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His memories of the interview were most delightful but exceedingly hazy as to the matter in question. His only distinct impression was that the interview ended with himself on the door-mat earnestly discussing Ticknor's "History of Spanish Literature" with his host, who had shown him to the door. During the latter years of his life Dr.
But Byron is not Mr. Ticknor's only London friend, for we read of a breakfast with Sir Humphry Davy, a "genuine bookseller's dinner" with Murray, and a visit to the author of Gertrude of Wyoming. Goettingen, however, is the object of his journey, and at Goettingen he remains for the next year and a half.
While it is to be remembered that we who read Mr. Ticknor's diary and letters have also read a great many other letters that have given us much more knowledge about Madame Récamier than her companion at that dinner could have had, it is yet fair to say that in general the book contains no traces of acute observation or quick social sensibility, but is rather marked by the faithfulness of his report of the more obvious incidents that occurred when he met these interesting people.
Ticknor's life was a long one: from his youth he saw a great deal of the best society both of this country and of Europe, and he always had the custom of recording the impressions made upon him by the people he met.
This certainly would be a curious episode in the life of any law-abiding citizen, and in Mr. Ticknor's case it was peculiarly astonishing, for his life, this week excepted, could certainly never be called, with any show of justice, "vagabond." Before returning to America he revisited London and Paris, in this last-named city seeing Talleyrand, of whom an interesting anecdote is recorded.
Here is another interesting anecdote given in Ticknor's Memoirs: "When I was in Goettingen, in 1816, I saw Wolf, the most distinguished Greek scholar of the time. He could also lecture extemporaneously in Latin. He was curious about this country, and questioned me about our scholars and the amount of our scholarship.
James Russell Lowell and Charles Eliot Norton, Esqs. Boston: Crosby & Nichols, 117 Washington street. New York: H. Dexter, Hamilton & Co., Sinclair Tousey, and D. G. Francis. CONTENTS: Ticknor's Life of Prescott. The Bible and Slavery. The Ambulance System. The Bibliotheca Sacra. Immorality in Politics. The Early Life of Governor Winthrop. The Sanitary Commission. Renan's Life of Jesus.
What they have had to say of Mr. Ticknor's character is expressed with a proper warmth of feeling, but without any extravagance of eulogy. His life, as they justly remark, was distinguished by "an unusual consistency in the framework of mind and character" and "an unusually steady development of certain elements and principles."
Such letters have gone out of fashion now, when it is more frequent to sum up the characters of our visitors in epigrams than in long essays, as Mr. Ticknor has here done. This first star, who in comparison with many of Mr. Ticknor's later acquaintances was one of very modest magnitude, made his unexpected, comet-like appearance in Boston on his way to New York to marry an American woman.
I'm going up to Cranch's this evening and to Lenox next week. It is not impossible that some happy gust may blow me to Conway. Give my kindest love to your wife, and believe me muzzy or no muzzy Your aff. HOME, 9th Feb., '54. Ticknor's on Monday morning. One thing thou lackest, O Freunde! You have not heard Miss Skelton sing!
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