FRANCIS PARKMAN. 435 



rupted. Many cases of importance were brought before him as ref 

 eree, or Master in Chancery, and his opinions and advice were much 

 valued and often sought. At the age of about seventy-five his memory 

 began to fail, but still, when once reminded of the lost facts, he would 

 discourse as intelligently as ever upon the topic in hand; and he 

 sometimes remarked that he had been all his life a close student, 

 had never hunted, fished, or swum, had never drunk, snuffed, smoked, 

 or chewed, and had been so continuously occupied with his life-work, 

 to the neglect of needful rest and recreation, that he feared he was 

 now to suffer the penalty of an over-tasked brain. His daily visits 

 to his office were continued almost to the last, and he read his news- 

 paper as usual but a day or two before his death at the quite venerable 

 age of eighty-three.. 



In 1837 Mr. Paine married Miss Lucy E. Coffin of Newburyport, 

 Massachusetts, who is said to have beeu a lady of rare accomplish- 

 ments, and was in after life worthily active in charities and good 

 works. She died on March 1G, 1887. They left an only daughter, 

 Miss J. W. Paine, of 66 Sparks Street, Cambridge. 



In the "Bay State Monthly" for November, 1885, may be found 

 an appreciative sketch of the life of Henry W. Paine, with an excel- 

 lent portrait, written by his early pupil and life-long friend, Professor 

 William Mathews, LL. D. 



1894. Nathaniel Holmes. 



FRANCIS PARKMAN. 



Francis Parkman was born in Boston, on the 16th of September, 

 1823. The son of the Reverend Dr. Francis Parkman, an eminent 

 Unitarian minister, and of Catharine, daughter of Nathaniel Hall, of 

 Medford, he belonged by birth and tradition to the gentry of New 

 England, whose right to a certain consideration and dignity was iu 

 those days still recognized. " His childhood," to use his own words, 

 "was neither healthful nor buoyant. His boyhood, though for a time 

 active, was not robust, and at the age of eleven or twelve he conceived 

 a vehement liking for pursuits a devotion to which at that time of life 

 far oftener indicates a bodily defect than a mental superiority." The 

 chief pursuit in question was chemistry, in which he dabbled with no 

 good result. At fifteen or sixteen, however, his tastes took a new 

 turn and this time a permanent. " He became enamored of the 



