The little hill-town of Petersham in the back of Worcester County was John Fiske's summer home, a spot he tenderly loved. It is a retired place made very attractive in later years through the agency of his brother-in-law, who with wise and kindly art has added to the natural beauty. I saw John Fiske here in his home of homes to which his heart clung more and more fondly as his end approached. The weight of his great body, accumulating morbidly in a way which could not be counteracted, fairly overwhelmed at last his bright and noble life. As the doctors put it, a heart made for a frame of one hundred and sixty pounds could not do the work for three hundred. When, in his weakness, death was suggested to him as probably near, "Death!" said he simply and sweetly, "why, that only means going to Petersham to stay!" and there among the flowers and fields, remote from the world, though his spirit remains widely and solemnly pervasive, he has gone to stay.

CHAPTER VII

ENGLISH AND GERMAN HISTORIANS

When I went to England in 1886 to collect materials for a life of Young Sir Henry Vane, John Fiske gave me a letter to Dr. Richard Garnett, then Superintendent of the Reading Room in the British Museum. He afterwards became Sir Richard Garnett and was promoted to be Keeper of Printed Books, perhaps the highest position among the librarians of the world, a post to which he did honour. Dr. Garnett, slender and alert, the heaped-up litter of volumes and manuscripts in his study telling at a glance where his tastes lay, was nevertheless as he needed to be most practical and business-like. Though an accomplished littérateur touching with versatility poetry, criticism, history, philosophy, and still other fields, this was his hobby only, his main work being when I knew him to make available for readers crowding from all lands seeking information of all kinds, the treasures of this wonderful store-house. He treated me with the kindest courtesy, but I have no reason to feel that I was an exception. He stood on that threshold, a welcomer of all scholars, for his good nature was no more marked than the comprehensiveness of his information and the dexterity with which without the least delay, he put into the hands of each searcher the needed books. Perhaps it was an unusual favour that, influenced no doubt, by my good introduction, he took a half-hour out of his busy morning to conduct me himself through the Egyptian collection. We passed rapidly among statues and hieroglyphics, his abundant knowledge appearing transiently as he touched upon object after object while at the same time in an incisive and witty vein he spoke of America and the events of the day. Pausing at last before the great scarabaeus of polished syenite whose huge size required a place in the centre of the corridor, he said with a twinkle, "I must tell you a story about this of which one of your countrymen is the hero. I was walking with him here in the collection and expected from him some expression of awe, but like so many of you Americans, he wouldn't admit that he saw anything that couldn't be paralleled in the United States until we stood before the scarabaeus. Here his mood changed; his face fell, he slowly walked around the scarabaeus three times and then exclaimed, 'It's the all-firedest, biggest bug I ever saw in all my born days'"! I palliated patriotically the over-breezy nonchalance of my countryman and thought I had got at the bottom of the joke, but that evening at a little tea I was undeceived. A small company were present of men and women, talk flowed easily and when it came my turn I told the story of the Yankee and the scarabaeus which I had heard that day. As I brought out with emphasis the "all-firedest, biggest bug," I noticed that a frost fell on the mirth, silence reigned for a moment interrupted only by gasps from the ladies. What impropriety had I committed? Presently a little man behind the coffee-urn at the far end of the table, whom I had heard was a bit of a scientist, piped up: "Perhaps the Professor doesn't know that in England, when we talk about bugs, we mean that cimex which makes intolerable even the most comfortable bed." At last I had Dr. Garnett's story in its full force.

