And think to burst out into sudden blaze, William Bradford Homer was born in Boston, January 31, 1817. "In his eleventh year he was sent to Amherst, Mass., where he spent three years as a member of Mt. Pleasant Classical Institution," and where he recommended himself to his instructers by his amiable manners and studious habits. After a year spent in Boston and another at Andover in Phillips Academy, he entered Amherst College in September, 1832. Here "he soon took the first rank in his class, which he held to the end of his collegiate course." "In the forms and syntax of Latin and Greek,” says Professor Fiske, “he was more thorough than is common, even among those generally accounted good scholars. If I sometimes helped him in breaking the shell, he always seemed to find a sweeter meat than I had tasted. While he had a strong relish for poetic beauty, and possessed an imagination highly active, and truly rich in ideal pictures, he had also a striking fondness for exact thought, and for lucid order and symmetry in arrangement, and neatness and accuracy in style and performance." After graduating at Amherst, in 1836, Mr. Homer immediately entered the Theological Seminary at Andover, in order to qualify himself for the profession to which he had already dedicated his life. His biographer gives us extracts from his letters during his college life, and his residence at Andover, which are interesting, as showing the workings of a pure ambition, a generous love of excellence, and also somewhat of the morbid action that so often accompanies sensitive and gifted natures. "Feb. 18, 1837. (Junior year at Andover.) — Last Tuesday was the most miserable day I ever experienced. I arose in the morning jaded and depressed. It was the turn of the eighty-eighth Psalm to present itself to my devotional meditations, and it seemed a remarkable providence, as a more precise and accurate mirror of my own feelings could nowhere have been selected. It was no religious exercise, I frankly own; but in the solitude of my gloom, I am almost ashamed to confess it, I did pour out my soul like water over that Psalm. Such prospects of discouragement as pressed themselves upon me, I pray to be relieved from henceforth and forever. There is one dreadful thought, that at such moments comes upon my mind. I would whisper it in your ear. It is that my mind has already reached its maturity, that I shall never grow to a larger than my present intellectual stature. My developments were early, perhaps too early. I have always been beyond my years. And you know that it is no unusual phenomenon that minds too soon matured are of a stinted growth, and those who were men in boyhood become boys in manhood. I know that this is a wicked thought. It may be the conception of a diseased imagination. It undoubtedly is the offspring of a pride of intellect, rather than of that humble and submissive spirit which bows in meek resignation to the will of God. But it is a dreadful thought in itself, and in its accompaniments, when I think of the disappointment of the affectionate hopes that have been centred in me. God forgive me, if I ever think of honoring the earthly objects of my love more than the heavenly.' - p. 38. We are glad to find that the biographer did not suppress these secret confessions, through any false idea that they might injure the reputation of his young friend with the ultra good. We have proof in the following remarks by Professor Park, that he did not prune off here and there every natural growth of Mr. Homer's character, in order to adapt it to the standard of any particular circle or sect. "It may be objected, that the secret confessions of fault which the preceding letters contain should not be exposed to the world. They would not be, if the present memoir were designed for a eulogy. They would not be, if the character of its subject needed to be glossed over and his foibles artfully concealed. But of what advantage is a biography above a fictitious tale, when but half the truth is told, and the character of a man is painted as that of an angel? The Christian philosopher objects to novels because they give false views of life, and benumb our sympathies with man as he is actually found. And what are too many of our biographies but likenesses of nothing which is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth? The true idea of a memoir is, that it shall impart the general and combined impression of its subject, that it shall give no undue prominence to his foibles, nor make a needless exposure of his uncovered sins, and shall by no means imply that a man may live selfishly among us, and be canonized when he has gone from us; that he may sin cunningly here, and only his virtues shall be rehearsed hereafter. As the love of posthumous favor is one incentive to virtue, so the fear of censure from our survivors is a dissuasive from vice." - pp. 40, 41. VOL. XXXIII. 