John Quincy Adams was fortunate in the home of his birth and childhood. It was a New England farm, descended from ancestors who were never so poor as to be dependent upon others, nor so rich as to be exempted from dependence upon themselves. It was situated in the town of Quincy, then the first parish of the town of Braintree, and the oldest permanent settlement of Massachusetts proper.[17] The first parish became a town by its present name, twenty-five years after the birth of Mr. Adams, viz. in 1792. It was named in honor of John Quincy, Mr. Adams's maternal great-grandfather, an eminent man. His death, and the transmission of his name to his great-grandson, are thus commemorated by the latter:

"He was dying when I was baptized, and his daughter, my grandmother, present at my birth, requested that I should receive his name. The fact, recorded by my father at the time, has connected with that portion of my name a charm of mingled sensibility and devotion. It was filial tenderness that gave the name. It was the name of one passing from earth to immortality. It has been to me a perpetual admonition to do nothing unworthy of it."

The farm-house stands at the foot of an eminence called Penn's Hill, about a mile south of Quincy village. It is an old-fashioned dwelling, having a two-story front, and sloping far away to a single one in the rear. This style is peculiar to the early descendants of the Puritan fathers of America. Specimens are becoming rarer every year; and being invariably built of wood, must soon pass away, but not without "the tribute of a sigh" from those, who associate with them memories of the wide old fireplaces, huge glowing backlogs, and hospitable cheer.

With this modest material environment of the child, was coupled an intellectual and moral, which was golden. His father, the illustrious John Adams, was bred, and in his youth labored, on the farm. At the birth of his son, he was still a young man, being just turned of thirty, but ripe both in general and professional knowledge, and already recognized as one of the ablest counsellors and most powerful pleaders at the bar of the province.

The mother of John Quincy Adams was worthy to be the companion and counsellor of the statesman just described. By reason of slender health she never attended a school. As to the general education allowed to girls at that day, she tells us that it was limited "in the best families to writing, arithmetic, and, in rare instances, music and dancing;" and that "it was fashionable to ridicule female learning." From her father, a clergyman, from her mother, a daughter of John Quincy, and above all from her grandmother, his wife, she derived liberal lessons and salutary examples. Thus her education was entirely domestic and social. Perhaps it was the better for the absence of that absorbing passion of the schools, which for the most part rests as well satisfied with negative elevation by the failure of another, as with positive elevation by the improvement of one's self. The excellent and pleasant volume of her letters, which has gone through several editions, indicates much historical, scriptural, and especially poetical and ethical culture. In propriety, ease, vivacity and grace, they compare not unfavorably with the best epistolary collections; and in constant good sense, and occasional depth and eloquence, no letter-writer can be named as her superior. To her only daughter, mother of the late Mrs. De Wint, she wrote concerning the influence of her grandmother as follows: "I have not forgotten the excellent lessons which I received from my grandmother, at a very early period of life. I frequently think they made a more durable impression upon my mind than those which I received from my own parents. Whether it was owing to a happy method of mixing instruction and amusement together, or from an inflexible adherence to certain principles, which I could not but see and approve when a child, I know not; but maturer years have made them oracles of wisdom to me. Her lively, cheerful disposition animated all around her, whilst she edified all by her unaffected piety. I cherish her memory with a holy veneration, whose maxims I have treasured, whose virtues live in my remembrance—happy if I could say they have been transplanted into my life."

The concluding aspiration was more than realized, because Mrs. Adams lived more than the fortunate subject of her eulogy, and more than any American woman of her time. She was cheerful, pious, compassionate, discriminating, just and courageous up to the demand of the times. She was a calm adviser, a zealous assistant, and a never failing consolation of her partner, in all his labors and anxieties, public and private. That the laborers might be spared for the army, she was willing to work in the field. Diligent, frugal, industrious and indefatigable in the arrangement and details of the household and the farm, the entire management of which devolved upon her for a series of years, she preserved for him amidst general depreciation and loss of property, an independence, upon which he could always count and at last retire. At the same time she responded to the numerous calls of humanity, irrespective of opinions and parties. If there was a patriot of the Revolution who merited the title of Washington of women, she was the one.

It is gratifying to know that this rare combination of virtue and endowments met with a just appreciation from her great husband. In his autobiography, written at a late period of life, he records this touching testimony, that "his connection with her had been the source of all his felicity," and his unavoidable separations from her, "of all the griefs of his heart, and all that he esteemed real afflictions in his life." Throughout the two volumes of letters to her, embracing a period of twenty-seven years, the lover is more conspicuous than the statesman; and she on her part regarded him with an affection unchangeable and ever fresh during more than half a century of married life. On one of the anniversaries of her wedding she wrote from Braintree to him in Europe:

"Look at this date and tell me what are the thoughts which arise in your mind. Do you not recollect that eighteen years have run their circuit, since we pledged our mutual faith, and the hymeneal torch was lighted at the altar of love? Yet, yet it burns with unabating fervor. Old ocean cannot quench it; old Time cannot smother it in this bosom. It cheers me in the lonely hour."

The homely place at Penn's Hill was thrice ennobled, twice as the birth-place of two noble men—noble before they were Presidents; and thirdly as the successful rival of the palaces inhabited by its proprietors at the most splendid courts of Europe, which never for a moment supplanted it in their affections. Mrs. Adams wrote often from Paris and London in this strain: "My humble cottage at the foot of the hill has more charms for me than the drawing-room of St. James;" and John Adams still oftener thus: "I had rather build wall on Penn's Hill than be the first prince of Europe, or the first general or first senator of America."

Such were the hearts that unfolded the childhood of John Quincy Adams.

Of all the things which grace or deform the early home, the principles, aims and efforts of the parents in conducting the education of the child are the most important to both. The mutual letters of the parents, in the present case, contain such wise and patriotic precepts, such sagacious methods, such earnest and tender persuasions to the acquisition of all virtue, knowledge, arts and accomplishments, that can purify and exalt the human character, that they would form a valuable manual for the training of true men and purer patriots.

