for work to cease, and for playthings to be put away. The world of active life passed into the shadow of an eclipse, not to emerge until the sun should sink again beneath the horizon. "It was in this stillness of the world without, and of the soul within, that the pulsating lullaby of the evening crickets used to make itself most distinctly heard, so that I well remember I used to think that the purring of these little creatures, which mingled with the batrachian hymns from the neighboring swamp, was peculiar to Saturday evenings. I don't know that anything could give a clearer idea of the quieting and subduing effect of the old habit of observance of what was considered holy time, than this strange, childish fancy." Other glimpses of the child-life of our author abound in his writings; but those we have selected give us a very good idea of him as he was in that interesting period, when the roots of being are becoming stronger day by day and able better and better still to bear up the sap which afterwards is to form the life of sundry branches and leaves. It is note-worthy, that observance of the Puritans regarding the Sabbath and doubtless those enforced periods of quiet were of eminent service in concentrating the childish thought and making it strong and vigorous. : We observe that young Oliver Wendell Holmes used his powers of seeing and thinking at an early age and this makes all the difference to a man. If he have struggled, through a purblind, indifferent childhood and youth, and then be awakened to what is going on in the world about him, he will scarce ever get his eyes and ears well open: and the best we can say for him is, "better late than never." But he who from his earliest years has seen into things. and thought about them-even if, at first, only in a childish way-has already in him much of the material which goes to make a great man. That this was so with our author, has doubtless much to do with the success now enjoyed by him, and which he has so well earned. That "the child is father to the . man" has, in this case, received one of its many verifications, in one of the many modes in which may be verified. it The study of this child-life is exceedingly agreeable ; its aspect is as that of the good foundation prepared for the stately building to be erected upon it; or it may be likened to well-prepared outline, into which the detail may afterwards be worked, without the necessity of erasing faulty lines or slurring them over. The eye is satisfied with the prospect, and prepared by it for the grace and nobility of life which follow. Dr. Holmes retained in after years a very vivid recollection of the home of his childhood: and his writings often contain reference to the gambrel-roofed house, and to his having been born and bred amidst books. He seems never tired of going back in thought to early scenes: and in one of his poems is an apostrophe to home, which is one of the finest of its kind in our language. With it we will close this chapter. "Home of our childhood! How affection clings And hovers round thee with her seraph wings! The stranger's gale wafts home the exile's sigh, "O happiest they, whose early love unchanged, CHAPTER III. THE BRIEF BIOGRAPHY CONTINUED. "A life that all the Muses deck'd With gifts of grace, that might express All-subtilising intellect." Tennyson. THESE lines, taken from that half-mournful, halfhopeful wailing of sorrow and expectation, which has found poetic expression in that affectionate tribute to a departed friend by our Poet-laureate, entitled "In Memoriam," if shifted from the past tense to the present, would fitly designate the subject of this brief. biography. And in this continuation of our grateful task, we hope to shew the first-fruits of the budding manhood, which grew out of the childhood we have already studied; and the opening of that life, which is so eminently graced by an "all-comprehensive tenderness," and an intellect which is keen to observe and meditate, and swift and true in imparting knowledge and wisdom gained from observation and meditation. In the year 1829, Oliver Wendell Holmes graduated at Harvard University. He was then twenty years of age. At the same age he began writing verse. These two facts are noteworthy. He was poetical: he was also practical. We shall have something to say in a special chapter as to the poetry: therefore will not dwell on it here. But note the fact that this was no sentimental rhymster, fit only to string couplets together; but one who graduated in his University at twenty. He, in short, obeyed in spirit the injunction he afterwards urged upon a very troublesome class of milk-and-water versifiers: namely, "that writing verse should be an incidental occupation only, not interfering with the hoe, the needle, the lapstone, or the ledger." We now look upon our young graduate as a professional student. He studied the law for one year, in the Law School of Harvard University, under Judge Story, probably bearing in mind the opinion of our own legal luminary, Sir William Blackstone, that a competent knowledge of the laws of that society in which he may live, is the proper accomplishment of every gentleman and scholar; a highly useful, almost essential, part of a liberal and polite education. But it was to the healing of bodily ailments, rather than the argument and adjustment of legal rights and wrongs of contending parties, that he looked as his chosen profession. He therefore studied medicine. This he did for between four and five years, chiefly |