Page:An Epistle to Posterity.djvu/142

Rh of his, "written through the bars," as he called his wire net:

This is more precious than rubies, as testifying to the amiable character of this most amiable of men. He had enjoyed a great triumph in England on his first visit there, and told us much about it. He said Sydney Smith had sent him word before he went, saying, "Send Prescott over here and we'll drown him in turtle-soup."

"I sent him back word," said this genial-tempered man, "that I could swim in those seas." And indeed he could. As an elegant American he was a good specimen to send to London, as indeed were Everett and Motley, who seemed fitted to rub out the caricatures of Uncle Sam with which Punch and other papers have amused themselves.

Mr. Prescott was most fortunate in his biographer, for George Ticknor was one of the ripest of scholars and Prescott's friend of a lifetime. These men were as far off as possible from the Concord School and the transcendentalists, who were making themselves worldfamous at the same time. Tom Appleton's witty explanation that "the reason there were so many Unitarians in Boston was because a man born in Boston did not think that he needed to be born again" did not apply to Mr. Prescott or to Mr. Ticknor.

I dare say they looked upon Theodore Parker with horror, as he was a "come-outer" even among the Unitarians.

Emerson was "the consummate flower which the sturdy root and thorny stem of Puritanism existed to