you upon your taste. You have made an admirable selection. Set a donkey to teach donkeys!" The animal was never caught there again.

While pursuing his academic studies, young Prentiss greatly enlarged his acquaintance with books. There was a respectable collection attached to the Institution, and several private libraries in the village, to which he had. access. It was, probably, during this period that he became acquainted with the Arabian Nights Entertainments, Don Quixote, and other works of a similar description, for which he had a passionate fondness. He read with extraordinary rapidity, and whatever he read-whether history, biography, poetry, or romance-was ineffaceably impressed upon his memory. Among other works which fell in his way at this time was Lempriere's Classical Dictionary. Many years afterwards, he spoke of the perfect delight with which, in the leisure school-hours, he read and re-read this book. He almost knew the whole of it by heart. Lempriere, he used to say, was an invincible weapon for giving interest and effect to a stump speech; when all other illus trations were powerless, he never knew the shirt of Nessus, the Labors of Hercules, or the forge of Vulcan, to fail