Although the spot which has been mentioned was John Quincy Adams's principal home until he was nearly eleven, yet he resided at two different intervals, within that time, four or five years in Boston; his father's professional business at one time, and his failing health at another, rendering the alternation necessary. The first Boston residence was the White House, so called, in Brattle-street. In front of this a British regiment was exercised every morning by Major Small, during the fall and winter of 1768, to the no little annoyance of the tenant. But says he, "in the evening, I was soothed by the sweet songs, violins and flutes of the serenading Sons of Liberty." The family returned to Braintree in the spring of 1771. In November, 1772, they again removed to Boston, and occupied a house which John Adams had purchased in Queen (now Court) street, in which he also kept his office. From this issued state papers and appeals, which did not a little to fix the destiny of the country. The ground of that house has descended to Charles Francis Adams, his grandson. In 1774 Penn's Hill became the permanent home of the family, although John Adams continued his office in Boston, attended by students at law, until it was broken up by the event of April 19th, 1775.

Soon after the final return to Quincy, we begin to have a personal acquaintance with the boy, now seven years old. Mrs. Adams writes to her husband, then attending the Congress in Philadelphia:

"I have taken a very great fondness for reading Rollin's Ancient History since you left me. I am determined to go through with it, if possible, in these my days of solitude. I find great pleasure and entertainment from it, and I have persuaded Johnny to read me a page or two every day, and hope he will, from a desire to oblige me, entertain a fondness for it."

In the same year the first mention is made of his regular attendance upon a teacher. The person selected in that capacity was a young man named Thaxter, a student at law, transferred from the office in Boston, to the family in Quincy. The boy seems to have been very much attached to him. Mrs. Adams assigned the following reasons for preferring this arrangement to the public town school.

"I am certain that if he does not get so much good, he gets less harm; and I have always thought it of very great importance that children should be unaccustomed to such examples as would tend to corrupt the purity of their words and actions, that they may chill with horror at the sound of an oath, and blush with indignation at an obscene expression."

This furnishes a pleasing coincidence with a precept of ancient prudence:—

Let nothing foul in speech or act intrude,
Where reverend childhood is.

There is no disapprobation of public schools to be inferred from this. These are indispensable for the general good; but if from this narrative a hint should be taken for making them more and more pure, and worthy of their saving mission, such an incident will be welcome.

Of the next memorable year we have a reminiscence from himself. It was related in a speech at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1843.

"In 1775 the minute men, from a hundred towns in the Provinces, were marching to the scenes of the opening war. Many of them called at our house, and received the hospitality of John Adams. All were lodged in the house whom the house would contain, others in the barns, and wherever they could find a place. There were then in my father's house some dozen or two of pewter spoons; and I well recollect seeing some of the men engaged in running those spoons into bullets. Do you wonder that a boy of seven years of age, who witnessed these scenes, should be a patriot?"

He saw from Penn's Hill the flames of Charlestown, and heard the guns of Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights.

In one of her letters from France, Mrs. Adams remarks that he was generally taken to be older than his sister (about two years older than he), because he usually conversed with persons older than himself—a remarkable proof of a constant aim at improvement, of a wise discernment of the means, and of the maturity of acquisitions already made. Edward Everett remarks in his eulogy, that such a stage as boyhood seems not to have been in the life of John Quincy Adams. While he was under ten, he wrote to his father the earliest production of his pen which has been given to the public. It is found in Governor Seward's Memoir of his life, and was addressed to his father.

Dear Sir:—I love to receive letters very well, much better than I love to write them. I make but a poor figure at composition. My head is much too fickle. My mind is running after bird's eggs, play and trifles, till I get vexed with myself. Mamma has a troublesome task to keep me a studying. I own I am ashamed of myself. I have but just entered the third volume of Rollin's History, but I designed to have got half thro' it by this time. I am determined this week to be more diligent. Mr. Thaxter is absent at Court. I have set myself a stent this week to read the third volume half out. If I can keep my resolution, I may again, at the end of a week, give a better account of myself. I wish, sir, you would give me in writing some instructions in regard to the use of my time, and advise me how to proportion my studies and play, and I will keep them by me, and endeavor to follow them.

With the present determination of growing better, I am, dear sir, your son,

P.S. Sir, if you will be so good as to favor me with a blank-book, I will transcribe the most remarkable passages I meet with in my reading, which will serve to fix them on my mind.

Soon after the evacuation of Boston by Lord Howe, Mrs. Adams announces that "Johnny has become post-rider from Boston to Braintree." The distance was nine miles, and he was nine years old. In this hardy enterprise, and in the foregoing letter, we may mark the strong hold which the favourite maxims of the parents had taken of their child's mind. Among those maxims were these:

To begin composition very early by writing descriptions of natural objects, as a storm, a country residence; or narrative of events, as a walk, ride, or the transactions of a day.

To transcribe the best passages from the best writers in the course of reading, as a means of forming the style as well as storing the memory.

To cultivate spirit and hardihood, activity and power of endurance.

Soon after this, the lad ceased to have a home except in the bosom of affection, and that was a divided one. On the 13th of February, 1778, he embarked for France with his father, who had been appointed a commissioner, jointly with Dr. Franklin and Arthur Lee, to negotiate treaties of alliance and commerce with that country. From the place of embarcation his father wrote: "Johnny sends his duty to his mamma, and love to his sister and brothers. He behaves like a man."

When they arrived in France, after escaping extraordinary perils at sea, they found the treaty of alliance already concluded. The son was put to school in Paris, and gave his father "great satisfaction, both by his assiduity to his books and his discreet behavior," all which the father lovingly attributes to the lessons of the mother. He calls the boy "the joy of his heart."

