THOSE who were students in the Seminary at Andover in the years 1851 and 1852, need no reminder of Samuel Fiske. Little more than a boy in appearance, and as ingenuous as a child; rapid in thought, and wonderfully ready and easy in expression; endowed with remarkable conversational powers; warm-hearted, and always overflowing with genuine humor, which could draw something mirthful out of the dryest themes, and yet was never rude, indelicate, or unkind. That was the first impression upon a classmate. But it took no long time to see the brilliant qualities of his mind, or his rare scholarship; nor to discern that genuine Christian experience, as simple as a child's, controlled his entire character, and that all his efforts for good seemed spontaneous.

Nominally connected with the class which entered in 1849, he was absent that year, and actually became a member of the next succeeding, with which he remained two years, a universal favorite. We wondered, when he left to become a tutor in college, how his irrepressible humor would suit the teacher's chair; and when he was ordained a pastor, whether a staid people would appreciate the solid qualities underlying his mirthful and inexhaustible versatility. But when he entered the

army, all knew that there was a power in him which would insure success.

The two volumes of letters before us, recall most vividly his peculiar characteristics. Inevitably clothing his descriptions of scenery and incident in foreign lands, or of army life in Virginia, with a wit and humor which has few, if any equals, yet there is often as graphic description and just estimate of places or events as any writer can furnish. His letters from the army, especially, while never aiming at connected recital, are fascinating pictures of scenes, and truthful illustrations of feelings, which no correspondent has surpassed. They are, too, the exact portraiture of the man, a genuine man, of wonderful fancy, cultured mind, true Christian experience, and faithful unto death.

From the second of the works mentioned, his army letters carefully gathered and now handsomely reproduced,

we propose to make some extracts, drawing also from the beautiful and appreciative sketch by Professor W. S.

1 Mr. Dunn Browne's Experiences in Foreign Parts. Enlarged from the Springfield Republican. Boston: Published by John P. Jewett & Company. Cleveland, Ohio: H. B. P. Jewett. 1857.

Mr. Dunn Browne's Experiences in the Army. Boston: Nichols & Noyes. 1866.

Tyler, of Amherst College, the facts of his life.

Samuel Fiske was born in Shelburne, Mass., July 23, 1828; son of David and Laura Severence Fiske, the father a deacon in the church, - both of whom are still living. "Their intelligence and moral worth," says Professor Tyler, "their exemplary piety, their moderate circumstances, their efforts and sacrifices to educate their children, are known." Of Samuel's childhood,

"I can readily believe that he was then the same bright, lively, restless, funny, loving, and beloved little sprite as in after years, the light of the homestead, the life of the school, the head of all his classes, and the leader in every enterprise."

"Entering Amherst College in the autumn of 1844, as, I believe, the youngest, and, as I know, the smallest, and, as his classmates will all agree, the brightest and smartest of his class, he took at once high rank as a scholar. Perhaps his forte was in mathematics; but he excelled also in the classics and all the departments. Easy to learn, he required less time than perhaps any of his classmates to master his lessons. Indeed, quick as a lightning-flash, he seemed to see things by intuition. Nevertheless, he was a model of industry and economy both in time and money. And well he might be; for his time was worth saving, and his money was all transmuted into durable riches, while many students, without half of his wit or any of his wisdom, rely on their mother wit as superseding the necessity of exertion, and many a man, without a tithe of his genius, pleads his genius as an excuse for extravagance, and all the vices of which extravagance is the fruitful mother. Dependent chiefly on his own earnings for his education, he worked in a bindery by day, and studied by night. ... I remember just where he sat and just how he looked when he was a Junior under my own instruction. In my mind's eye

.....

I see him now, curled up in the corner of his seat, scarcely occupying more room than a kitten, playful as a kitten too, still the boy, and yet in promise the coming man of the class, his eye flashing with interest, his face beaming with intellectual life and joy, and his whole body vibrating and throbbing in spontaneous sympathy with his active mind, the living impersonation of Dr. Bushnell's doctrine of 'Play;' for with him work was play, study a pleasure, duty his delight, as it doubtless will

have had the first but for the necessity of working so much with his own hands, — and at Commencement he delivered a salutatory oration, as full of fun as the grave and stately Lingua Latina' could carry.

