Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/111

100 ruins of St. Paul's; and naturally America supplied the explorer who was to penetrate the forest of Lon­don and indulge his national self-complacency over ruined temples and towers.

"Some unknown wild, some shore without a name,         In all thy pomp shall then majestic shine         As silver-headed Time's slow years decline.          Not ruins only meet th' inquiring eye;          Where round yon mouldering oak vain brambles twine,          The filial stem, already towering high,     Erelong shall stretch his arms and nod in yonder sky."

From these specimens of President Dwight's poetry any critic, familiar with the time, could infer that his prose was sensible and sound. One of the few books of travel which will always retain value for New Eng­landers was written by President Dwight to describe his vacation rambles; and although in his own day no one would have ventured to insult him by calling these instructive volumes amusing, the quaintness which here and there gave color to the sober narra­tive had a charm of its own. How could the con­trast be better expressed between volatile Boston and orthodox New Haven than in Dwight's quiet reproof, mixed with paternal tenderness? The Bostonians, he said, were distinguished by a lively imagination, ardor, and sensibility; they were "more like the Greeks than the Romans;" admired where graver people would only approve; applauded or hissed where an­other audience would be silent; their language was