He was permitted to tarry but three months, when he was commissioned to negotiate treaties of independence, peace, and commerce with Great Britain. He embarked for France in the month of November, accompanied by Francis Dana as secretary of legation, and by his two oldest sons, John and Charles.[18] The vessel sprung a leak and was compelled to put into the nearest port, which proved to be Ferrol, where they landed safe December seventh. One of the first things was to buy a,dictionary and grammar for the boys, who "went to learning Spanish as fast as possible." Over high mountains, by rough and miry roads, a-muleback, and in the depth of winter, they wound their toilsome way, much of the time on foot, from Ferrol to Paris, a journey of a thousand miles, arriving about the middle of February, 1780. On this occasion, it is to be presumed, Master Johnny must have derived no small benefit from the service he had seen as "post-rider."

At Paris he immediately entered an academy, but in the autumn accompanied his father to Holland, who had received superadded commissions to negotiate private loans, and public treaties there. For a few months the son was sent to a common school in Amsterdam, but in December he was removed to Leyden, to learn Latin and Greek under the distinguished teachers there, and to attend the lectures of celebrated professors in the University. The reasons of this transfer are worth repeating, as they mark the strong and habitual aversion which John Adams felt and inculcated, to every species of littleness and meanness.

"I should not wish to have children educated in the common schools of this country, where a littleness of soul is notorious. The masters are mean-spirited wretches, pinching, kicking and boxing the children upon every turn. There is a general littleness, arising from the incessant contemplation of stivers and doits. Frugality and industry, are virtues every where, but avarice and stinginess are not frugality."

In July, 1781, the son accompanied to St. Petersburgh Mr. Francis Dana, who had been appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the court of Russia. The original purpose was study, observation, and general improvement, under the guidance of a trusty and accomplished friend. The youth was not, as has been stated, appointed secretary of the Minister at the time they started; but by his readiness and capability he came to be employed by Mr. Dana as interpreter and secretary, difficult and delicate trusts, probably never before confided to a boy of thirteen.

In October, 1782, the youth left St. Petersburgh, and paying passing visits to Sweden, Denmark, Hamburg, and Bremen, reached the Hague in April, 1783, and there resumed his studies. Meantime his father, having received assurances that Great Britain was prepared to treat for peace on the basis of independence, had repaired to Paris to open the negotiation. He found that Dr. Franklin and Mr. Jay, two of his colleagues on the same commission, had commenced the business first with informal agents, and afterwards with a commissioner of his majesty, George the Third. The Definitive Treaty was signed September the third, 1783, at which act John Quincy Adams was summoned by his father to be present, and to assume the duties of secretary. In that capacity he made one of the copies of the treaty. The father on this occasion wrote: "Congress are at such grievous expense that I shall have no other secretary but my son. He, however, is a very good one. He writes a good hand very fast, and is steady at his pen and books." In this autumn the two made a trip to London, partly for the health of the elder, which had been seriously impaired by incessant labor, and partly for the benefit of the younger, as it was expected then that both would bid adieu to Europe and embark for America in the ensuing spring. John Adams had the satisfaction of hearing the King announce to the Parliament and people from the throne, that he had concluded a Treaty of Peace with the United States of America.

In January, 1784, the father and son proceeded to Holland to negotiate a new loan for the purpose of meeting the interest on the former one. There they remained until the latter part of July, when a letter came communicating the arrival of Mrs. Adams and her daughter in London. John Adams despatched his son to meet them, and wrote to his wife:

"Your letter of the twenty-third has made me the happiest man upon earth. I am twenty years younger than I was yesterday. It is a cruel mortification to me that I cannot go to meet you in London; but there are a variety of reasons decisively against it, which I will communicate to you here. Meantime I send you a son, who is one of the greatest travellers of his age, and without partiality, I think as promising and manly a youth, as is in the whole world. He will purchase a coach, in which we four must travel to Paris; let it be large and strong. After spending a week or two here you will have to set out with me for France, but there are no seas between; a good road, a fine season, and we will make moderate journeys, and see the curiosities of several cities in our way,—Utrecht, Breda, Antwerp, Brussels, &c. &c. It is the first time in Europe that I looked forward to a journey with pleasure. Now I expect a great deal. I think myself made for this world." John Quincy Adams reached London the thirtieth of July. "When he entered," says Mrs. Adams, "we had so many strangers that I drew back, not really believing my eyes, till he cried out, 'O my mamma, and my dear sister!' Nothing but the eyes appeared what he once was. His appearance is that of a man, and in his countenance the most perfect good-humor. His conversation by no means denies his station. I think you do not approve the word feelings. I know not what to substitute in lieu, nor how to describe mine." The son was then seventeen, and the separation had continued nearly five years.

Notwithstanding that the husband's letter had forbidden hope of his participating in this re-union, he did so after all, practising a surprise charmingly delicate and gallant. It was a blissful meeting not only of happy friends, but of merit and reward, a beautiful and honorable consummation of mutual sacrifices and toils. Seldom does the cup of joy so effervesce.

Independence predicted in youth, moved and sustained with unrivalled eloquence in manhood, at home—confirmed and consolidated by loans, alliances, ships, and troops—obtained, in part or all, by him, abroad—Washington nominated Chief of the army—the American Navy created—peace negotiated—this, this (if civic virtues and achievments were honored only equally with martial) would have been the circle of Golden Medals, which John Adams might have laid at the feet of his admirable wife!

Five months after this, as if too full for earlier utterance, she wrote to her sister: "You will chide me, perhaps, for not relating to you an event which took place in London, that of unexpectedly meeting my long absent friend; for from his letters by my son, I had no idea that he would come. But you know, my dear sister, that poets and painters wisely draw a veil over scenes which surpass the pen of the one and the pencil of the other."

The family reached Paris in the latter part of August, and established their residence at Auteuil, four miles from the city. The son pursued his studies, his mother, by his particular desire, writing her charming letters to American friends by his fireside. Sometimes he copied them in his plain and beautiful hand, always equal to print, and made her think, as she gayly remarks, that they were really worth something. The circle of familiar visitors included Franklin, Jefferson and his daughter, La Fayette and his wife; of formal, all the ministers domestic and foreign, and as many of the elite of fashion and of fame as they chose. But Mrs. Adams was always a modest and retiring woman. Of Franklin she wrote: "His character, from my infancy, I had been taught to venerate. I found him social, not talkative; and when he spoke, something useful dropped from, his tongue."

