Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. For some particulars of the life of our poet, from the time of his leaving college till within ten years of his death, we are indebted to one of his early friends, who often made Rowley and its beautiful vicinity the scene of his boyish rambles.
I remember him, says this gentleman,
as a promising and intelligent youth, having just emerged from the shades of Harvard and looking forward to many happy and useful days. He was a man of genius, but his tastes were too versatile to permit the concentration of his powers, and that which of itself was noble and excellent was distributed among too many objects to be successful in any. He was mechanical, but had no perseverance; a scholar, but his rambling mind expatiated too much in the fields of literature to excel in any single department of science. He was a poet, but the full beauties of the gems he scatters are only visible to the keen-eyed beholder. He wasnever vicious, seldom indolent, always seeking yet never attaining, always disappointed yet forever starting afresh under the impulse of new hopes. He possessed qualities of mind and heart which were of a high order. We have said that we knew him in his brighter days at the home of his maternal grandfather, a most estimable gentleman of the old school?a liberally educated but then retired physician, who was by nature social and of dignified manners. But we give Mr. Knight’s own delineation: ‘ Hospitality opened his doors and politeness welcomed his guests; temperance presided over his meals, never taking so much as one glass of wine at once till in very advanced age, when it served as a cordial; with a mild dignity of brow, cautious in speech, prudent in counsel, of scrupulous integrity and decorum in conduct. He lived greatly respected, and few die at so grea…