When I explained to Dr. Garnett my errand, an elaborate investigation of an historic figure, said he: "You must know Samuel Rawson Gardiner, the best living authority for the period of the English Civil War. Now Dr. Gardiner is peculiar. His great history of that period as yet takes in nothing later than 1642. Up to that date he will have all the information and help you generously. Of the time beyond that date he will have nothing to say, be mute as a dumb man. He has not finished his investigations and has a morbid caution about making any suggestion based on incomplete data." A day or two afterward I was in the Public Record Office in Fetter Lane, the roomy fire-proof structure which holds the archives of England. You sit in the Search Room, a most interesting place. Rolls and dusty tomes lie heaped about you, the attendants go back and forth with long strips of parchment knotted together by thongs, hanging down to the floor before and behind, written-over by the fingers of scribes in the mediaeval days and sometimes in the Dark Ages. The past becomes very real to you as you scan Domes Day Book which once was constantly under the eye of William the Conqueror, or the documents of kings who reigned before the Plantagenets. As I sat busy with some original letters of Henry Vane, written by him when a boy in Germany in the heart of the Thirty Years' War, a vigorous brown-haired man came up to me with a pleasant smile and introduced himself as Samuel Rawson Gardiner. Dr. Garnett had told him about me and about my especial quest, and with rare kindness, he offered to give me hints. It was for me a fortunate encounter, for no other man knew, as Gardiner did, the ground I desired to cover. He put into my hands old books, unprinted diaries, scraps of paper inscribed by great figures in historic moments, the solid sources, and also the waifs and strays from which proper history must be built up. He would look in upon me time after time in the Search Room; in the Reading Room of the British Museum we sat side by side under the great dome. We were working in the same field and the experienced master passed over to the neophyte the yellow papers and mildewed volumes in, which he was digging, with suggestions as to how I might get out of the chaff the wheat that I wanted. He invited me to his home at Bromley in Kent, where he allowed me to read the proofs of the volume in his own great series which was just then in press. It related to matters that were vital to my purpose and I had the rare pleasure of reading a masterly work and seeing how the workman built, inserting into his draft countless marginal emendations, the application of sober second thought to the original conception. I spent the best part of the night in review and it was for me a training well worth the sacrifice of sleep. In the pleasant July afternoon we sat down to tea in the little shaded garden where I met the son and daughter of my host and also Mrs. Gardiner, an accomplished writer and his associate in his labours. The interval between tea and dinner we filled up with a long walk over the fields of Kent during which appeared the social side of the man. He told me with modesty that he was descended from Cromwell through Ireton, and the vigour of his stride, with which I found it sometimes hard to keep up, made it plain that he was of stalwart stock and might have marched with the Ironsides. A day or two later he bade me good-bye; he and his wife departing for the continent for a long bicycle tour. The indefatigable scholar was no less capable in the fields and on the high road than in alcoves and the Search Room.

