OP ARTS AND SCIENCES. 161 



terrained industry nothing was permitted to abate, and yet whose com- 

 panionship was sought as no other man's was ; because, when the hour 

 for labor had passed, he went forth among his friends like sunshine, 

 and filled them with sympathetic gladness from his own joyous nature. 

 " We sometimes hear it said that a man has succeeded in some great 

 effort because he put his whole soul into it. This would be true of 

 Prescott in its ordinary meaning, which is only that he succeeded by 

 enthusiastic labor. But it is true of him in a more definite, and, as I 

 think, in a higher sense. If I were asked to give in the fewest words 

 the explanation of his career, I should say that he did great things in 

 despite of great difficulties, because he was richly endowed with many 

 and various quahties and faculties, and in all his work the whole man 

 worked together, with a harmony which gave to every faculty the sup- 

 port and the strength of all the rest." 



Mr. Charles Folsom also noticed the decease of Mr. Pres- 

 cott, as follows : — 



" Mr. President, — After what has been so eloquently and fittingly 

 said of the talents and virtues of Mr. Prescott in various other rela- 

 tions, I cannot refrain from bearing my personal testimony, (for which 

 I may not have another opportunity,) as to their habitual exercise in 

 the details of his literary life, his life as a working scholar. 



" It is now about forty-seven years since I was a spectator, at Cam- 

 bridge, of the calamitous accident which consigned him for many months 

 to a darkened room, with the entire loss of one eye and a permanent 

 injury of the other; — a dispensation of Providence, which, 'depriving 

 him of sight,' (it may be said, I believe, as truly in his case as in any 

 other,) ' gave him song.' From that painful hour my interest in him 

 began. Years of distant separation soon followed ; but when I next 

 met him, it was to be admitted to his close friendship, after the purpose 

 of his life was fixed and he had already put on that bright harness for 

 intellectual achievements, which he wore to the last. From that time. 

 Sir, I had the privilege to be cognizant (few were more intimately so) 

 of the inception, the progress, and the glorious completion of all his 

 published writings, from his essays — his prelusive attempts — in the 

 North American Review, down to the volume which is the most pre- 

 cious as his last. 



" Of the ' calamities of authors ' he knew nothing from experience ; 



VOL. IV. 21 



