Fishkill mounteins upon the opposite side of tlie river ; soothed hj the universal silence of the 

 country, while the constant occupatron of the father, and of the brother who worked with him 

 in the nursery, made the boy serious, by necessarily leaving hira much alone." 



Does not this partake too much of the trifling style of a certain class of novel biographies ? 

 Further on he tells us : 



"Tlie mother, a thrifty housekeeper and a religious woman, occupied with her many cares — 

 cooking, mending, scrubbing, and setting things to rights — probably looked forward with some 

 apprehension to the future condition of her sensitive Benjami.v, even if he lived. Tlie dreamy, 

 shy ways of the boy were not such as indicated the stern stuff tliat enables poor men's children 

 to grapple with the world. Left to himself, liis will began to grow imperious. Tlie busy mother 

 could not severely scold her ailing child ; but a sharp rebuke had probably been pleasantcr to 

 him than the milder treatment that residted from affectionate compassion, but showed no real 

 sympathy. It is evident, from the tone in which he always spoke of his childhood, that his recol- 

 lections of it were not altogether agreeable. It was undoubtedly clouded by a want of sympathy 

 which he could not understand at the time, but which appeared plainly enough when his genius 

 came into play. It is tlie same kind of clouded childhood that so often occurs in literary biography, 

 where there was great mutual affection and no ill feeling, but a lack of that instinctive appre- 

 hension of motives and aims, which malies each one perfectly tolerant of each other." 



It would appear from the last sentence in this quotation, that ifr. Cuetis had in his mind 

 a certain stereotyped style of " literai-y biography" to which the si;bject of his memoir must 

 whether or no be adapted. Tlie inference that one would naturally draw from the last 

 quotation would be, that Downing's parents were very poor, and very ignorant as well, 

 and that they showed him no sympathy. Now, as far as we know, such a conclusion 

 would be quite erroneous. Mr. Dowxixg's parents were, as we have been informed, during 

 his childhood in easy, comfortable circumstances, plain, impretending, but intelligent people, 

 enjoying a respectable social position in the neighborhood. As a proof that they were not 

 so poor as we would infer from Mr. CrETis, Mr. Downing's fiither at his death bequeathed 

 to his children, free from debt, the beautiful property on which Llr. Downing lived and 

 died.* In another place we are told by Mr. Cuetis that — 



" He, too, had been hoping to go to college ; but family means forbade. His mother, anxious 

 to see him early settled, urged him, as his elder brothers were both doing well in business — the 

 one as a nurseryman, and the other, who had left the comb factory, practising ably and prosper- 

 ously as a physician — to enter as a clerk in a dry goods store. That reqiiest explains the want of 

 delight with which he remembered his childhood : because it shows that his good, kind mother, 

 in the midst of her baking, and boiling, and darning the children's stockings, made no allowance 

 — as how should she, not being able to perceive them — for the possibly very positive tastes of her 

 boy. Besides, the first duty of each member of the poor household was, as she justly conceived, 

 to get a living ; and as Andrew was a delicate cMld, and could not lift and carry much, nor brave 

 the chances of an out-door occupation, it was better that he should be in the shelter of a store. 

 He, however, a youth of sixteen years, fresh from the studies, and dreams, and hopes of the 

 Montgomery Academy, found his first duty to be the gentle withstanding of his mothei-'s wish ; 

 and quite willing to ' settle,' if he could do it in hia own way, joined his brother in the manage- 

 ment of tlie nursery. He had no doubt of his vocation. Since it was clear that he must directly 

 do something, his fine taste and exquisite appreciation of natural beauty, his love of natural 

 forms, and the processes and phenomena of natural life, immediately determined his choice." 



* The whole family occupied a position in society not inferior to that of A. J. Dowxnfo, though in a dififerent sphere 

 of action. One brother was a suoceesftil physician, and died young ; the other, Chakles Dowktso, is ■well known as 

 one of the most intelligent nur8enmen and pomologists in the country, now living rfttired at Newburgh. }2L 



