after frequent misgivings. Nor did he conceal from himself the peculiar difficulties of the undertaking. The elements of the proposed history, he perceived, were scattered, broken, and confused; differently affecting and affected by thirteen independent sovereignties; and chiefly to be sought in local tracts and histories, hard to be obtained, and often little known, even in America, beyond the scenes in which they had their origin, and on which their light was reflected. It was a work which must absorb many years of his life, and task all his faculties. Not only considerations like these, but also the extent of the outline, and the number and variety of details embraced in his design, oppressed and kept in suspense a mind naturally sensitive and self-distrustful. Having at length become fixed in his purpose, chiefly, there is reason to believe, through the predominating influence of his religious feelings and views, — on the 4th of December, 1824, he writes in his journal:-" After long, profound, and anxious deliberation, and much preparatory research and inquiry, I began the continuous (for so I mean it) composition of the history of the United States of North America. This pursuit, whether I succeed in it or not, must ever attract my mind by the powerful consideration, that it was first suggested to me in conversation with my father, Mr. Clarkson, and Mr. Dillwyn." And, at a subsequent date: - "May God (whom I have invoked in the work) bless, direct, and prosper my undertaking! The surest way to execute it well is to regard it always as a service of body and spirit to God; that the end may shed its light on the means. In the same spirit, he writes to Mr. Herschel, on the 31st of December:-"For a considerable time I have been meditating a great literary work, and, after much preparatory reading, reflection, and notewriting, have at length begun it. If I continue it as I hope to do, it will absorb much of my time and mind for many years. It is a history of North America, the most interesting historical subject, I think, a human pen ever

* A manuscript journal of the progress of this history, including the authorities consulted, was sent by Mr. Grahame, in the year 1835, to the President of Harvard College, and was deposited in the library of that institution, to which it now belongs. It is one of the documents used in the preparation of this Memoir.

undertook. I have always thought the labors of the historian the first in point of literary dignity and utility. History is every thing. Religion, science, literature, whatever men do or think, falls within the scope of history. I ardently desire to make it a religious work, and, in writing, to keep the chief end of man mainly in view. Thus, I hope, the nobleness of the end I propose may impart a dignity to the means."

The undertaking, once commenced, was prosecuted with characteristic ardor and untiring industry. All the time which professional avocations left to him was devoted to this his favorite field of exertion. His labors were continued always until midnight, and often until three or four o'clock in the morning, and he became impatient of every other occupation. But late hours, long sittings, and intense application soon seriously affected his health, and symptoms of an overstrained constitution gradually began to appear. Of this state of mind, and of these effects of his labors on his health, his letters give continual evidence. "I am becoming increasingly wedded to my historical work, and proportionally averse to the bar and forensic practice. At half past three this morning I desist, from motives of prudence (tardily operating, it must be confessed) rather than from weariness."-"Sick or well, my History is the most interesting and absorbing employment I have ever found. It is a noble subject."

By application thus active and incessant, the first volume of his work, comprehending the history of the settlement of Virginia and New England, was so nearly completed early in the ensuing May, as to admit of his then opening a negotiation for its publication. In a letter to Longman, his bookseller, Mr. Grahame expresses in the strongest terms his devotedness to the work, and adds: Every day my purpose becomes stronger to abandon every other pursuit, in order to devote to this my whole time and attention."

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He now immediately set about collecting materials for his second volume. Having ascertained that it was impossible to obtain books in England, essential to the success

* Letters to Herschel, January and February, 1825.

of his historical researches, and that rich treasures in the department of American history were deposited at Göttingen, he immediately transferred his residence to that city, and found in its library many very valuable materials for his undertaking. Here he also met with Sir William Hamilton, whose "unwearied labors in supplying him with information on the subject of his historical work, and whose interest in its success," he gratefully acknowledges in his letters; adding, — " To him nothing is indifferent that concerns literature, or the interests of his friends." During Mr. Grahame's short residence on the continent of Europe, his mother, to whom he was tenderly attached, died; and he returned to England in the following September, 1825, under a heavy depression of spirits. He resumed, however, his favorite labors, but, in consequence of the failure of his health, was soon obliged to desist.

