THE EARLY YEARS OF CHARLES SUMNER.* AvrEn a perusal and

reperusal of these volumes, we have come to the conclusion that the most profitable way of reading them is to begin at the end. The second volume closes with the first appearance of Charles Sumner in the character in which be is best known to this generation of Englishmen,—as the friend of peace and the uncompromising enemy of slavery. On the 4th of July, 1845, Charles Sumner, then thirty-four years of age, de- livers to an audience strongly dashed with militarism, and be- yond them to a public enraptured with the Monro doctrine, an oration on the "True Grandeur of Nations," which he in- terprets as meaning peace. The reader will at once say that here is Sumner all over, in all his buoyant courage, in all his enthusiasm for what is true and noble, in all his panoply of rhetoric. For Sumner, even when at his most despondent and therefore soberest, never forgot to mount his stilts, which, by the way, were a legacy from his father, and were, besides, of the best American oak. No American of his time but Sumner—not even Wendell Phillips— could have said this :—" The Temple of Honour is surrounded by the Temple of Concord, so that the former can be entered only through the portals of the latter ; the horn of abundance shall overflow at its gates ; the angel of religion shall be the guide over its steps of flashing adamant ; while within, Justice, returned to the earth from her long exile in the skies, shall rear her serene and majestic front." This is Sumner fresh from the lines of the orthodox culture of an earlier generation. From his baptism into the world of public life—and it was a baptism of fire—to its close, his career was one of direct progress. Mr. Pierce's volumes, too, are of such a character that we can without much trouble trace back Sumner's life to January 6, 1811, when with a twin- sister he entered the world, weighing, we are told, three pounds and a half.

When we say that these two volumes contain nearly 800 pages of closely-printed matter, and yet bring Sumner's career only in reality to the end of his education for the life of a statesman, it must be clear that Mr. Pierce's work will, when finished, prove one of the most portentous biographies that even the present age has produced. Mr. Pierce has many of the best qualities of a bio- grapher. He is painstaking in the highest—we had almost said,

* Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, 1811-1815. Vols. I. and II. By Edward L. Pierce. London : Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Ellington. 1878. the lowest—degree. He would no more think of dropping any of the numerous letters of a Republican's name than a cultured Englishman would think of blundering with his aspirates. His foot-notes are painfully numerous and elucidatory, and where the text refers to Sumner's visit to England, are as good as a diction- ary of biography. For an American, too, Mr. Pierce's style and tone are moderate. But the first volume might certainly with ease and profit have been condensed into one-fourth of its pre- sent size. We have details which could well have been dispensed with of the lives of Sumner's ancestors and of the other members of his family. None of these was in any way remark- able—not even his mother, an economical and imperturbable housewife—except his father, who was Sheriff of Suffolk county. Even he, in spite of the wise education he gave his son,—in spite even of his sterling character and pronounced anti-slavery opinions —was, we suspeet, a bit of a prig ; both his prose and verse were pompous, and there seems no good reason for the undomestic seclusion in which he wrapt himself up during his later years. Sumner's own life up to the age of twenty-six might have been put in a nut-shell. He studied first at Harvard University, or rather read promiscuously there, for he disliked mathematics, then all the rage at Harvard ; and his sole notable achievement was his winning a prize for the best essay on commerce, offered by the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. Leaving college, he thought of being a teacher, but failed in an application for an ushership. Singularly enough, he next turned his thoughts towards a military career, but ultimately joined the Law School of Harvard, where he sat under and made the friendship of the well-known jurist, Judge Story. He was at this time, and even when he edited the Jurist's Journal, a literary and historical rather than a pure lawyer. A great number of Sumner's letters to his college "chums" and other acquaintances might well have been omitted, for they are little more than what might be expected of a lively, well-read lad, with a warm heart, nerves sensitive to new impres- sions, and an excusable cacoethes scribendi. Regarding this early period of Sumner's life, we cannot do better than quote from one of the numerous estimates given of him by Mr. Pierce, especially as it is written by so competent a hand as Mr. W. W. Story, and deals with the lighter side of that character, if there can be said to have been such a side at all :— " He was then, as ever in after-life, an indefatigable and omnivorous student. He lived simply, was guilty of no excesses of any kind, went very little into society, and devoted his days and nights to books. Shortly after my first acquaintance with him, he became librarian of the Dane Law School, and I think thero was scarcely a text-book in the library of the contents of which he had not some knowledge. Nor was this a superficial knowledge, considering its extent and his youth. He had acquainted himself, also, with the lives, characters, and capa- city of most of the authors, and could give a fair restancrof the contents of most of their works. His room was piled with books : the shelves overflowed and the floor was littered with them. Though a devoted student of law, he did not limit his reading to it, but ranged over the whole field of literature with eager interest. He was at this time totally without vanity, and only desirous of acquiring knowledge and information on every subject. Behind every work he liked to see and feel the man who wrote it, and, as it were, to make his personal ac- quaintance. Whenever a particular question interested him, he would come to my father and talk it over with him, and discuss it by the hour. He had no interest in games and athletic sports ; never, so far as I know, fished or shot or rowed ; had no fancy for dogs and horses ; and, in a word, was without all those tastes which are almost universal with men of his age. As for dancing, I think he never danced a step in his life. Of all men I ever knew at his age, he was the least sus- ceptible to the charms of women. Men he liked best, and with them he preferred to talk. It was in vain for the loveliest and liveliest girl to seek to absorb his attention. He would at once desert the most blooming beauty to talk to the plainest of men. This was a constant source of amusement to us, and we used to lay wagers with the pretty girls, that with all their art they could not keep him at their side a quarter of an hour. Nor do I think we ever lost one of these bets. I remember particularly one dinner at my father's house, when it fell to his lot to take out a charming woman, so handsome and so full of esprit that any one at the table might well have envied him his position. She had determined to hold him captive, and win her bet against us. But her efforts were all in vain. Unfortunately, on his other side was a dry old savant, packed with information ; and within five minutes Sumner had completely turned his back on his fair companion, and engaged in a discussion with the other, which lasted the whole dinner. We all laughed. She cast up her eyes deprecatingly, acknowledged herself vanquished, and paid her bet. Meantime, Sumner was wholly unconscious of the jest or of the laughter. He had what he wanted,— sensible men's talk. He had mined the savant as be mined every one he mot, in search of ore, and was thoroughly pleased with what he got. Though he was an interesting talker, he had no lightness of hand. He was kindly of nature, interested in everything, but totally put off his balance by the least persiflage; and, if it was tried on him, his expres- sion was one of complete astonishment. He was never ready at a re- tort, tacked slowly, like a frigate when assaulted by stinging feluccas, and was at this time almost impervious to a joke. He bad no humor himself, and little sense of it in others; and his jests, when he tried to

make one, were rather cumbrous. But plain sailing' no one could

be better or more agreeable. He was steady and studious, and, though genial, serious in his character ; while we were all light, silly, and full of animal spirits, which he sympathised with, but could not enter into. He was, as a young man, singularly plain. His complexion was not healthy. He was tall, thin, and ungainly in his movements, and sprawled rather than sat on a chair or sofa. Nothing saved his face from ugliness but his white gleaming teeth, and his expression of bright intelligence and entire amiability. None could believe that he was thus plain in his youth, who only know him in his full and ripened manhood. As years went on, his face and figure completely changed; and at last he stood before us a stalwart and imposing presence, fall of dignity and a kind of grandeur. Age added to his appearance as well as to his influence. His genial illuminating smile he never lost ; and at fifty years of age he was almost a handsome, and certainly a remark- able, man in his bearing and looks."

English interest in the earlier portion of Sumner's life begins with his twenty-sixth year. He was then ambitions of being a Judge or a Professor of Jurisprudence, and the better to qualify himself for either post, sailed for Europe. He went first to Paris, where he learnt French, and saw a little of the night side of the "capital of humanity," including the gaming-tables and a masked ball at the opera. From France he went to London, with a bundle of introductions to some of the leaders of the Bar, of society, and of literature. It is clear that there must have been an American mania in not only London, but in the kingdom, at the time. Nothing else can explain the brilliant social success of this obscure young American. Wherever he goes, to Edinburgh or to Dublin, he is received with open arms. He attends the Queen's coronation in a Court dress ; he becomes an honorary member of the Garrick, Alfred, and other clubs ; he dissects Brougham's character in a letter written to an American friend in Brougham's own library ; he hobnobs with Theodore Hook, who tells him that the atmo-

sphere of London is like "pea-soup ;" he sees Mr. Carlyle in the lecture-room and at the fireside, when he is unknown and ap- parently poor, and is informed that the French Revolution has brought him nothing at home, but fifty pounds from America. Jeffrey confides to him his opinion of Macaulay, and tells how he

