A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 89 



smack of Jack Homer in all of us, and a reviewer were 

 nothing without it. Josiah Quincy was born in 1772. 

 His father, returning from a mission in England, died in 

 sight of the dear New England shore three years later. 

 His young widow was worthy of him, and of the son whose 

 character she was to have so large a share in forming. 

 There is something very touching and beautiful in this 

 little picture of her which Mr. Quincy drew in his extreme 

 old age. 



&quot; My mother imbibed, as was usual with the women of 

 the period, the spirit of the times. Patriotism was not 

 then a profession, but an energetic principle beating in the 

 heart and active in the life. The death of my father, under 

 circumstances now the subject of history, had overwhelmed 

 her with grief. She viewed him as a victim in the cause of 

 freedom, and cultivated his memory with veneration, re 

 garding him as a martyr, falling, as did his friend Warren, 

 in the defence of the liberties of his country. These circum 

 stances gave a pathos and vehemence to her grief, which, 

 after the first violence of passion had subsided, sought con 

 solation in earnest and solicitous fulfilment of duty to the 

 representative of his memory and of their mutual affections. 

 Love and reverence for the memory of his father were early 

 impressed on the mind of her son, and worn into his heart 

 by her sadness and tears. She cultivated the memory of 

 my father in my heart and affections, even in my earliest 

 childhood, by reading to me passages from the poets, and 

 obliging me to learn by heart and repeat such as were best 

 adapted to her own circumstances and feelings. Among 

 others, the whole leave-taking of Hector and Andromache, 

 in the sixth book of Pope s Homer, was one of her favourite 

 lessons, which she made me learn and frequently repeat. 

 Her imagination probably found consolation in the repeti 

 tion of lines which brought to mind and seemed to typify 

 her own great bereavement. 



&quot; And think st thou not how wretched we shall be, 

 A widow I, a helpless orphan he ? 



These lines and the whole tenor of Andromache s address 