....

"It was during the winter term of his sophomore year that he became personally interested in the salvation by Christ and began his religious life; and in the summer term of the same year, on one of those sacred festivals, - Pentecosts they have sometimes seemed,- so many of which have gladdened the eyes and hearts of the officers and students of Amherst college, he stood up with a large number of the leading scholars of his own and other classes, and in the presence of a great congregation of young men, consecrated himself to the supreme love and service of the Triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, whose name and seal had been placed upon him in early infancy in the ordinance of baptism."

After graduation he was engaged for two years in teaching at South Hadley, Mass., in New Jersey, and at Shelburne Falls, and in 1850 he entered the seminary at Andover, where he remained two years.

Many of his sallies are remembered, as well as his drawing food for mirth even from the Hebrew grammar. One recollection must suffice. At an examination of the class by the professor in theology, being questioned upon some topic, he omitted one point, to which the professor called his attention. He remembered, he said, that was treated, but had forgotten how. “Well, sir,” said the professor, in his peculiar and genial way, suppose you were on a western steamboat, and somebody should ask you about that point, how would it do for you to answer, that Professor

"" 66

66

said something about

's

it, but you did not really know what? Ah," replied he, "nobody will ever catch me on a western steamboat without notes of Professor lectures under my arm!" The imaginary scene was altogether too much for the gravity of the professor and the class.

"Still a mere freshman in apparent age and size, and mistaken for such when he first came upon the college-grounds, some of the fathers of the freshman-class were disposed to patronize the young man, and more fatherly sophomores undertook to give him good advice touching his duty to his superiors. He enjoyed the mistake too well to correct it; and his amusement was only equalled by their surprise when they discovered their error by finding him in the tutor's chair, and themselves sitting under his instruction. About the same time a clergyman, laboring under the same mistake, asked him if he proposed to enter college. He replied that he had about made up his mind to take a shorter course into the ministry. The clergyman proceeded to argue the point, insisting on the superior value of a college education, when the tutor enlightened him by saying, 'Perhaps you do not understand my reasons for not entering college; it is because I have already been through, and know all about it by experi

ence.'

"It was during his tutorship in Amherst College that he was licensed by the Franklin Association, and began to preach the gospel. His sermons were full of thought, full of illustration, suggestive and impulsive to a rare degree. They were also inwardly charged, nigh unto bursting, with wit and humor. He could not always keep his wit and genius out of his prayers. His prayers were not like any other man's prayers; his sermons were not like any other person's sermons. He was a manifest and marked original. At the same time it was his sincere desire and constant study to be useful in the pulpit. He was more than an entertaining, he was an instructive and impressive, preacher. Preaching as he did in very many of the pulpits of this section, and still retaining his youthful appearance and small stature, he became widely known as the boy-minister of Hampshire and Franklin counties."

Wanting to see more of the world, he set sail, in 1855, for Europe and the East, and spent a year, partly in studying the French and German languages, but chiefly in traveling over the countries on and near the Mediterranean. It was in chronicling the incidents of this tour that he furnished the letters to the "Springfield Republican," which made him known as one of the raciest

In

"It may be well to remark, in explanation that Browne is not the real family name of the author. He was originally Greene, and in his early years was remarkable for a certain ingenuousness and simplicity of character, which was perhaps the occasion of his being subjected to so much of that peculiar experience, which teaches the subject of it some rather rough, but possibly salutary, lessons, scorches as it were his verdancy into a sober russet hue, in consequence of which experience the writer has, in the lapse of years (without once applying to the legislature for a change), gradually come to be called Browne. In short, if he had not been born Greene, very likely he would never have been Dunn Browne."

Although particularly interested in the Experiences in the Army, we are tempted to make some extracts from the first volume. He describes his sensations upon landing in England, thus:

"An English inn of the good, old-fashioned sort, is just the most comfortable place in the world next to your own home. Small, quiet, clean, with good beds, the most admirable cookery, and best of servants, giving you just what you ask for and at any hour of day or night; a man who would grumble under such circumstances ought to attend his own funeral as soon as possible, and leave this beautiful world to more reasonable people. Early Monday morning, after enjoying a nice 'mutton chop,' (I never understood the full meaning of that tender, juicy, delicious word till our bright, tidy, black-eyed, and rosy-cheeked Susan, with her coquettish muslin cap and her merry laugh, having spread the table for four in our own little parlor, brought them in all

smoking hot, with the proper accompaniments),

I sallied out for a stroll, taking an umbrella, for though the morning was bright and fair, yet I knew by the accounts of travelers that it always rains in England before night, and was determined to show the weather that I wasn't to be taken in by appearances.