Of Jefferson, "I shall really regret to leave Mr. Jefferson. He is one of the choice ones of the earth. On Thursday I dine with him at his house. On Sunday he is to dine with us. On Monday we all dine with the Marquis."

In the spring of 1785 John Adams received the appointment of Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain, the first from the United States of America. A new separation ensued. He, his wife and daughter departed for London, but not the son, as has been stated. He departed for Harvard University, where, in the following March, he entered the Junior Class, and graduated with distinguished honor in 1787. He studied law at Newburyport in the office of Theophilus Parsons, afterwards the eminent Chief Justice. He entered upon the practice of the law in Boston in 1790, and boarded in the family of Dr. Thomas Welsh. He continued thus four years, gradually enlarging the circle of his business and the amount of his income. Meantime, great and exciting public questions arose, and in discussing them he obtained a sudden and wide distinction. A tract from his pen in answer to a portion of Paine's Rights of Man, and expressing doubts of the ultimate success of the French Revolution, appeared in 1791, was republished in England and attributed to John Adams. This was at a time when the enthusiasm for the great French movement was at its height in this country. Events too soon showed that the writer had inherited his father's sagacity.

Another publication of his, which appeared in 1793, maintained the right, duty and policy of our assuming a neutral attitude towards the respective combatants in the wars arising from the French Revolution. This publication preceded Washington's Proclamation of Neutrality. In the same year Mr. Adams reviewed the course of Genet, applying to it and the condition of the country the principles of public law.

These writings attracted the attention of Washington, and he is supposed to have derived essential aid from them in some of the most difficult conjunctures of his administration. Upon the recommendation of Jefferson, made as he was about to retire from the office of Secretary of State, Washington determined to appoint John Quincy Adams Minister Resident in Holland. An intimation from Washington to the Vice-President, in order that he might give his wife timely notice to prepare for the departure of her son, was the first knowledge that any member of the family had, that such an appointment was thought of. Mr. Adams repaired to his post, and remained there till near the close of Washington's administration, with the exception of an additional mission to London in 1795, to exchange ratifications of Jay's treaty, and agree upon certain arrangements for its execution.

On this occasion he met, at the house of her father, the American consul in London, Miss Louisa Catherine Johnson, who afterwards became his wife. In consequence of a rumor of his intending to resign, Washington wrote to the Vice-President:

"Your son must not think of retiring from the path he is in. His prospects, if he pursues it, are fair; and I shall be much surprised, if, in as short a time as can well be expected, he is not at the head of the Diplomatic Corps, be the government administered by whomsoever it may."

Subsequently Washington expressed himself still more strongly, aiming to overcome the scruples of President Adams about continuing his son in office under his own administration. Just before his retirement, Washington appointed him Minister Plenipotentiary to Portugal. This destination was changed by his father to Berlin. Before assuming the station, he was married in London to Miss Johnson.

While in Prussia he negotiated an important commercial treaty, and wrote letters from Silesia, which were published in the portfolio, and passed through some editions and translations in Europe. In 1801 he was recalled by his father, to save, as it is said, Mr. Jefferson from the awkwardness of turning out the son of his old friend, whose appointment he had recommended. If such was the motive of the recall, it was a miscalculation, for Jefferson did not hesitate to remove him from the small office of commissioner of bankruptcy, to which he had been appointed by the district judge of Massachusetts upon his return from abroad. Mr. Jefferson defended himself from censure for this little act, by alleging that he did not know when he made the removal, nor who the incumbent of the office was; an excuse more inexcusable than the act itself.

Mr. Adams re-established himself with his family in Boston. He occupied a house in Hanover-street, not now standing, and another which he purchased at the corner of Tremont and Boylston streets, now used for stores, and owned by his only surviving son.

In 1802 he was elected to the Senate of Massachusetts from Suffolk county.

In 1803, to the Senate of the United States.

In 1806, Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory in Harvard University, but in subordination to his duties in Congress.

In 1808 he resigned his seat in the Senate, the Legislature of his State having instructed him to oppose the restrictive measures of Jefferson, and he having given a zealous support to the embargo.

In 1809 he was appointed by Madison Minister Plenipotentiary to Russia; and resigned his professorship in the University.

In 1811 he was nominated by Madison and unanimously confirmed by the Senate, as judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Adams having declined this office, Judge Story was appointed.

In 1814 he was appointed first commissioner at Ghent to treat with Great Britain for peace.

In 1815, Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain. In 1817, Secretary of State.

In 1825, elected President of the United States.

Mr. Adams, released from the toils of thirty-five years of unintermitted public service, now sought a home which remains to be described.

John Adams, while yet minister in England, purchased a seat in Quincy of Mr. Borland, an old friend and neighbor, descended from the Vassals, a considerable family in the town and province: this was in 1786. On his return from Europe in 1788, the purchaser took possession with his family; and with the exception of two terms as Vice-President, and one as President of the United States, he never left it until his death on the fourth of July, 1826. This estate descended to his son, as did also that at Penn's Hill.

It is situated about half a mile north of Quincy village, on the old Boston road, where massive mile-stones, erected before the birth of John Adams, may still be seen. The farm consists of one hundred acres, now productive, though in a rude state when acquired. Mrs. John Adams described her husband in 1801 as "busy among his haymakers, and getting thirty tons on the spot, which eight years before yielded only six."

