he saw and heard and did there in the years 1774 and 1775,by that eminent and eloquent young Boston patriot, — JOSIAH QUINCY, Jr., who died, alas, within sight of his native shores. on his return home, just eighty-four years ago on the 26th of April last, leaving a name which, even had no fresh renown been earned for it in a later generation, could not fail to have been held in the most grateful remembrance, through all ages of our country's history, by every friend of American liberty.

This journal will be found in the admirable Memoir of its author, prepared and published in the year 1825, by his early distinguished and now venerable and venerated son. The Memoir has long been out of print, and copies of it are not always easily to be procured. But it well deserves a place in every American library, and it is greatly to be hoped that a new edition of it may be forthcoming at no distant day from the same filial hand; hand still untrembling under the ceaseless industry of more than fourscore years, and never weary of doing another, and still another, labor of love for his kinsfolk, his fellow-citizens, or his country.

a

One of the most striking passages of this journal is that which describes an interview between our young Boston Cicero, as Quincy was deservedly called in those days, and that distinguished member of Parliament and friend of America, Colonel Barré.

Among the statesmen of the mother-country, during the early part of our Revolutionary contentions, the name of no one was more familiar or more endeared to our American patriots than that of Isaac Barré. A self-made man, of humble Irish parentage, he had served upon this continent, as an officer of the British army, before the oppression of the colonies which led to their separation had commenced. He was with Wolfe, as an aide-decamp, at the capture of Quebec, where he received a wound which was destined to cost him his eyesight before he died. Some of you may, perhaps, remember a pleasant anecdote, which Mr. Webster used to tell with the highest relish, when he was himself suffering from an almost blinding catarrh during the season of roses or of hay, the story of Lord North, who was afflicted with total blindness before his death, saying of Colonel Barré, after he also had become blind," Although the worthy

gentleman and I often have been at variance, there are few men living who would feel more delighted to see each other." Barré returned home, however, to become adjutant-general, governor of Stirling Castle, and a member of the House of Commons. In this latter capacity he signalized himself, within two days after taking his seat, by a bold and blunt philippic upon no less formidable and illustrious an opponent than William Pitt, the great Earl of Chatham; and not long afterwards he was among the few members of Parliament who ventured to resist the passage of the Stamp Act, making a powerful and admirable reply on that occasion to the celebrated Charles Townshend, the most eloquent of all the advocates of that ill-starred, — if I ought not rather to call it, in view of all its fortunate consequences, that auspicious and glorious measure. "There has been nothing of note in Parliament," writes Horace Walpole on the 12th of February, 1765, "but one slight day on the American Taxes, which Charles Townshend supporting, received a pretty heavy thump from Barré, who is the present Pitt, and the dread of all the vociferous Norths. and Rigbys, on whose lungs depended so much of Mr. Grenville's power." This is the speech which has become so familiar to the declamation of the schools, and which will readily be remembered by those striking exclamations and replies, "They planted by your care! No, your oppressions planted them in America! They nourished up by your indulgence! They grew by your neglect of them! They protected by your arms! They have nobly taken up arms in your defence!

Barré was also the first to foretell distinctly the result of the oppressive measures which he was so bold in opposing. "I prophesied on the passing of the Stamp Act in 1765," said he just four years afterwards, "what would happen thereon; and now in March, 1769, I fear I can prophesy further troubles, that if the whole people are made desperate, finding no remedy from Parliament, the whole continent will be in arms immediately, and perhaps these provinces lost to England for ever." So signal, indeed, had been his efforts, on repeated occasions, in favor of the rights and privileges of the Colonies, that the people of Boston, at a town meeting in 1765, at which James Otis presided and Samuel Adams was present and took part in the proceedings,

not only voted an address of thanks to Colonel Barré and General Conway, but ordered that the portraits of both those gentlemen, as soon as they could be procured, should be suspended in Faneuil Hall," as a standing monument to all posterity of the virtue and justice of our benefactors, and a lasting proof of our own gratitude." That was among the earliest formal and public applications of the Fine Arts to historical monuments in our New England annals. And the order was duly and honorably executed. At the Boston town meeting of May 8, 1767, only a few days more than ninety-two years ago, a letter was directed to be written to Colonel Barré, announcing that his picture had been received and placed in Faneuil Hall. That of General Conway was also procured about the same time; but I am sorry to add that both these portraits, together with others, perhaps of even greater artistic value, disappeared during the occupancy of the town by the British army in 1775-6, both of them having been either destroyed or carried away.