"The latter part of 1825 and the beginning of 1826," his friend Herschel states, "was passed by Mr. Grahame in London, under pressure of severe and dangerous as well as painful illness, the exhausting and debilitating effects of which were probably never obliterated from his constitution, and which made it necessary for him to seek safety in a milder climate than that of Scotland. Thither, however, he for a while returned, but only to write in a strain like the following: "Whitehill, April 24, 1826. My bodily health is nearly reëstablished; but my mind is in a wretched state of feebleness and languor, and indifference to almost every thing. My History is completely at a stand. The last month has been the most disagreeable of my life. If I am not to undergo some great change in the state of my faculties, I do sincerely hope my life may not be long. My discontent and uneasiness are, however, mitigated by the thought, that our condition is appointed by God, and that there must be duties attached to it, and some degree of happiness connected with the performance of those duties. Surely, the highest duty and happiness of a created being must arise from a willing subservience to the designs of the Creator.""

Being apprized by his physicians that a residence in Scotland during the coming winter would probably prove fatal to him, he transferred his residence to the South of

England, and, thenceforth abandoning his profession of advocate, devoted himself exclusively to the completion of his historical work, as appears by the following entry in his diary:-" March, 1826. Edinburgh. I am now preparing to strike my tent, that is, dissolve my household and depart for ever from this place; my physicians requiring me not to pass another winter in the climate of Scotland, I quit my profession without regret, having little liked and greatly neglected it ever since I undertook the history of America, to which I shall be glad to devote uninterruptedly all my energies, as soon as I succeed in re-collecting

them."

His journal bears continued testimony to the deep interest he took in every thing American, and the philosophic views which he applied to the condition and duties of the people of the United States." American writers are too apt to accept the challenge of Europeans to competitions quite unsuitable to their country. Themistocles neither envied nor emulated the boast of the flute-player, to whose challenge he answered: I cannot, indeed, play the flute like you; but I can transform a small village into a great city. From evils of which America is happily ignorant there arise some partially compensating advantages, which she may very well dispense with. Titular nobility and standing armies, for example, develope politeness and honor (not honor of the purest and noblest kind) among a few, at the expense of depraving and depressing vast multitudes. Great inequalities of wealth, the bondage of the lower classes, have adorned European realms with splendid castles and cathedrals, at the expense of lodging the mass of society in garrets and hovels. If American writers should succeed in persuading their countrymen to study and assert equality with Europeans, in dramatic entertainments, in smooth polish of manners, and in those arts which profess to enable men to live idly and uselessly, without wearying, they will form a taste inconsistent with just discernment and appreciation of their political institutions. Vespasian destroyed the palace of Nero, as a monument of luxury and pernicious to morals. The absence of such palaces as Trianon and Marly may well be compensated by exemption from such tyranny as the revo

cation of the edict of Nantes, which was coeval with their erection."

Of Mrs. Trollope's "Domestic Manners of the Americans," and her depreciating view of "the society which he regarded with love, admiration, and hope," he thus writes in a subsequent page of his journal: "What is truth? Is it not as much in the position of the observer as in the condition of the observed? Mrs. Trollope seems to me full-fraught with the most pitiful vulgarities of aristocratical ignorance and pretension; and these would naturally invite the shock of what she seems to have met with in the antipathy of democratic insolence and coarseness; - she is Basil Hall in petticoats. Think of such a brace of pragmatical pretenders and adventurers as he and she, sitting in judgment on America!"

It is impossible not to remark the delight his mind took in any associations connected with America. "At the printing-office of Messrs. Strahan and Spottiswoode," he writes, "I corrected a proof-sheet of my History of North America, sitting within the walls of that establishment where Franklin once was a workman." Again, at Kensington: "I delight to stroll amid the sombre grandeur of these gardens. The lofty height and deep shade of these magnificent trees inspire a pleasing, solemn, half-melancholy gloom. Here Penn and Addison walked. Here Rousseau, when in England, was wont to sit and muse. Sometimes, in spirit, I meet their spirits here."

The first two volumes of his work, bringing the narrative down to the period of the English Revolution, being at length completed, were in February, 1827, published. But Mr. Grahame was now destined to sustain a severe disappointment. His History was received with little interest by the British public, and by all the greater Reviews with neglect. The Edinburgh, the Quarterly, and the Foreign Quarterly maintained towards it an ominous silence. Some of the minor Reviews, indeed, noticed it with qualified approbation. For Englishmen the colonial history of the United States had but few attractions; and the spirit in which Mr. Grahame had treated the subject was not calculated to gratify their national pride. He was thought to have "drunk too deep of the spirit of the