The house is supposed to be a hundred and fifty years old. It is built of wood, quite unpretending, yet from association or other cause, it has a distinguished and venerable aspect. Approached from the north or city side, it presents a sharp gable in the old English style of architecture. The opposite end is very different, and has a hipped or gambrel gable. The length may be some seventy feet, the height thirty, consisting of two stories, and a suit of attic chambers, with large luthern windows. A piazza runs along the centre of the basement in front. The south or gambrel-roofed section of the edifice, was built by John Adams. The principal entrance is at the junction of this section with the main building. It opens into a spacious entry with a staircase on the right, and busts of Washington and John Quincy Adams on the left. At the foot of the stairs is the door of the principal apartment, called the Long Room. It is plainly finished, and about seven feet in height. It contains portraits of John Adams and his wife by Stewart, John Quincy Adams and his wife by the same; Thomas Jefferson in French costume, taken in France by Browne. He appears much handsomer than in most of his portraits. Over the fireplace is a very old and curious picture of a child, supposed by John Quincy Adams to be his great-grandfather, John Quincy. There are several other portraits of less note. The chairs are of plain mahogany, with stuffed seats and backs, and hair-cloth coverings. They belonged to Mrs. Adams. Opposite to the door of this room, on the left side of the entry, is the door of the dining-room, called the Middle Room. This is within the original building. It contains a number of portraits; the most conspicuous is that of Washington in his uniform. It was painted by Savage, and was purchased by the elder Adams. It has a more solemn and concentrated look than Stewart's Washington—more expressive, but not so symmetrical. It resembles Peale's Pater PatriÆ. John Quincy Adams considered it a better likeness than the popular portraits. It is said to have been taken when Washington had lost his teeth, and had not substituted artificial ones. The lips appear much compressed, the visage elongated and thinner than in Stewart's picture. By its side is Mrs. Washington, painted by the same artist. There is a fine engraving of Copley's picture of the Death of Chatham. It is a proof copy, presented by the painter to John Adams. Passing from the Middle Room through another but small front entry, we reach the north basement room, called the Keeping Room. This is finished with considerable luxury for a provincial parlor of its time. It is panelled from floor to ceiling with mahogany. The effect is somewhat heavy, to obviate which the elder Mrs. Adams, a votary of all cheerfulness, had it painted white. It has now been restored, and presents an antique and rich appearance. Nearly all the furniture of this as well as the Middle Room, including the Turkey carpet of the latter, still bright and substantial, was John Adams's. All these apartments are connected by a longitudinal passage in the rear, which communicates with the kitchen.

The Library is in the second story over the Long Room. This chamber was constantly occupied by the Elder President, both for a sitting and sleeping room during his latter years. Here the writer saw him at the age of nearly ninety, delighted with hearing Scott's novels, or Dupuis' Origine de tous les Cultes, or the simplest story-book, which he could get his grandchildren to read to him. He seemed very cheerful, and ready to depart, remarking that "he had eat his cake." When his son came home from Washington, he converted this room into a library. Of course his books are very miscellaneous both as to subjects and languages; but they are not all here. Some are arranged on the sides of passage-ways and in other parts. A portion of them compose in part a library at his son's town residence. John Adams in his lifetime gave his library—a very valuable one—to the town of Quincy, together with several tracts of land for the erection of an academy or classical school, to which his library is ultimately to attach. The entire library of John Quincy Adams comprises twelve thousand volumes. To this must be added a chest full of manuscripts, original and translated, in prose and poetry. They show unbounded industry. From his boyhood to the age of fifty, when he took the Department of State, he was an intense student. In this chest are many of the earlier fruits, such as complete versions of a large number of the classics, of German and other foreign works.

The garden lies on the north, contiguous to the house, and connects with a lawn, narrow in front of the house, but widening considerably south of it. The whole is inclosed on the roadside by a solid wall of Quincy granite, some six feet high, except the section immediately before the house, which is a low stone wall, surmounted by a light wooden fence of an obsolete fashion, with two gates in the same style, leading to the two front doors. The whole extent does not much exceed an acre. It embraces an ornamental and kitchen garden, the former occupying the side near the road, and the latter extending by the side and beyond the kitchen and offices to an open meadow and orchard. The principal walk is through the ornamental portion of the garden, parallel with the road, and terminates at a border of thrifty forest trees, disposed, as they should be, without any regard to order. From the walk above-mentioned another strikes out at a right angle, and skirts the border of trees, till it disappears in the expanse of meadow. Most of the trees were raised by John Quincy Adams from the seeds, which he was in the habit of picking up in his wanderings. The most particular interest attaches to a shagbark, which he planted more than fifty years ago. It stands near the angle of the two alleys. In this tree he took a particular satisfaction, but he was an enthusiast in regard to all the trees of the forest, differing in this respect from his father, who, as an agriculturist of the Cato stamp, was more inclined to lay the axe to them than to propagate them. From this plantation Charles Francis Adams was supplied with a great number and variety of trees to embellish a residence, which he built in his father's lifetime on the summit of a high hill, west of the old mansion. This is called President's Hill. It affords one of the finest sea landscapes which can be found. John Adams used to say that he had never seen, in any part of the world, so fine a view. It comprises a wide range of bays, islands and channels seaward, with seats and villages on the intervening land. This prospect lies eastward, and includes Mount Wollaston, situated near the seashore, and remarkable as the first spot settled in the town and State, and as giving its name for many of the first years to the entire settlement. This belonged to the great-grandfather, John Quincy, and is now a part of the Adams estate.

The meeting-house is half a mile south of the old mansion. The material is granite, a donation of John Adams. It has a handsome portico, supported by beautiful and massive Doric pillars, not an unfit emblem of the donor. Beneath the porch, his son constructed, in the most durable manner, a crypt, in which he piously deposited the remains of his parents; and in the body of the church, on the right of the pulpit, he erected to their sacred memories a marble monument surmounted by a bust of John Adams, and inscribed with an affecting and noble epitaph. After leading "a wandering life about the world," as he himself calls it—a life of many changes and many labors, John Quincy Adams, at sixty-two, sought the quiet and seclusion of his father's house. He was yet, for his years, a model of physical vigor and activity; for, though by nature convivial as his father was, and capable, on an occasion, of some extra glasses, he was by habit moderate in meat and drink, never eating more than was first served on his plate, and consequently never mixing a variety of dishes. He used himself to attribute much of the high health he enjoyed to his walks and his baths. Early every morning, when the season admitted, he sought a place where he could take a plunge and swim at large. A creek, with a wharf or pier projecting into it, called Black's Wharf, about a quarter of a mile from his house, served these purposes in Quincy. At Washington he resorted to the broad Potomac. There, leaving his apparel in charge of an attendant, (for it is said that it was once purloined!) he used to buffet the waves before sunrise. He was an easy and expert swimmer, and delighted so much in the element, that he would swim and float from one to two or three hours at a time. An absurd story obtained currency, that he used this exercise in winter, breaking the ice, if necessary, to get the indispensable plunge! This was fiction. He did not bathe at all in winter, nor at other times from theory, but for pleasure.