Lecky was not in England at the time of my visit and I can only claim to have had with him an epistolary acquaintance. To some extent I have worked on the same themes with him, and preserve among my treasures certain letters in which he made me feel that he regarded my accomplishment as not unworthy. Sir Charles Dilke and the Bishop of Oxford, William Stubbs, author of the great Constitutional History, I also never met, but I have letters from them which I keep with those of Lecky as things which my children will prize. With Edward A. Freeman, however, I came into cordial relations, a character well worthy of a sketch. He once came to America where with his fine English distinction behind him he met a good reception. He deported himself after the fashion of many another great Englishman, somewhat clumsily. At St. Louis he amusingly misapprehended conditions. Remembering the origin of the city he took it for granted that the audience which greeted him was for the most part of French descent, whereas probably not a dozen persons present had a trace of French blood in their veins. Because backwoodsmen a few generations before had possessed that region he took it for granted that we were backwoodsmen still. He addressed us under these misconceptions, the result being a "talking down" to a company of supposedly Latin extraction and quite illiterate. The fact was that the crowd, Anglo-Saxon with a strong infusion of German, was made up of people of high intelligence, the best whom the city could furnish, a city at the time noted for its interest in philosophical pursuits and the home of a highly educated class. Freeman's well-meant remarks would have seemed elementary to an audience of school-children. The address was quite inadequate and the unfortunate visitor had a rather cool reception. Freeman was only one of many in all this. The astronomer R.A. Proctor came to similar grief for a similar gaucherie, and even so famous a man as Lord Kelvin suffered in like manner. I have been told that at Yale University when addressing a college audience zealous for their own institution, he stumbled badly on the threshold by enlarging on the great privilege he was enjoying in speaking to the students of Cornell, proceeding blandly under the conviction that he was at Ithaca instead of under the elms of New Haven. But this clumsiness in Freeman and in others was only a surface blemish. He was a great writer treating with profound learning the story of Greece and Rome and South-western Europe in general, and illuminating as probably no other man has done the distant Saxon and early Norman dimnesses that lie in the background of our own past. I held him in thorough respect and when, following an article I had prepared in London for the Pall Mall Gazette, I received a polite note from him inviting me to come to see him at Somerleaze near Wells, I was much rejoiced. I went thither, passing through the beautiful green heart of England. In Wiltshire from the car-window I caught sight of a distant down on which, the substratum of chalk showing through the turf skilfully cut away, appeared the figure of a gigantic white horse, the memorial of an old Saxon battle; thence passing near Glastonbury and skirting the haunts of ancient Druids in the Mendip Hills, I was attuned for a meeting with a scholar who more than any other man of the time had aroused interest in the old life of England. I alighted at Wells where a trap was waiting, and drove between hedgerows for two miles to the secluded mansion. It lay back from the road, a roomy manor house thickly surrounded by groves and gardens. I was put at ease at once by the friendly welcome of Mrs. Freeman, a charming hostess who met me at the door. Freeman soon entered, a veteran of sixty, his florid English face set off by a long beard, and hair rather dishevelled, tawny, and streaked with gray. Like Gardiner he was of vigorous mould and we presently strode off together through the lanes of the estate with the sweet landscape all about us. His talk was animated and related for the most part to the objects which we passed and the points that came into view on the more distant hills. It was rather the talk of a local antiquary than of a historian in a comprehensive sense, though now and then a quickly uttered phrase linked a trifling detail with the great world movement; the spirit was most kindly. Returning to the house he stooped to the ground and picked up a handsome peacock's feather which he gave with a bow as a souvenir of the walk. At dinner we met Miss Freeman, an accomplished daughter. There was only one guest besides myself, a man whom I felt it was good fortune to meet. It was the Rev. William Hunt, since that time well known as a large contributor to Leslie Stephen's great Dictionary of National Biography, President of the English Historical Society, and author of many valuable works. It so happened that a few weeks before, my Life of Samuel Adams had come under his notice and gained his approval, which he had expressed in a cordial fashion in the Saturday Review by an article which had caused me much satisfaction. An evening followed full of interesting things. Miss Freeman played the piano for us with much skill, and then came a most animated talk which, though genial, was critically pungent. The United States was often sharply attacked and I was put to all my resources to parry the prods that were directed at our weak places. I did not escape some personal banter. Feeling that I was in a congenial atmosphere I announced with warmth my persistent love for England, though my stock had been fixed in America since 1635. I spoke of a cherished tradition of my family. The chronicler, Florence of Worcester, describes an ancient battle in the year of 1016 between Edmond Ironside and the Danes. The battle was close and the Danes at one point had taken captive a Saxon champion who looked very much like the king. By cutting off his head and holding it up before the Saxon army they well-nigh produced a panic, for the Saxons believed that their king was slain, and Edmond had a lively quarter of an hour in correcting the error and restoring order. He finally did so and won victory at last. The chronicler gave the name of the Saxon who thus suffered untimely decapitation as Hosmer. I told the story and Freeman at once insisted that it should be confirmed. He sent his daughter to the library, who returned bearing a huge tome containing the chronicle of Florence of Worcester. Freeman turned at once to the date, 1016, and there was the passage in the quaint mediaeval Latin. It was indeed a Hosmer who unwittingly had so nearly brought Edmond Ironside to grief. "Was I descended from the man?" queried Freeman. Quite proud that my story had been substantiated and perhaps a bit vainglorious over the fact that a man of my name had looked like a king, I was not slow in saying that I probably was, that my line for six hundred years after that date, honest yeomen, had lived near the spot, in the fields of Kent. Freeman assented to the probability, but it was suggested by others present that there was a further tradition. The Hosmer of 1016 had lost his head, the Hosmers since that day had been constantly losing theirs, in fact, there had been no man of that name since that time in England who had any head worth speaking of, indeed they were said to be born without heads. Had this curious heredity been transmitted to the American line? I was forced to admit with confusion that I could cite no circumstances to rebut the suspicion, but all was good-natured though pungent, and when we broke up I retired to the guest chamber in a pleasant excitement. Freeman, who conducted me himself, brought the guest-book, calling my attention to the fact that the chamber had shortly before been occupied by Gladstone. The next morning we drove to Wells where, under the guidance of Freeman and Mr. Hunt, I studied for some hours the beautiful cathedral. It is not so large as many cathedrals, but few of them are more interesting. The front is finely impressive; a curious, inverted arch in the choir which descends from the ceiling to meet an arch rising from the floor at a point midway between the roof and pavement is a unique thing in architecture, a master-stroke of the mediaeval builder who solved a problem of construction and at the same time produced a thing of beauty. I remember, too, in a chapel, an example of a central column rising like a slender stem of a lily and foliating at the top into a graceful tracery, springing from the columns which surround and enclose the space. All this is elaborated with exquisite detail in the white stone. My guides, who were full of feeling for the architectural perfection, knew well the story of the builders and the interesting events with which through the centuries a masterpiece had been associated. It was a charming visit closed, appropriately, by this inspection under Freeman's guidance, of the cathedral of Wells.