Barré is said to have been the first person who gave to our Boston rebels the cherished title of "Sons of Liberty." And, as an evidence of the estimation in which he was held in Massachusetts as late as 1774, I may remind you that a noble agricultural town in the heart of the Commonwealth was called by his name, which it still bears; the odious name of Hutchinson having been repudiated to make way for it. And though Colonel Barré did not continue to sustain our cause, as he could hardly have been expected to do, after we were once at open war with his own land; although he was even betrayed into a vote for that abominable measure, the Boston Port Bill; I cannot help thinking that it would still be a most agreeable souvenir of those early services to American liberty, if the completion of a full century from the date when it was first placed there, should find that same portrait of him (by Sir Joshua Reynolds, I dare say), if it could anyhow be recovered, once more hanging on the walls of old Faneuil Hall, side by side with that of Quincy himself, which ought certainly to be there, also. There will be time enough, however, for Boston folks, who are proverbially full of notions, to think about this, between now and the 8th of May, 1867. Meanwhile, having refreshed your memories with a brief account of the career and

character of this young Irish friend of American freedom, let me turn to the interview between him and our patriot Quincy, as described in the journal to which I have already referred.

That interview took place on the second day of January, 1775, at Bath, well known, at that period and since, as one of the most fashionable watering-places of England, and it is thus introduced by the spirited young journalist: "January 2d. Was visited by Hon. Mr. Temple, who spent an hour with me. Went again over Bath, in order to review the buildings. Spent the afternoon with Mrs. Macaulay,* and went in the evening to a ball at the new rooms, which was full and very splendid. The rooms are very elegant, and the paintings which cover the windows-taken from the draughts of the figures found at the ruins of Herculaneum-have a fine effect. This evening," he adds, "I had two hours' conversation with Colonel Barré, and from him I learned that he was once the friend of Mr. Hutchinson in opposition to Governor Pownall, but that he had for a long time, and especially since his last arrival in England, wholly deserted him."

In the course of this conversation, Colonel Barré made the following remarks: "About fifteen years ago, I was through a considerable part of your country; for in the expedition against Canada, my business called me to pass by land through Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Albany. When I returned to this country, I was often speaking of America, and could not help speaking well of its climate, soil, and inhabitants; for you must know, sir, America was always a favorite with me; - but will you believe it, sir, yet I assure you it is true, more than twothirds of this island at that time thought the Americans were negroes!" "I replied," says Quincy," that I did not in the least doubt of it, for that if I was to judge by the late acts of Parliamement, I should suppose that a majority of the people of Great Britain still thought so; for I found that their representatives still treated them as such.' "" "He smiled," continues the Jour

* She was the accomplished lady whose History of England was hardly less celebrated in those days than that of her distinguished namesake in these, having been pronounced, both by Horace Walpole and by the poet Gray, as "the most sensible, unaffected, and best history of England that we have had yet," although Hume's had been published long before.

nal," and the discourse dropped;" but Quincy quietly adds, as an intimation that the point of his own reply had not been unper"Colonel Barré was among those who voted for the

ceived,

Boston Port Bill."

Few things could more strikingly illustrate the ignorance which prevailed in the mother country, at that critical period, in regard to those Colonies which she was so blindly and madly goading on to rebellion, than this little dialogue; - but interesting as it is in itself, and instructive as it would be to dwell upon it longer, it is not the part of the interview between Barré and Quincy which I have taken as the text and topic of this Address, and to which I now hasten to proceed, without further preamble.

"Colonel Barré," says Quincy, "while we were viewing the pictures taken from the ruins found at Herculaneum, said, 'I hope you have not the books containing the draughts of those ruins with you.' I replied, 'There was one set, I believed, in the public library at our College.' Keep them there,' said he, and they may be of some service as a matter of curiosity for the speculative, but let them get abroad and you are ruined. 'Tis taste that ruins whole kingdoms; 'tis taste that depopulates whole nations; I could not help weeping when I surveyed the ruins of Rome. All the remains of Roman grandeur are of works which were finished when Rome and the spirit of Rome were no more, - unless I except the ruins of the Emilian baths. Mr. Quincy, let your countrymen beware of taste in their buildings, equipage, and dress, as a deadly poison.'

If this solemn and emphatic warning, to which the youthful Quincy seems to have made no reply, but which he considered worthy of being recorded at length in his private diary,—a warning which some of us, perhaps, might be almost invidious enough to intimate had been literally interpreted and practically followed from that day to this, so very little of any thing worthy of being called taste has yet been exhibited among us; if this solemn and emphatic warning had come from some sober moralist, or some grave minister of the Gospel, it might have been regarded only as an amplification or paraphrase of one of those general injunctions against vanity and worldliness which abound on the pages of Holy Writ, and we should have listened to it, or read it,