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��yanics T. Fields.
��inspired, as well as clothed in comely shapes of printed paper and leather and cloth, the creations of poets and romancers and thinkers. "The ger- minating root," says one who " wit- nessed its rise and progress," was " in the brain of Fields." " He was the genius loci" sa^'s another, the controlling, guiding, inspiring force. So modestly was won and kept this position, that the historians of our literature may hardly recognize its potency in fostering and shaping New England letters, and in vindica- ting — when it was needful, as at that time it was in a measure necessary — their claim to a place in the world's literatuie. But the most eminent of our authors have been readiest to do so. Whipple, Whittier, Holmes, Em- erson, Lowell, by affectionate inscrip- tions of their works, by the allusions of their songs, by their estimate of his work, as well as by their tributes when his ears were closed in death, declare the place and power they felt was his. He is portrayed in the " Tent on the Beach," one of
"Three friends, the guests of summer-time, who Pitched their white tent where sea-winds blew:
One, with his beard scarce silvered, bore A ready credence in his looks, A lettered magnate, lording o'er An ever widening realm 01 books. In him brain-currents, near and far, Converged as in a leaden jar; The old dead autliors thronged him round about, And Elzevir's gray ghosts from leathein graves looked out.
" He knew each living pundit well.
Could weigh th(i gilts of him or her.
And well tlip market value tell
Of poet and philosopher.
And if he lost, the scenes behind
Somewliat of reverence vague and blind.
Finding the actors human at the best,
No readier lips than Ids the good he saw confessed.
" His boyhood fancies not outgrown, He loved himself the singer's art; Tenderly, gently, by his own, He knew and judged an author's heart.
��No Rhadamanthine brow of doom. Bowed the dazed pedant from his room; And bards whose name is legion, if denied. Bore off alike intact their verses and their pride.
" Pleasant it was to roam about The lettered world as he had done. And see the lords of song without Their singing robes and garlands on: With Wordsworth paddle Kydal Mere, Taste rugged Elliott's home-brewed beer. And with the ear of Rogers, at four score. Hear Garrick's buskined tread and Walpole's wit once more."
This, however, was written in 1867, a score of years later than this period of his life of which we are now writ- ing. In 1847, after the death of Mary Willard, his betrothed, he sail- ed for Europe. This journey was the first of several European trips, some of them extended ones, and during this visit he formed the beginning of many friendships with trans-Atlantic authors, — men and women whose names ai-e household words, — some of them belonging to an older gener- ation, and indeed to an earlier period of English liteiature. He became the friend of and was entertained by Bryan W. Procter (Barry Cornwall), William and Mary Howitt, Mr. and Mrs. John S. C. Hall, Mr. John Ken- yon, and others, all of whom became his life-long friends. There, too, be- gan his long, intimate acquaintance with Miss Mary R. Mitford, a friend- ship whose pleasant privileges he so l)leasantly shares with us in his rec- ollections of the author of " Our Vil- lage." He visited the home and bur- ial-place of Sir Walter Scott, — "a spot," he said, " no change can ever wipe from my memory."
In 1850 he married a younger sis- ter of Mary Willard, his lost love. She died, however, within two years after their marriage.
Meantime he was rising into fame
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