Goldwin Smith was a cosmopolite; a citizen as much of Canada and the United States as of England; a man indeed who would have preferred to call himself a citizen of the world. But in England he was born and bred and began his career; under the Union Jack he died, and he may rightly be classed as an English historian. My acquaintance with Goldwin Smith began a quarter of a century back, in the interchange of notes and books. I was interested in the same fields which he had illustrated. I looked upon him as more than any other writer, perhaps, my master. I was in love with his spirit from the first and thought that no other man had considered so well topics connected with the unity of English-speaking men in a broad bond of brotherhood. I did not set eyes on him until 1903, being for that year President of the American Library Association which was to meet at Niagara Falls. I invited Goldwin Smith to give the principal address. The librarians of Canada, as well as the United States, were to assemble on the frontier between the two countries, and it seemed desirable that a man standing under two flags should be spokesman and this character fitted Goldwin Smith precisely. But that year he became eighty years old. In the spring he was ill and did not dare to undertake in June an elaborate address. When we assembled at Niagara Falls, however, I found him there. He had come from Toronto to show his good-will and he spoke several times in our meetings; deliverances which, while neither long nor formal, were well worth hearing. He was a stately presence, tall, slender, and erect even at eighty, with a commanding face and head which had every trait of dignity. I had several opportunities for private talk and it appeared that his natural force was by no means abated. It would no doubt be more just to class him as a critic in politics, literature, and philosophy rather than an historian, but in the latter capacity, too, his service was great. His talk was fluent, incisive, and put forward without reference to what might be the prejudices or indeed the well-based principles of his listeners. He lashed bitterly the Congress of the United States for refusing through fear of Irish disapproval to do honour to John Bright. His tongue was a sword and cut sharply, and while he won respect always, often excited opposition and sometimes hatred. Napoleon in particular was a bête noire, to whom he denied even the possession of military genius. His courage was serene and he was quite indifferent as to whether he were hissed or applauded. He moved in a lofty atmosphere and the praise and blame of men counted for little with him, as on his high plane he discussed and judged. But it was impossible to entertain for Goldwin Smith any other feeling than profound respect, his accomplishments were vast, his memory unfailing, his ideals the highest, his sense of justice the keenest. His was a nature perhaps to evoke veneration rather than affection, and yet to men worthy of it he could be heartily cordial and friendly. The inscription on the stone erected to his memory at Cornell University is "Above all nations is humanity." In his thought any limitation of the sympathies within the comparatively narrow bounds of one country was a vice rather than a virtue, and no nation was worthy to endure which did not stand for the good of the world at large; into love for all humanity narrower affections should emerge. He invited me to spend some days at the Grange at Toronto in his beautiful home, but circumstances made it impossible. I am glad to have seen Goldwin Smith at Niagara; that majestic environment befitted the subduing stateliness of his presence, his intellect, power, and elevation of view. He was one of the most exalted men I have ever known.

Of my friend Bishop Phillips Brooks, I hope to say something by-and-by. I only mention now that when I asked him in 1886 for a letter or two to friends in England, whither I was going to collect material for a life of the colonial governor, he heartily said, "I will give you a letter to the best Englishman I know, and that is James Bryce."

Arriving one July day in London, I posted my letter and received at once an invitation from Mr. Bryce to call upon him in Downing Street, where, as Under Secretary of State, he then made his official home.

Mark Twain's tears over the grave of Adam, a relative buried in a strange land, all will recall. On a basis as good perhaps, I walked through Downing Street with a certain sense of proprietorship, for did it not bear the name and had it not been the home of my brother in the pleasant Harvard bond, Sir George Downing, of the class of 1642? In the ante-room with its upholstery of dark-green leather I mused for a few minutes alone, over diplomatic conferences of which it had probably been the scene, but Mr. Bryce quickly entered, slight and sinewy, in his best years, kindly, courteous to the man sent by a friend whom he held among the closest. Bryce at that time was on the threshold of his fame. He had written The Holy Roman Empire which I knew well. He had been Regius Professor at Oxford, whose shades he had not long before forsaken for politics. That he had a special interest in and knowledge of America, the world did not know. He apologised for turning me off briefly then, but "Come to dinner," said he, "at my house to-night in Bryanstone Square." I was prompt to keep the appointment. A drizzle filtered through the night as the cab arrived at the door, but there was a cheery light in the windows and a warm welcome to the entering guest. There were three or four besides myself; a young officer just home from the campaign in the Soudan, Dr. Richter the authority in music and art, and the brother and sister of the host. I felt it a high distinction that I handed out to dinner the stately lady, the mother of my host. The conversation was general. Bits of African experience from the young soldier, glimpses into Richter's special fields, and a contribution or two from the Mississippi Valley, from me. In the talk that followed the dinner Mr. Bryce showed himself at home in German as much as in English, but what surprised me most was his puzzling curiosity about minutiae of our own politics. Why did the Mayor of Oshkosh on such and such dates veto the propositions of the aldermen as to the gas supply? And why did the supervisors of Pike County, Missouri, pass such and such ordinances as regards the keeping of dogs? These, or similar questions were fired at me rapidly, uttered with a keen attention as to my reply. I was quite confused and lame on what was supposedly my own ground. How queer, I thought, was the interest and the knowledge of this stranger. But in a few months I felt better. The American Commonwealth appeared, revealing Bryce as a man who had set foot in almost our every State and Territory, and who had an intimacy with America such as no American even possessed.