"Everything about an English town is strange to a Yankee; the buildings all of solid stone, and gable end to the street; the tiled and thatched roofs; the immense walls about the gentlemen's residences (so that you might call

an Englishman's house not only 'his castle,' but almost his prison); the narrow and crooked streets; and above all the infinite variety of vehicles you see therein, of the most fantastic shapes, and generally four times as strong and heavy as they need be. Then there are the multitudes of donkeys, in carts and in carriages, with huge panniers and pack-saddles, driven by little ragged urchins, ridden by big men and women, and unmercifully beaten with sticks.

"But I was too much intoxicated with the freedom of the land, after being shut up so long in a ship, to confine myself to the streets or roads even, but quickly branched off into the fields, wandering over hill and dale without any regard to direction or distance, unmindful of hedges, walls, gates, and boards full of warnings to trespassers; picked the cunning little flowers under my feet, patted all the donkeys (four-legged ones) I met; one of whom ungratefully kicked me in return (I patted him considerably harder next time); chased the sheep (who were so fat and tame they wouldn't make much sport); plunged by and by into a village school among a hundred of the noisiest little rogues I ever saw; scrambled a hundred yards down some steep cliffs and took a sea bath; took a bath of another sort before I got up again; straying a while longer, found a little one-story village, and went into a funny, black, smoky ale-house, made of stones, brick, and mud, with thatched roof sixty years old they told me (the house may have been, for ought I know, six hundred); purchased of a smiling woman, as little, old, and queer as the house itself, four-pen'orth of bread and cheese and a mug of ale; found that I was five miles from Torquay, that one of my feet was blistered, and that, after all, an ocean voyage isn't the best preparative for a long walk in the country, so far as legs are concerned."

on

Dunn Browne's observations "French talking and talking French" are well worth copying:

"Most people have a particular set of organs to be used in talking, called vocal organs; but a Frenchman's organs are all vocal. He talks with every member and muscle of his body and every article of dress he wears. I don't think a parcel of Parisians in strait waistcoats could understand each other. A shrug of his shoulders is a whole sentence. A wave of the hand dispenses flowers of rhetoric. He emphasizes with his elbows and punctuates with his fingers. A flourish of his coat-tail is a figure of speech. He shakes metaphors from the foldsof a pocket hand kerchief, and, at

a pinch, even his snuff-box serves to round a period. You ought to have seen the eloquence of one old lady's petticoat, the other day, as she was enlarging upon the advantages of an apartment, for the rent of which your humble servant was negotiating. . . . . Whatever remarks I have had occasion to make, however, have been readily understood, while of the gibberish addressed to me in return, I could hardly make out two words in a sentence; which shows very plainly who speaks the best French. Indeed, it must be acknowledged by the greatest admirer of Paris, that very few indeed of her inhabitants speak French with that purity and correctness of pronunciation which are imparted in most of our American schools and colleges. I find, however, that they are improving every day, as I can understand them much better now than a week since, when I first arrived."

At the Exhibition in Paris his feel

ings are "too much for him," and he talks thus:

"I didn't mind seeing a very lightly clothed Delilah caressing a great, silly, naked Sampson to sleep on her lap, because the probabilities do not greatly oppose such a view of the case, nor disturb myself very greatly at seeing a polite, naked old gentleman of a dark brown color (the servant of Abraham) offering necklaces and bracelets to a half-naked damsel of a few shades lighter complexion, whom I took to be Rebecca, for it was a warm day and they were under the shade of some trees, and the artists must have some license. But when the very next picture that met my eye was poor Ruth out in the hot sun, gleaning among the rough wheat-sheaves, with nothing on but the abovementioned nondescript garment, and insanely hugging an armful of bearded grain against her tender breast, it really seemed to me that as the case is now out of Boaz' reach, somebody ought to interfere, and I have accordingly spoken out. Mr. Artist, I appeal to you, would it not have been better, by a few strokes of your brush, to have extended that garment up to her shoulders, or at the very least, to have covered the poor creature's head with a broad-brimmed palm-leaf hat, as a matter of mere humanity, to avoid harrowing people's feelings with the sight of so much apparent suffering?"

