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It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make man better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sear:
A lily of a day

Is fairer far, in May,

Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.

In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be.

From a Pindaric Ode on the Death of Sir H. Morison.

BEN JONSON.

LIFE AND LETTERS

OF

DAVID COIT SCUDDER.

CHAPTER I.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.

[1835-1851.]

DAVID COIT, seventh child of Charles, and eldest of the children of Charles and Sarah Lathrop [Coit] Scudder, was born on the 27th of October, 1835, in Boston, Mass., U. S. A. The family was of Puritan origin, tracing its lineage on one side to Governor Winthrop, on the other, to a Scudder of the earliest days of Massachusetts Bay. Two brothers of the name, joining the young colony, had separated: one going to New Jersey, where his descendants abound, the other remaining at Barnstable on Cape Cod. For two hundred years this latter branch has kept its place on the sandy cape, and during most of the period has extended its name but a short distance from the original seat. Like most families similarly established, it has had little part in that westward emigration which removes the hearthstones from so many New-England homes. It is not the rich soil of the West, but the unplanted deep lying to the East, which entices the young men of Cape Cod. They sail over the seas to distant lands, or, if less

ambitious, coast to the Banks as fishermen. A more permanent removal is to Boston, where mercantile life attracts, especially that connected with the sea.

It was at the beginning of this century that our father, missing, by one of those notable seeming accidents, the vessel which was to have started him on a sailor's life, came to Boston and began the hard work of an apprentice in business. Before he was of age, he was enabled to undertake business on his own account, and for fifty years continued as a hardware and commission merchant, when he retired from active partnership. Of his business-life little need be said. He was so long identified with the city, that, without seeking distinction, he was widely known. His reputation for honor and integrity in the conduct of his business was of the highest kind, while his sound judgment made him an excellent adviser and trustee. He had lived in Boston thirty years when he married Miss Coit, who, though born and educated in New York, was of New-England parentage and ancestry. Through the Manwarings and Saltonstalls her lineage is traced to Winthrop; and the families by which she was thus connected to the Governor had centred chiefly about Norwich, Connecticut. Our father and mother were thus Puritan in origin and they preserved the principles of Puritan life, relieved of the severity which an earlier necessity had imposed upon Puritan manners. The same principles held in the conduct of the household, while the peculiar state of society in Boston at that time made more imperative that jealous ward which Puritanism is wont to exercise over its followers.

Dissent from the Trinitarian creed had resulted in

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