Page:Margaret Fuller Ossoli (Higginson).djvu/66

48 “Your ci-devant tutor, Mr. Bancroft, has been delivering a curious (as we say in Groton) address at Deerfield. If I thought you would care for it I would send you the account in Cousin George’s paper. My father requested me to write a little piece in answer to Mr. B.’s attack on Brutus in the ‘North American Review,’ which he published in the ‘Daily Advertiser’ some time since. It was responded to (I flatter myself by some big-wig) from Salem. He detected some ignorance in me; nevertheless, as he remarked that I wrote with ‘ability,’ and seemed to consider me as an elderly gentleman, I considered the affair as highly flattering, and beg you will keep it in mind and furnish it for my memoirs as such after I am dead.”

Mr. Bancroft’s paper on “Slavery in Rome” appeared in the “ North American Review” for October, 1834, and contained a very low estimate of Brutus. For some reason, although this number of the review was then considered important enough to be elaborately criticised in several successive issues of the “ Advertiser,” yet the indignation of Mr. Fuller and his daughter was not brought to bear until nearly two months had passed. On November 27, however, — Miss Fuller being then twenty-four, — there appeared in the leading Boston journal a communication in small print, signed “J.” and filling nearly a column. It handled Mr. Bancroft firmly though respectfully, but disputed his view in regard to Brutus, and showed a good deal of care in consulting