THE

true idea of a home includes something more than

a place to live in. It involves elements which are intangible and imponderable. It means a particular spot in which the mind is developed, the character trained, and the affections fed. It supposes a chain of association, by which mute material forms are linked to certain states of thought and moods of feeling, so that our joys and sorrows, our struggles and triumphs, are chronicled on the walls of a house, the trunk of a tree, or the alleys of a garden. Many

persons are so unhappy as to pass through life without these sweet influences. Their lives are wandering and nomadic, and their temporary places of shelter are mere tents, though built of brick or wood. The bride is brought home to one house, the child is born in another, and dies in a third. As we walk through the unexpressive squares of one of our cities, and mark their dreary monotony of front, and their ever-changing door-plates, how few of these houses are there that present themselves to the eye with any of the symbols and indications of home. These, we say instinctively, are mere parallelograms of air, with sections and divisions at regular intervals, in which men may eat and sleep, but not live, in the large meaning of the term. But a countryhouse, however small and plain, if .it be only well placed, as in the shadow of a patriarchal tree, or on the banks of a stream, or in the hollow of a sheltering hill, has more of the look of home than many a costly city mansion. In the former, a portion of nature seems to have been subdued and converted to the uses of man, and yet its primitive character to have remained unchanged; but, in the latter, nature has been slain and buried, and a huge brick monument erected to her memory. We read that "God setteth the solitary in families." The significance of this beautiful expression dwells in its last word. The solitary are not set in hotels or boarding-houses, nor yet in communities or phalansteries, but in families. The burden of solitude is to be lightened by household affections, and not by mere aggregation. True society-that which the heart craves and the character needs is only to be found at home, and what are called the cares of housekeeping, from which so many selfishly

and indolently shrink, when lightened by mutual forbearance and unpretending self-sacrifice, become occasions of endearment and instruments of moral and spiritual growth.

The partial deprivation of sight under which Mr. Prescott has long labored, is now a fact in literary history almost as well known as the blindness of Milton or the lameness of Scott. Indeed, many magnify in their thoughts the extent of his loss, and picture to themselves the author of "Ferdinand and Isabella" as a venerable personage, entirely sightless, whose "dark steps" require a constant "guiding hand," and are greatly surprised when they see this ideal image transformed into a figure retaining a more than common share of youthful lightness of movement, and a countenance full of freshness and animation, which betrays to a casual observation no mark of visual imperfection. The weight of this trial, heavy indeed to a man of literary tastes, has been balanced in Mr. Prescott's case by great compensations. He has been happy in the home into which he was born, happy in the home he has made for himself, and happy in the troops of loving and sympathizing friends whom he has gathered around him. He has been happy in the early possession of that leisure which has enabled him to give his whole energies to literary labors, without distraction or interruption, and, most of all, happy in his own genial temper, his cheerful spirit, his cordial frankness, and that disposition to look on the bright side of men and things, which is better not only than house and land, but than genius and fame. It is his privilege, by no means universal with successful authors, to be best valued where most known; and the graceful tribute which his intimate

friend, Mr. Ticknor, has paid to him, in the preface to his History of Spanish Literature, that his "honors will always be dearest to those who have best known the discouragements under which they have been won, and the modesty and gentleness with which they are worn," is but an expression of the common feeling of all those who know him.

To come down to smaller matters, Mr. Prescott has been fortunate in the merely local influences which have helped to train his mind and character. His lines have fallen to him in pleasant places. His father, who removed from Salem to Boston when he himself was quite young, lived for many years in a house in Bedford-street, now swept away by the march of change, the effect of which, in a place of limited extent like Boston, is to crowd the popu lation into constantly narrowing spaces. It was one of a

class of houses of which but few specimens are now left in our densely-settled peninsula. It was built of brick, painted yellow, was square in form, and had rooms on either side of the front door. It had little architectural merit and no architectural pretension. But it stood by itself and was not imprisoned in a block, had a few feet of land between the front door and the street, and a reasonable amount of breathing-space and elbow-room at the sides and in the rear, and was shaded by some fine elms and horse-chestnuts. It had a certain individual character and expression of its own. Here Mr. Prescott the elder, commonly known and addressed in Boston as Judge Prescott, lived from 1817 to 1844, the year of his death. Mr. Prescott the younger, the historian, upon his marriage, did not leave his father's house to seek a new home, but, complying with a kindly

custom more common in Europe, at least upon the Continent, than in America, continued to reside under the paternal roof, the two families forming one united and affectionate household, which, in the latter years of Judge Prescott's life, presented most engaging forms of age, mature life, and blooming youth. As Mr. Prescott's circle of research grew more and more wide, the house was enlarged by the addition of a study, to accommodate his books and manuscripts, and here fame found him living when she came to seek him after the publication of the "History of Ferdinand and Isabella." No one of those who were so fortunate as to enjoy the friendship of both the father and the son ever walks by the spot where this house once stood, without recalling, with a mingling of pleasure and of pain, its substantial and respectable appearance, its warm atmosphere of welcome and hospitality, and the dignified form, so expressive of wisdom and of worth, of that admirable person who so long presided over it. This house was pulled down a few years since, soon after the death of Judge Prescott: his son having previously removed to the house in Beacon-street, in which he now lives during the winter months.

Few authors have ever been so rich in dwelling-places as Mr. Prescott. "The truth is," says he in a letter to the publisher, "I have three places of residence, among which I contrive to distribute my year. Six months I pass in town, where my house is in Beacon-street, looking on the common, which, as you may recollect, is an uncommonly fine situation, commanding a noble view of land and water."

There is little in the external aspect of this house in Beacon-street to distinguish it from others in its immediate