3D S. VOL. XV. NO. I. 15 During his residence at Andover, Mr. Homer did not confine his attention to theological studies, but entered upon a wide and liberal range of literary investigation. He examined carefully the German theory of Homer, interested himself in an edition of Macaulay's Miscellaneous Writings, and delivered before different clubs lectures on Jeremy Taylor, and critiques upon the characters of Shakspeare. By this kind of discipline he cultivated a delicate taste, which is conspicuous in all the productions of his pen, and while by these various studies he did not injure the seriousness of his mind, or lower his high spiritual standard, he yet counteracted the injurious effects, too apt to be exerted upon the character by an exclusive attention to the dogmas of a hard and stiff theology. His biographer says of him, that "he had that candor of mind which comes of an enlarged scholarship. He could never have been a partisan in theology, as a young man often loves to be, and he would probably have done much good by his freedom from that narrow spirit which will cling to a sect or school, be it new or old." "Before he had closed his twenty-second year, he had accumulated much that would have quickened his mental growth for a long time to come. He had written numerous essays and orations, four quarto volumes of notes on his collegiate studies, eight volumes of abstracts and theses upon the topics of his Seminary course, had acquired six foreign languages, some of which he had mastered, had studied with philosophical acumen the writings of Hesiod, Herodotus, Longinus, Dionysius Halicarnassus, Eschylus and Euripides, and many of the old English prose authors; had written an analysis of each book in the Iliad and of the Odyssey, with copious annotations upon them, a critical disquisition also upon each of the minor poems and fragments ascribed to the father of poetry, an analysis of the orations of Demosthenes and schines, with extensive criticisms upon each, and various translations from Latin and German commentators upon the sacred and classical writings. He had also collected materials for at least three courses of lectures upon Homer and Demosthenes, and thought himself prepared to finish these courses with but little additional study, and within a short time. A synopsis of these lectures, with a catalogue of the authorities which he considered most important for reference, is published at the close of the present volume." - pp. 55, 56. But Mr. Homer was not a mere scholar. He was a man of warm affections, as well as of acute and polished intellect, as his biographer happily expresses it, he "was a true and hearty friend, and all his scholarship never left him a dried up specimen of humanity." This friendship was severely wounded in the loss of Mr. James G. Brown, who perished in the illfated Lexington. In a letter dated Feb. 8, 1840, alluding to the melancholy event just mentioned, his remarks seem to us to possess a great deal of beauty and truth. "You seem to me to dwell too much upon the aggravating circumstances of our late affliction. This is natural, but unnecessary, and probably incorrect. At first, my own soul was haunted by the terrors of that fearful night, and much of the miserable rhetoric that has appeared in public print upon the subject, has been fitted only to inflame the imagination, and in all probability to carry it beyond the reality. After a cooler examination, I have concluded that the physical suffering of the occasion was probably far less than is generally supposed. The intense and thrilling excitement of the scene to many minds would furnish occupation, without giving them an opportunity to brood over their own personal distresses. The human soul is furnished by its Creator with powers of self-support, to be developed in great exigencies, which are almost miraculous. Where was there an exigency so great as that, and where was the character containing in itself more sources of relief and even happiness, than that of our friend who is gone? I think it not impossible that his constitutional ardor may have made him one of the first who perished. If so, his struggles in the benumbing waters could have been but momentary, and his death may have been as serene as it was quick. We should have perhaps preferred to stand by his bedside and watch his lingering agonies; but for him, it was no doubt physically pleasanter to sink down exhausted and senseless into his oceanbed. It was more like a quiet slumber than we are apt to imagine. There is another thought which has given me great consolation, even in the more fearful alternative that he may have continued among the last. Our dear friend was prepared to die; probably better prepared than many of us who survive. I think of him in that sweet security, which the presence of Jesus can impart, resigning himself to his fate peacefully and calmly. There is a deep meaning in those passages of Scripture, which were the theme of his last perusal and meditation. There is prophetic beauty in the last words which we heard from him. And now, they are as a voice from heaven assuring us that no outward terrors can disturb the serenity of God's chosen. I think of him as cheering the comfortless in their gloom. With what ardor may not his zeal have been animated. With what efficiency and success may he not have prosecuted, on the burning deck, the mission he was not faithless to in the common walks of life. And perhaps, many poor trembling spirits may have been guided by his example and direction to the fold of his Shepherd in heaven." - pp. 65, 66. Mr. Homer, as his biographer informs 'us, sometimes "gave expression to his feelings in verse. We quote the only metrical composition in the volume before us, and the delicacy and sweetness of this piece make us regret that no more specimens of his poetical talent are furnished. "I hear thy voice, fond sleeper, now, And life bloomed fair with many a flower, That wake each chord with finer thrill. I hear thy voice in many a scene Where thou in buoyant hope didst roam, The cherished idol of thy home: But now in accents richly deep From the low grave where thou dost sleep. I hear thy voice in melting song, Who gathered round thy beauty here. I hear thy voice in fondness call, Το sway with soft and gentle thrall, And soothe the sorrows of thine own. I hear thy voice! It cometh oft In sorrow's gush and memory's swell, It comes with happy tone and blest And bids us to thine own sweet rest." p. 69 70. The paragraph in the Memoir, which relates to Mr. Homer's |