worthy of notice that he dates the foundation of his Library from the very day on which he entered College. His contemplated collection of books and papers was the object uppermost in his thoughts, as he left his boyhood's home for the University. He went to that seat of Academical training, not with such vague aspirations as young men generally take with them to College, but with a definite and cherished plan to execute. On the 6th of July, 1703, he was admitted as a student at Harvard; and he celebrates the joyous occasion, not as students sometimes did in that day, by convivial parties and mutual congratulations, but by laying the corner-stone of his New England Library.

The eight years which he spent in Great Britain, and on the continent of Europe, were occupied, to a large extent, in making the acquaintance of scholars, and securing other facilities for carrying on the work he had undertaken. He no doubt regarded himself as a pioneer in the business of book-collecting, on this side the Atlantic; and it seems to have been his ambition, to gather a Library which should do honor to his country's scholarship, and which should cause his own name to be remembered with gratitude by all New Englanders. The following letter, written a few months after his retnrn to his native land, will show what pains he took to improve a casual visit, and to interest an intelligent merchant in his favorite project. As the letter is brief, and probably has never been printed hitherto, we will give it entire :

ROTTERDAM, 25 March, 1718.

MR. PRINCE:

SIR:-This comes to wish you much joy of your call to the ministry in Boston. I pray God give you good success, and may you live to enjoy the fruits of your labor. You may well remember you were at my house when at Rotterdam. My acquaintance I own to be but small, but Mr. Loftus told me it might not be amiss to write you; that it might lie in your power to recom

mend some of your friends who trade this way, to consign what effects they send here to me. I will do them the utmost justice. You having been in some of these parts, some of your friends may inquire of you to recommend them to some friend you know. I desire your favor also, if that you want any books, or any other service to be done here for yourself, that you would command me; and when any ships come from Boston here, will be proud if you do me the honour to let me hear of your welfare. I shall only add due respects, and am,

Sir, your servant to command,

JOHN STANTON.

This letter may have been meant as nothing more than a shrewd stroke of mercantile sagacity; but even if it was, it shows on which side the writer thought best to approach Mr. Prince, in order to accomplish his object. The allusion to books reveals the fact that Mr. Prince had made himself known chiefly as the founder of a library, in the Old World; and that no more grateful courtesy could be extended him than an offer to aid him in his cherished scheme.

It is not possible for us, at the present day, to have any just conception of the value of the Library collected by Mr. Prince. No man in his time surpassed him, in fitness for the work he had undertaken. The facilities which he possessed for carrying out his plan, were also very great; and the ever-increasing machinery, with reference to this darling object, was kept in operation by him for more than half a century. In view of these facts, we are driven to conclude that his collection of books and papers must have been immense, and of surpassing value, at the time of his decease. A feeling of sadness, mingled with indignation, comes over us,

whenever we look at the few remnants of that magnificent Library, garnered partly in the Chapel of the Old South Church, and a few musty shreds of it stowed away in the Rooms of the Massachusetts Historical Society! It is like the wreck of an Egyptian city. All its costliest and

most substantial treasures have either been destroyed, or barbarously mutilated and suffered to fall into decay. Its chief ornaments, even the few which escaped the auto-de-fes of British royalism, are in such a condition as to render them nearly useless. Books, no doubt, which historians and scholars would now prize beyond all limits, have been stolen from it, and carelessly or wickedly thrown away. Its most sacred relics, like the columns of Thebes, have been transported, and now stand, as objects of attraction, in the libraries of other lands. As one glances along through the soiled remnants left us, his eye is arrested by such notices as this, written on the fly-leaf of a rare copy of Captain John Smith's History of Virginia: "Claimed at an auction of books and recovered, in 1814, after having been out of the New England Library upwards of forty years, as supposed." Knowing the methodical and accurate habits of Mr. Prince, it is proper for us to conclude that he left a complete manuscript catalogue of his books and other literary treasures. But no such catalogue has yet been found. It was probably destroyed, together with other papers and manuscripts, during the occupation of the Old South Meeting-house by the British soldiery. Not even a testimony to the good man's unwearied labors remains. Succeeding generations have never known, and never can know, how indefatigably he toiled for their instruction. The splendid inheritance was scattered and wasted while yet in reversion. The monument, which was to make the patient Christian scholar immortal, and wide as the learned world in his fame, perished on its way from the quarry.