"I have seen [at Dresden] Raphael's famous 'Madonna di San Sisto,' and, unlike most famous and celebrated things, it surpasses all one's expectations. The face of the Virgin is the most lovely, pure, and holy countenance I ever gazed upon, or ever dreamed of, or ever

pictured to my fancy. It is a perfect ideal of female beauty and heavenly virtue. And it is praise enough to say of the other figures of the picture, that they are worthy of a place beside that loveliest creation of earthly artist. The sweetness and innocence of the Divine Child, and in the lower part of the painting the noble features of the pious old man (San Sisto), in contrast with the youthful countenance of Santa Barbara, both upturned in rapt adoration, as also the two lovely cherubs who look admiringly up from beneath, are all in harmony, and form one simple, united whole, which produces an effect all gentle and soothing, elevating, de

votional."

Of his experiences in Palestine and the Crimea, especially a description of Sebastopol, after the siege, we reluctantly forbear extracts.

The clearness of his conceptions is well illustrated in his description of the English University towns, in which he says:

"The dinner is the great center about which an Englishman's thoughts and plans all revolve, and when he founds a college, the first thing to be attended to, is to provide a magnificent dining saloon for its inmates; the next, a beautiful chapel, and if there happen to be any funds left, why, the libraries and professorships, and such minor matters may come in for the crumbs, so to speak, that fall from the din

ner-table."

And thus:

"These Scotch are a very nice people, both sensible and good-natured, who make you feel at home among them, just as the English, unless you have a hatful of introductions, make you feel that you are not at home, and several other nations I could name make you wish you were at home."

And thus:

"Our return was by steamer to Holyhead, thence by rail across the wonderful tubular bridge to Bangor, then an excursion to Caenavron Castle and Snowdon, then a Sabbath spent in sleepy old Chester, hearing a sleepy old bishop preach in the sleepy old cathedral. It is astonishing what an amount of dull preaching one hears in England. Ideas are as carefully excluded from the pulpit as if they were bomb-shells with the fuse lighted and liable to explode at once. There is more life and energy and thought and nourishment in the poorest

sermon I ever heard in a New England pulpit than in the best I heard (with two exceptions in London) during a constant attendance of three months in England. An Englishman doesn't like to be startled into any thought while sitting on the soft pew-cushions of his old parish church."

On the 3d of June, 1857, Mr. Fiske was ordained pastor of the Congregational Church in Madison, Ct.

In the course of his examination for ordination occurred an incident characteristic of the man. Says Professor Tyler :

"An incident occurred at his examination for ordination, which is so characteristic that it may well be preserved as a kind of miniaturelikeness of the man and the minister. One of

those minute' theologians, sticklers for the straitest school of Orthodoxy, who are to be found in every ecclesiastical council, insisted, with not a little vehemence, on a definite answer to the test-question, whether, in the case of the man who had the withered hand, it was the man that healed himself, or whether it was the Lord that healed him. 'Well,' replied the candidate, I always supposed that the man had a hand in it.'"

Of his pastoral work:

"The same tact and versatility are said to have marked all his intercourse with his

people. He was a match for any of them anywhere; he was at home with all of them everywhere. He could hold a plough or drive a team, if need be, equal to any farmer in the parish. He knew how work ought to be done, and how business ought to be transacted, as well as any mechanic or merchant or banker; and he made all this knowledge available in the most unpretending way in his preaching and pastoral visits. If necessary, he could be about on his own grounds and among his people nearly all the week, and when the Sabbath came, like Dr. Lyman Beecher, astonish everybody with the power and richness of his sermons, made rich and powerful, in part, by this very means. But, when the providence or the Spirit of God seemed to call for special and earnest labors, he would plead with his people in the pulpit and from house to house, day and night, with the eloquence of an angel from heaven; nay, as an ambassador of Christ, in Christ's stead, and with the sympathizing and beseeching tenderness of Christ, he would pray them to be reconciled to God. And not a few, won by these entreaties and by the winning