APPENDIX II 

 MEMOIR * 



ANDREW JACKSON DOWNING was born at New- 

 burgh, upon the Hudson, on the spot where he 

 always lived and which he always loved more than 

 any other, on the 30th of October, 1815. His father and 

 mother were both natives of Lexington, Massachusetts, and, 

 upon their marriage, removed to Orange County, New York, 

 where they settled, some thirty or forty miles from New- 

 burgh. Presently, however, they came from the interior of 

 the county to the banks of the river. The father built a 

 cottage upon the highlands of Newburgh, on the skirts of the 

 town, and there his five children were born. He had begun 

 life as a wheelwright, but abandoned the trade to become a 

 nurseryman, and after working prosperously in his garden 

 for twenty-one years, died in 1822. 



Andrew was born many years after the other children. 

 He was the child of his parents' age, and, for that reason, 

 very dear. He began to talk before he could walk, when 

 he was only nine months old, and the wise village gossips 

 shook their heads in his mother's little cottage, and pro- 

 phesied a bright career for the precocious child. At eleven 

 months that career manifestly began, in the gossips' eyes, 

 by his walking bravely about the room: a handsome, cheer- 

 ful, intelligent child, but quiet and thoughtful, petted by 



This memoir is from the pen of George William Curtis, one of the 

 best-known and wisest literary men of his day, and an intimate personal 

 friend of Mr. Downing. It was written in 1853 for the collection of 

 "Rural Essays," edited by Mr. Curtis. 



In the volume of "Rural Essays" appears also another tribute from 

 another literary celebrity of the day in the form of a letter to Mr. Down- 

 ing's friends by Miss Friedrika Bremer. It has been thought best to 

 omit this letter from the present edition, but students and lovers of 

 Downing should not fail to search it out and read it. --F. A. W. 



391 