He bore abstinence and irregularity in his meals with singular indifference. Whether he breakfasted at seven or ten, whether he dined at two, or not at all, appeared to be questions with which he did not concern himself. It is related that having sat in the House of Representatives from eight o'clock in the morning till after midnight, a friend accosted him, and expressed the hope that he had taken refreshment in all that time; he replied that he had not left his seat, and held up a bit of hard bread. His entertainments of his friends were distinguished for abundance, order, elegance, and the utmost perfection in every particular, but not for extravagance and luxury of table furniture. His accomplished lady, of course, had much to do with this. He rose very early, lighting the fire and his lamp in his library, while the surrounding world was yet buried in slumber. This was his time for writing. Washington and Hamilton had the same habit.

He was unostentatious and almost always walked, whether for visiting, business or exercise. At Quincy he used to go up President's Hill to meet the sun from the sea, and sometimes walked to the residence of his son in Boston before breakfast. Regularly, before the hour of the daily sessions of Congress, he was seen wending his quiet way towards the Capitol, seldom or never using, in the worst of weather, a carriage. He stayed one night to a late hour, listening to a debate in the Senate on the expunging resolution. As he was starting for home in the face of a fierce snow-storm, and in snow a foot deep, a gentleman proposed to conduct him to his house. "I thank you, sir, for your kindness," said he, "but I do not need the service of any one. I am somewhat advanced in life, but not yet, by the blessing of God, infirm, or what Dr. Johnson would call 'superfluous;' and you may recollect what old Adam says in 'As you Like it'—

"'For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood.'"

While he was President, the writer was once sitting in the drawing-room of a highbred lady in Boston. A hat not very new glanced under the window sill. The owner rung at the door; and not finding the gentleman at home, continued his walk. A servant entered and presented the card of John Quincy Adams. "I do wonder," exclaimed the lady, "that the President of the United States will go about in such a manner!"

His apparel was always plain, scrupulously neat, and reasonably well worn. It was made for the comfort of the wearer, who asked not of the fashions.

When he retired from the Presidency, he resolved to pass the remainder of his days under the paternal roof and the beloved shades. He anticipated and desired nothing but quiet, animated by the excitements of intellectual and rural occupations. He had before him the congenial task, to which he had long aspired, of dispensing the treasures of wisdom contained in the unwritten life and unpublished writings of his father. He was ready to impart of his own inexhaustible wealth of experience, observation and erudition, to any one capable of receiving. It takes much to reconcile a thoughtful mind to the loss of what would have been gained by the proposed employment of his leisure. And we had much.

Had the record of his public life, ample and honorable as it was, been now closed, those pages on which patriots, philanthropists and poets will for ever dwell with gratitude and delight, would have been wanting. Hitherto he had done remarkably well what many others, with a knowledge of precedents and of routine and with habits of industry, might have done, if not as well, yet acceptably. He was now called to do what no other man in the Republic had strength and heart to attempt. He was endowed with a memory uncommonly retentive. He could remember and quote with precision, works which he had not looked at for forty years. Add to this his untiring diligence and perseverance, and the advantages of his position and employment at various capitals in the old world, and the story of his vast acquisitions is told. His love lay in history, literature, moral philosophy and public law. With the Greek, Latin, French, German, and Italian languages and principal writers he was familiar. His favorite English poet was Shakspeare, whom he commented upon and recited with discrimination and force, surpassing, it is said, in justness of conception, the great personators of his principal characters. Among the classics, he especially loved Ovid, unquestionably the Shakspeare of the Romans. Cicero was greatly beloved, and most diligently studied, translated, and commented upon. For many of his latter years he never read continuously. He would fall asleep over his book. But to elucidate any subject he had in hand, he wielded his library with wakefulness and execution lively enough.

He was fond of art in all its departments, but most in the pictorial. In his "Residence at the Court of London," Mr. Rush has drawn an attractive sketch of him at home.

"His tastes were all refined. Literature and art were familiar and dear to him. At his hospitable board I have listened to disquisitions from his lips, on poetry, especially the dramas of Shakspeare, music, painting and sculpture, of rare excellence and untiring interest. A critical scholar in the dead languages, in French, German and Italian, he could draw at will from the wealth of these tongues to illustrate any particular topic. There was no fine painting or statue, of which he did not know the details and the history. There was not even an opera, or a celebrated composer, of which or of whom he could not point out the distinguishing merits and the chief compositions. Yet he was a hard-working and assiduous man of business; and a more regular, punctual, and comprehensive diplomatic correspondence than his, no country can probably boast."

Mr. Adams was generally regarded as cold and austere. The testimony of persons who enjoyed an intimacy with him is the reverse of this. Mr. Rush says that "under an exterior of at times repulsive coldness, dwelt a heart as warm, sympathies as quick, and affections as overflowing as ever animated any bosom." And Mr. Everett, that "in real kindness and tenderness of feeling, no man surpassed him." There is an abundance of like evidence on this head.

He was taciturn rather than talkative, preferring to think and to muse. At times his nature craved converse, and delighted in the play of familiar chat. Occasionally he threw out a lure to debate. If great principles were seriously called in question, he would pour out a rapid and uninterrupted torrent.

