After he came into possession of his inheritance he showed that he could make a good use of money. One of his first acts was to purchase a set of engravings in the Vatican, valued at ten thousand dollars, for the Boston Public Library. "I was not such a fool as to pay that sum for it, though," he remarked to Rev. Samuel Longfellow. He visited the studios of struggling artists in Rome and Boston, gave them advice and encouragement,—made purchases himself, sometimes, and advised his friends to purchase when he found a painting that was really excellent. He also purchased some valuable old paintings to adorn his house on Commonwealth Avenue.
He placed two of these at one time on free exhibition at Doll's picture- store, and going into the rooms where they hung, I found Tom Appleton explaining their merits to a group of remarkably pretty school-girls.
At the same moment, another gentleman who knew Mr. Appleton entered, and said, "Ah! a Palma Vecio, Mr. Appleton; how delightful! It is a Palma, is it not?"
"That," replied Mr. Appleton, "is probably a Palma; but what do you say to this, which I consider a much better picture?" The gentleman did not know; but it looked like Venetian coloring.
"Quite right," said Mr. Appleton; "I bought it at the sale of a private collection in Rome, and it was catalogued as a Tintoretto, but I said, 'No, Bassano;' and it is the best Bassano I ever saw. The Italians call it 'Il Coconotte.'"
Mr. Appleton had no intention of palming off doubtful paintings on his friends or the public; but in regard to "Il Coconotte" he was confident of its true value, and rightly so. The painting, so called from a head in the group covered very thinly with hair, was the pride of his collection and one of the best of Bassano's works. The other painting looked to me like a Palma, and I have always supposed that it was one.
After this Mr. Appleton branched off on to an interesting anecdote concerning an Italian cicerone, and finally left his audience as well entertained as if they had been to the theatre.
In 1871 he published a volume of poems for private circulation, in which there were a number of excellent pieces, and especially two which deserve a place in any choice collection of American poetry. One is called the "Whip of the Sky" and relates to a subject which Mr. Appleton often dwelt upon,—the unnecessary haste and restlessness of American life, and is given here for the wider circulation which it amply deserves:
THE WHIP OF THE SKY.
Weary with travel, charmed with home,
The youth salutes New England's air;
Nor notes, within the azure dome,
A vigilant, menacing figure there,
Whose thonged hand swings
A whip which sings:
"Step, step, step," sings the whip of the sky:
"Hurry up, move along, you can if you try!"