"altered" Mr. Carlyle's essay on Burns, hence the comparative ease of its style. "Tom" Campbell offends him by staggering and swearing under the influence of brandy-and-water ; Talfourd gossips about Lamb's drinking in pot-houses of a morning ; Sir David Brewster pleases him by lamenting over Sir Walter Scott's foolishly audacious enterprises in building and publishing. The Austins, Miss Martineau, Mr. Hayward, —there is no celebrity of the generation with whom he is not on familiar terms. In fact, the great interest of these volumes lies in the opinions which Sumner passes on English people, both in his letters from London or from the Continent about them to friends in America, and from America to friends whom he had made in England. These opinions, although, like all such, based upon insufficient information, are more than ordinarily interesting. Sumner was one of the honestest of men, and in spite of social lionising kept himself unspotted from the world ; just as, in spite of his having been in England in an era

of hard drinking, he stuck to his rule of temperance, carrying it into practice by taking a little hock or claret at meals. Indeed, like his father, he was a purist, although not a Puritan. It is evident that he cannot forgive Campbell his coarse stories, his oaths, and his brandy-and-water, and one cannot help thinking that he would have taken a more favourable view of Brougham, but for his habit of swearing, which seems to have disgusted Sumner, even when a boy, more than almost any other vulgarity. Take, again, this on Bulwer :— " Bulwer was here a few moments ago, in his flash falsetto dress, with high-heel boots, a white great-coat, and a flaming blue cravat. How different from Rogers, who is sitting near me, reading the North American ; or Hallam, who is lolling in an easy-chair, or Milman,—both absorbed in some of the last reviews or magazines." It seems not to have struck Sumner that Bulwer, in spite of his

flashy dandyism, could be, and as a matter of fact was, as in- dustrious as Rogers, or Milman, or Hallam.

Sumner's gossip about public and private personages in Eng- land must be sought for in these volumes themselves. They are very readable, for Sumner was in easy undress in his letters, as Samuel Johnson was in his conversations. The following, in a letter from Munich, may be, given, on account of its brevity and its living interest :—

" Disraeli and his wife (whom he has taken with five thousand pounds a year) were here. Mrs. — said to Disraeli (the conversation had grown out of 'Vivian Grey '): There is a great deal written in the garrets of London.' Putting his hand on his heart, Disraeli said : 'I assure you, 'Vivian Grey' was not written in a garret."

Sumner's general opinion of the country he derived so much

benefit from, is thus summarised from letters written to his brother George :-

"Ton think me prejudiced in favour of England. Those who know my opinions know that I saw and felt the plague-spots of England as much as anybody. The Government is an oligarchy,—the greatest and most powerful in the history of the woad. There is luxury the most surprising side by side with poverty t o moat appalling. I never saw this in England, I never think of it now, without a shock. I pray for some change,—in peace,—by which this constant injustice may be made to cease. But because these things are so, should I therefore condemn all the people ? Should I full foul, like another Smelfungus, of all that is beautiful? Should I go out of the way to find dis- honourable motives for conduct which is apparently benevolent and philanthxopic ? I know something of the conduct of England in regard to the slave-trade. I know it from mingling with the people, and from conversation with many leaders on the subject. And I solemnly believe that, if ever a nation was disinterested in its conduct, it is England in her great, gigantic, magnificent exertions for the suppression of the slave-trade I think, if you view persons candidly in England, you will meet many whom you would be proud to grapple to your heart with hooks of steeL You cannot fail to be struck by the high cultiva- tion of all who form what is called the class of gentlemen, by their ac- complished scholarship, their various acquaintance with all kinds of knowledge, their fastidious taste,—carried perhaps to excess, but erring on virtue's side. I do not know that there is much difference between the manners and social observances of the highest classes of England and those of the corresponding classes of Germany and France; but in tho rank immediately below the highest,—as, among the professions, or military men, or literary men, or politicians, not of the nobility,—there you will find that the Englishmen have the advantage. They are better educated and better bred, more careful in their personal habits and in social conventions,—more refined."

We anticipate more pleasure, however, from the forthcoming volumes of Mr. Pierce's biography than from those now before us. Sumner the American politician is more interesting than Sumner the American critic of England. Let Mr. Pierce add to his various virtues as a biographer that of condensation. In these days of hurry, even the most enthusiastic reader's stock of patience is easily exhausted.