The poets had been the delight of his youth. He read them in the intervals of retirement at Quincy with a youthful enthusiasm, and tears and laughter came by turns, as their sad and bright visions passed before him. Pope was a favorite, "and the intonations of his voice in repeating the 'Messiah,'" says an inmate of the family, "will never cease to vibrate on the ear of memory." He was a deeply religious man, and though not taking the most unprejudiced views of divinity, what he received as spiritual truths were to him most evident and momentous realities, and he derived from them a purifying and invigorating power. "The dying Christian's Address to his Soul" was replete with pathos and beauty for him. He is remembered to have repeated it one evening with an intense expression of religious faith and joy; adding the Latin lines of Adrian, which Pope imitated. He was thought by some to have a tendency to Calvinistic theology, and to regard Unitarianism as too abstract and frigid. Thus he used sometimes to talk, but it was supposed to be for the purpose of putting Unitarians upon a defence of their faith, rather than with a serious design to impair it.

On one occasion he conversed on the subject of popular applause and admiration. Its caprice, said he, is equalled only by its worthlessness, and the misery of that being who lives on its breath. There is one stanza of Thomson's Castle of Indolence, that is worth whole volumes of modern poetry; though it is the fashion to speak contemptuously of Thomson. He then repeated with startling force of manner and energy of enunciation, the third stanza, second canto, of that poem.

"I care not, fortune, what you me deny;
You cannot rob me of free nature's grace,
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns by living streams at eve:
Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,
And I their toys to the great children leave;
Of Fancy, Reason, Virtue, nought can me bereave."

He did not much admire the poetry of Byron. One objection which he is recollected to have made to the poet was the use of the word "rot." There is some peculiarity in Byron in this respect; thus in Childe Harold:—

"The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored,
Where meaner relics must not dare to rot."

This, if a sound objection, which it is not, was narrow for so great a man. The cause of this distaste lay deeper. Mr. Adams, though a dear lover of Shakspeare, was of the Johnsonian school of writers. His diction is elaborate, stately, and in his earlier writings verbose, but always polished, harmonious, and sustained. He liked unconsciously Latin English better than Anglo-Saxon. Byron, in common with a large and increasing class of moderns, loved to borrow the force of familiar and every-day language, and to lend to it the dignity and beauty of deep thought and high poetic fancy. Not improbably, the moral obliquities of the poet had their influence in qualifying the opinion formed of his writings, by a man of such strict rectitude as Mr. Adams.

He was fond of Watts's Psalms and Hymns, and repeated them often, sometimes rising from his seat in the exaltation of his feelings. Among favorite stanzas was this one:

Sweet fields, beyond the swelling flood,
Stand dressed in living green;
So to the Jews old Canaan stood,
While Jordan rolled between.

Until his private letters shall be published, no adequate conception can be formed of the devotion he paid to his mother. This may give an inkling of it. A young friend inquired of him, when he was once at Hingham on their annual fishing party in his honor, in which of his poems a certain line was to be found, viz.—

"Hull—but that name's redeemed upon the wave,"

referring to the surrender of General Hull, so soon followed (only three days after, August 16-19, 1812) by the capture of the Guerriere by Captain Hull. "I do not," he replied, "but I have been often struck by the coincidence. I think, however, the line occurs in a poem addressed to my mother."

The best saying of Mr. Adams was in reply to the inquiry, What are the recognized principles of politics?

Mr. Adams. There are none. There are recognized precepts, but they are bad, and so not principles.

But is not this a sound one, "The greatest good of the greatest number?"

Mr. Adams. No, that is the worst of all, for it looks specious, while it is ruinous; for what is to become of the minority? This is the only principle—The greatest good of all.

It must be admitted that much tyranny lurks in this favorite democratic tenet, not half as democratic, however, as Mr. Adams's amendment. Wrongs and outrages the most unmerciful, have been committed by majorities. It may even happen where the forms of law are maintained; but what shall be said when the majority resolves itself into a mob? When rivers of innocent blood may (as they have) run from city gates. The tyranny of majorities is irresponsible, without redress, and without punishment, except in the ultimate iron grasp of "the higher law."

Mr. Adams's view, so much larger than the common one, may, with a strong probability, be traced to the mother. In her letters to him, she insists again and again upon the duty of universal kindness and benevolence. Patriot as she was, she pitied the Refugees. She said to him, "Man is bound to the performance of certain duties, all which tend to the happiness and welfare of society, and are comprised in one short sentence expressive of universal benevolence: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'

"Remember more, the Universal Cause
Acts not by partial, but by general laws;
And makes what happiness we justly call,
Subsist, not in the good of one, but ALL.'"

In other letters she illustrated observations in the same spirit by these quotations:

"Shall I determine where his frowns shall fall,
And fence my grotto from the lot of ALL?"
"Prompt at every call,
Can watch and weep and pray and feel for ALL.

One evening, at his house in F street in Washington, he spoke of Judge Parsons, of his depth and subtlety, and the conciseness of his language. "Soon after I entered his office he said to us students—'Lord Bacon observes that "reading makes a full man, conversation a ready man, writing a correct man." Young gentlemen, my advice to you is, that you study to be full, ready and correct.' I thought," said Mr. Adams, "that I never heard good advice so well conveyed."

He was asked by the writer whether he had ever received any acknowledgment of his services, any mark of gratitude from the colored people of the District? "None," said he—"except that I now and then hear, in a low tone, a hearty God bless you! That is enough."

It was enough; enough for recompense and for justification, since we are in the sad pass that justification is needed—since

"Virtue itself of Vice must pardon beg,
And pray for leave to do him good."

So then, in this Republic there are millions of human hearts, which are not permitted to love a benefactor, and dare not utter for him an invocation, kindred to their devotion to God, except "in a low tone!"

When in 1846 Mr. Adams was struck the first time with palsy, he was visited by Charles Sumner, who sat much by his bedside. As he became better, he said one day to his visitor: "You will enter public life; you do not want it, but you will be drawn into the current, in spite of yourself. Now I have a word of advice to give you. Never accept a present. While I was in Russia, the Minister of the Interior, an old man, whose conscience became more active as his bodily powers failed, grew uneasy on account of the presents he had received. He calculated the value of them, and paid it all over to the Imperial treasury. This put me to thinking upon the subject, and I then made a resolution never to accept a present while I remained in the public service; and I never have, unless it was some trifling token, as a hat or cane."