How much more fortunate, though perhaps far less deserving of the gratitude of posterity, are such as the late Thomas Dowse!-who lived in an age when rare collections of books, however small and limited in their range, are more duly appreciated; when scholars, and associations of literary gentlemen, stand ready to take

any such collection under their charge, and to preserve it sacredly in honor of the testator; and when the most eloquent pens and tongues are employed, to swell his praises and perpetuate his fame.

We shall probably have occasion to speak again, of the labors of Mr. Prince as a collector of books, in the sketch of his life which we propose to give. We have seen it intimated, by some writers, that he ought to have presented his Library to Harvard College; and, if he had done so, that his life-long labor would not have been thrown away. But this prediction would probably not have been fulfilled, whatever may have seemed proper on the part of Mr. Prince. Had his collection of books and papers been at Cambridge, we must suppose that it would have been totally destroyed by the fire of January 24th, 1764. That sad calamity would have been far heavier than it actually was, had the New England Library then met the fate of " the best library and philosophical apparatus in America."1 It will appear, we think, in the course of what follows, that Mr. Prince had some reason for not donating his books to Harvard, even if such a course was ever suggested to him.

The materials for the sketch to which we now proceed, are discouragingly meagre ; but we shall endeavor to use them, such as they are; pursuing, as far as practicable, the chronological order.

From the few notices which have been preserved, it appears that Thomas Prince was the great grandson of Rev. John Prince, of East Shefford, in Berkshire, England. This ancestor, says the subject of the present sketch, "was born of honorable parents, educated in the University of Oxford, was one of the Puritan ministers of the Church of England, who in part conformed, and found great friends to protect him in omitting the more offensive ceremonies as long as he lived." Of Elder John Prince, son of the clergyman, little is known, except that he came to 1 Quincy's Hist. Harv. Coll., Vo¡. ii., pp. 112, 113.

this country in 1633, lived for a time in Watertown, and finally became an inhabitant of the town of Hull. Samuel Prince, Esq., son of Elder John Prince, was a resident of Sandwich, Massachusetts; and in this place his fourth son, Thomas, was born May 15th, 1687. The father was twice married. His first wife was Martha Barstow, by whom he had five children. His second wife was Mercy, daughter of Thomas Hinckley, the last governor of Plymouth Colony. Thomas was the first child by this marriage, and was named, probably, in honor of his maternal grandfather. Afterwards were born nine others; and therefore we must reckon the subject of this notice as one of a family of fifteen children. Several of these died early in life; and one, Nathan, born November 30, 1698, has left a somewhat sad history in connection with Harvard College.

In the absence of any clear records, which might throw light on the early life of Thomas Prince, we may perhaps venture to reconstruct that life, at least some portion of it, by a process similar to that which in science is termed comparative anatomy. The skilful zoologist is able, from a single bone or tissue, to make out the entire frame of an animal. It is said that the single scale of a fish has served for such a work in the hands of the ichthyologist. Why may not the biographer also, if he knows the general characteristics of the person he is describing, seize upon some fact in a period otherwise blank, and from that fill out the vacancy? He may not reach the exact truth; but it should seem, certainly, that he might come near to it.

We have at hand a little volume entitled, "The Marrow of Modern Divinity." Opposite the title-page of this book, which is too much torn to inform us as to the date of its publication, occurs the name of "Thomas Prince.". Beneath this name, we learn that the owner of the work was, at the time of thus claiming it, about ten 1 Hist.-Gen. Reg., Vol. v., p. 383.