A neighboring clergyman, to whom this conversation was related, exclaimed—"A hat! That cannot be, for he never had any but an old one." It was a tradition in Cambridge that Mr. Adams, while Professor in the University, was noted for indifference to personal appearance, and his well-worn hat was particularly remembered.

In the relation of husband Mr. Adams showed the same fidelity and devotedness which characterized him in every other. He was united to a woman whose virtues and accomplishments blessed and adorned his home. In a letter written shortly after his noble vindication of the character of woman, and the propriety and utility of their intervention in public affairs, he said:

"Had I not, by the dispensation of Providence, been blessed beyond the ordinary lot of humanity in all the domestic relations of life, as a son, a brother, and a husband, I should still have thought myself bound to vindicate the social rights and the personal honor of the petitioners, who had confided to me the honorable trust of presenting the expression of their wishes to the legislative councils of the nation. But that this sense of imperious duty was quickened within my bosom by the affectionate estimate of the female character impressed upon my heart and mind by the virtues of the individual woman, with whom it has been my lot to pass in these intimate relations my days upon earth, I have no doubt."

In 1840 he had a severe fall, striking his head against the corner of an iron rail, which inflicted a heavy contusion on his forehead, and rendered him for some time insensible. His left shoulder was likewise dislocated. This occurred at the House of Representatives after adjournment. Fortunately several members were within call, and gave him the most tender and assiduous assistance. He was carried to the lodgings of one of them, and a physician called. With the united strength of four men, it took more than an hour to reduce the dislocation. "Still," says a witness of the scene, "Mr. Adams uttered not a murmur, though the great drops of sweat which rolled down his furrowed cheeks, or stood upon his brow, told but too well the agony he suffered." At his request he was immediately conveyed to his house; and the next morning, to the astonishment of every one, he was found in his seat as usual. He was accustomed to be the first to enter the House and the last to leave it. Mr. Everett tells us that he had his seat by the side of the veteran, and that he should not have been more surprised to miss one of the marble pillars from the hall than Mr. Adams.

That this painful accident did not impair the vigor of his mind is evident from the fact that he subsequently argued the Amistad case, and sustained the fierce contest of three days on the expulsion resolution in the House. It was three years later also that he made the journey for the benefit of his health, which turned out an improvised and continuous ovation. He had designed merely to visit Lebanon Springs. He was so much pleased with his journey thus far into the State of New-York, that he concluded to prolong it to Quebec, Montreal, and Niagara Falls, and return to Massachusetts through the length of the empire State. This return was signalized by attentions and homage on the part of the people so spontaneous and unanimous, that nothing which has occurred since the progress of La Fayette, has equalled it. "Public greetings, processions, celebrations, met and accompanied every step of his journey." Addresses by eminent men, and acclamations of men, women, and children, who thronged the way, bore witness of the deep hold which the man, without accessories of office and pageantry of state, had of their hearts. Of this excursion he said himself towards the close of it, "I have not come alone, the whole people of the State of New-York have been my companions." In the autumn of the same year he went to Cincinnati to assist in laying the foundation of an observatory. This journey was attended by similar demonstrations. At a cordial greeting given him at Maysville, Kentucky, after an emphatic testimony to the integrity of Mr. Clay, he made that renewed and solemn denial of the charges of "bargain and corruption."

He suffered a stroke of paralysis in November, 1846, but recovered, and took his seat at the ensuing session of Congress. He regarded this as equivalent to a final summons, and made no subsequent entry in his faithful diary except under the title of "posthumous." After this he spoke little in the House.

In November, 1847, he left his home in Quincy for the last time. On the twentieth of February he passed his last evening at his house in Washington. He retired to his library at nine o'clock, where his wife read to him a sermon by Bishop Wilberforce on Time. The next morning he rose early and occupied himself with his pen as he was wont. With more than usual spryness and alacrity he ascended the stairs of the Capitol. In the House a resolution for awarding thanks and gold medals to several officers concerned in the Mexican war was taken up. Mr. Adams uttered his emphatic No! on two or three preliminary questions. When the final question was about to be put, and while he was in the act of rising, as it was supposed, to address the House, he sunk down. He was borne to the speaker's room. He revived so far as to inquire for his wife, who was present. He seemed desirous of uttering thanks. The only distinct words he articulated were, "This is the end of earth. I am content." He lingered until the evening of the twenty-third, and then expired.

Thus he fell at his post in the eighty-first year of his age, the age of Plato. With the exception of Phocion there is no active public life continued on the great arena, with equal vigor and usefulness, to so advanced an age. Lord Mansfield retired at eighty-three; but the quiet routine of a judicial station is not as trying as the varied and boisterous contentions of a political and legislative assembly. Ripe as he was for heaven; he was still greatly needed upon earth. His services would have been of inestimable importance in disposing of the perilous questions, not yet definitively settled, which arose out of unhallowed war and conquest.

There is not much satisfaction in dwelling upon the general effusions of eloquence, or the pageantry which ensued. A single glance of guileless love from the men, women and children, who came forth from their smiling villages to greet the virtuous old statesman in his unpretending journeys, was worth the whole of it. The hearty tribute of Mr. Benton, so long a denouncer, has an exceptional value, the greater because he had made honorable amends to the departed during his life. That he was sincerely and deeply mourned by the nation, it would be a libel on the nation to doubt. His remains rested appropriately in Independence and Faneuil Halls on the way to their final resting place, the tomb he had made for those of his venerated parents. There he was laid by his neighbors and townsmen, sorrowing for the friend and the MAN. His monument is to stand on the other side of the pulpit.

Happy place which hallows such memories, and holds up such EXAMPLES.

Jackson.

Hermitage, Residence of Jackson.