years old. And we also learn, in addition to this fact, that the volume was given to him "by his mother." Turning over a single leaf, it appears further that he placed no slight value on the book; for there, in the handwriting of his mature life, he carefully repeats the fact that the work was a gift from his mother, and that it came into his possession when he was a mere child. The cost of the volume, also, is carefully noted; and, glancing along its pages, we find many of its most striking paragraphs marked with the same pen, apparently, which made the original entries. Now from this tell-tale volume, looked at, as it should be, in the light of the well-known characteristics of Mr. Prince in his manhood, several things may be inferred as probable. It warrants the inference that those habits of order and accuracy, which distinguished him in after life, were formed at an early age. In recording the price of this little book, the name of the giver, and the time when it came into his possession, the same thoughtfulness was evinced which he displayed as a traveller, and in the management of the most weighty affairs. By the kindness of the Rev. Chandler Robbins, D.D., of Boston, who in virtue of his family connections has inherited the manuscript Journal of Mr. Prince, we are enabled to verify these remarks. In this journal are noted the changes of weather, the events of every day experience, the smallest business transactions, the dates of letters, and to whom they were written, or from whom received-the whole manifesting, by its studied accuracy and completeness, a natural taste for such labor. Glancing from the carefully kept diary to the marks in the fugitive book, we trace in the latter the first forth-puttings of that peculiar style of mind which the former displays in its more mature workings. The child appears as father to the man. It was probably as true of Mr. Prince in boyhood, as in any period of his life, that he differed in his tastes from most of those around him. He had but few associates,

we may suppose; but little in common with the boys of his own age. It is likely that they regarded him as quite singular in his habits; as one who seemed most deeply interested in those things which had no attraction for themselves. This opinion would correspond with that which was often expressed of him during his manhood. His contemporaries, with the exception of a very few kindred spirits, looked on him as one who devoted his energies chiefly to matters which had no interest for other minds. It was strikingly true of him, that he walked in a path by himself. He was enthusiastic in doing that which the spirit of the times disregarded. The field which was generally passed by, he entered, making it his special department of labor. It is possible that he looked forward to the gratitude of a coming age, and in the hope of this was compensated for any present loneliness.

Whoever has read "The Marrow of Modern Divinity," will be convinced that it was no ordinary child, who, at the age of ten years, could be interested in such a treatise. It is a profound theological work, in which the great doctrine of the Reformation, Justification by Faith, is presented in its most Scriptural aspects. The passages which he has marked, and in which he seems to have delighted the most, are those which present Christ as a ground of hope and joy for the sinner. If there is a thread of religious melancholy running through his life, it is not owing to any gloomy view which he held of the way of salvation. The offer of full justification, on the simple condition of faith in Christ, has everything in it to encourage the desponding penitent. This fact, doubtlessly, accounts for its evident preciousness to Mr. Prince, not only in boyhood but as long as he lived. We know the religious peculiarities of his times. It is probable that he received a rigid Puritan training, in the family. His natural docility and love of retirement, must have given such influences great power over him. Hence he would come to have very

humbling views of his unworthiness and guilt before God, and would be driven to the doctrine of the mediation of Christ, for relief. Though he travelled more, perhaps, than the New England ministers of his day were wont to, and though he was largely concerned in public and secular affairs, yet his inclination seems ever to have been for a secluded, meditative life. His thirst for information, his love for every species of curious knowledge, the exigences of the age, and the widely scattered family estate which he was charged with administering, caused him to do violence to his early education and native tastes. It was well for him, no doubt, that such calls were allowed to draw him away from the pursuits which he instinctively loved; for though he often bewails the necessity of these uncongenial affairs, they probably counteracted, in some measure, his inclination to asceticism and the life of a recluse. The manuscript volumes already alluded to, contain several letters, written by Mr. Prince during his absence in Europe, in which he complains bitterly of the worldliness and wickedness everywhere encountering him. He seems, indeed, to regard it as a crime on his own part to be thus circumstanced; and he deeply abhors and abases himself, lest he should be guilty for barely beholding the ungodly conduct of others. These letters are to his "honored and dear parents;" and they show plainly enough that he was still true to the tendencies and training of his childhood.

We are almost certain, in the absence of positive testimony, that the religious experience of Mr. Prince began while he was yet a boy. Nothing less than this can account for his love of such books as he evidently read at an early age. Possibly there was a little of the morbid element in his piety; but we cannot be too careful to judge him mildly in this particular. Such confessions of guiltiness, such loathings of one's self on account of sin, as he was wont to express, would perhaps be regarded as savoring of affectation and spir