THE city of Boston owes much to her clergy. From the first they have been her intellectual leaders and literary lights, as well as spiritual guides. Among the honored of this profession, the subject of this brief notice merits a conspicuous place.

NATHANIEL LANGDON FROTHINGHAM, son of Ebenezer Frothingham and Joanna Langdon, was born in Boston, on the twenty-third day of July, in the year 1793. Of his boyhood, there is nothing to record but his diligent scholarship and extraordinary intellectual promise. At school, in his native city, he took a high rank, and received the customary honors. At the age of fourteen he was entered as a student of Harvard College, a classmate of Edward Everett, in the Class of 1811.

Of his college life, another classmate and friend, the Rev. Dr. Allen, of Northborough, has kindly communicated, at my request, the following reminiscence :

"Dr. Frothingham was one of my most intimate friends in College, and our intimacy and friendship lasted through life. He was one of the younger members of the Class; and although from the first a diligent student and a good scholar, it was not, I think, till his third year that he gained a high rank among his fellow-students. But at the close of his college course, he was surpassed by very few; and as a reward

of distinguished merit, an English Oration, out of the usual course, was assigned him for Commencement. He was an elegant classical scholar, a fine writer in prose and verse; and in elocution he was surpassed by none of his classmates, not excepting Edward Everett. He was a great favorite almost a pet of Dr. McKean, the Professor of Rhetoric, who seemed to regard him as a model orator.

"Through his college life he maintained an irreproachable character, and was highly esteemed by his classmates; who, without jealousy or envy, watched his progress, and were proud of his fame."

In 1812, he received the appointment of Preceptor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard, an office for which, even at the early age of nineteen, he was judged to be well qualified by his exquisite taste and brilliant success in that department. His duties in this capacity were not onerous, and left him abundant leisure for the study of that profession to which he had already turned his thoughts, and was ready to devote his gifts and powers. During the three years of academic office, he was making preparation for the ministry; and in 1815 he accepted a call to the pastorate of the First Church in Boston, a post in which the example of illustrious predecessors supplied a strong incentive to noble effort and a rule of beneficent action. Of his success in this connection, there are many witnesses. He attached to himself a strong and united parish, to which he ministered long enough to see one generation of worshippers pass and another take their place; long enough to teach the children of those whom as children he had taught and baptized. His "Congregation at the First Church," says one of the notices that followed his death, "included a large number of scholars and writers, among whom were Edward Everett, William H. Prescott, George Bancroft, Joseph T. Buckingham, Henry T. Tuckerman, Charles Francis Adams, and Charles Sprague."

In 1818, he married Ann Gorham Brooks, daughter of the late Peter C. Brooks of Boston, and sister of Mrs. Edward Everett and Mrs. Charles Francis Adams. From this union. has sprung a numerous family of children, of whom the third

son, Octavius Brooks Frothingham, embraced the father's profession, and now holds a conspicuous place among the most gifted and popular preachers of New York.

In 1826, Dr. Frothingham obtained, by consent of his parish, a year's respite from his labors; and was able to gratify the long-cherished wish of his heart in a visit to Europe, from which he returned toward the close of the summer of 1827. Twenty-two years later, in 1849, a period of ill health occasioned a second and shorter visit, from which the tourist returned, with health still impaired, to occupy but a few months longer the post of duty which had tasked the strength of his manhood.

In 1850, after a ministry of thirty-five years, he retired from the pulpit, and resigned his pastoral connection with the First Church. After this, he occasionally, but rarely, by special request, took part in the public services of religion. "His last appearance in the pulpit," says the notice already quoted from the "Transcript," "was at the impromptu meeting in Hollisstreet Church, on the day of the assassination of President Lincoln. His remarkable prayer on that occasion will never be forgotten by those who heard it. Beautiful, fitting, and appropriate in itself, his blindness gave added pathos to his heartfelt devotion."

But the years which followed his withdrawal from public duty were by no means years of idleness. He occupied himself with literary labors, and some of the choicest productions of his pen are the fruits of this long retirement. In 1852, he gave to the press a volume entitled "Sermons in the Order of a Twelve-month," containing some of the best of his professional discourses, all of which breathe a lofty strain of Christian thought and sentiment, and are characterized by that singular beauty of diction which all his critics acknowledge to be a distinguishing trait of Dr. Frothingham's writing. In 1855, he published a volume of poems, to which he gave the title" Metrical Pieces." Notwithstanding this modest

designation, these compositions have secured to him an honorable place among American poets.

In the spring of 1859, he made his third visit to Europe. In this tour he was accompanied by his family; they spent a year and a half in travel, returning in November, 1860.

Soon after his return, his eyesight, which had always been myopic, began rapidly to fail; and symptoms of glaucoma threatened the entire loss of vision which other members of his family had suffered before him. This affliction befell him four years later, following hard on a great domestic bereavement, the loss of his wife, the cherished companion of nearly half a century of wedded life. In the summer of 1864, he submitted to a painful operation; which, instead of restoring, as he had been led to hope, the use of his eyes, resulted in total blindness. Into this night he sank at the age of seventytwo, and in it groped the last six years of a life which till then had been singularly prosperous and blest.

But no cloud obscured the intellectual day in which he moved, and in which he still continued to work during nearly five of those darkened years. With the aid of his faithful and efficient secretary and friend, Miss Ellen M. Buckingham, he brought his papers in order, dictated poems, translated German hymns, and prepared the material of a second volume of "Metrical Pieces," which, however, did not appear in print until loss of faculty had precluded his own interest in the publication.

Nothing was wanting to him in his decline of "that which should accompany old age; " not, certainly, "troops of friends." He enjoyed their society, delighting in the sound of familiar voices when familiar faces beamed on him in vain, and conversing with unimpaired faculty and zest until nearly the last year of his life. "In my frequent visits to him," says Dr. Allen," in the evil days' which came upon him after the external world was shut out from his sight, I always found him bright and cheerful, fond of recalling the scenes of our college

life and the memory of departed classmates and friends, and thankful for the blessings that still remained."

Speaking of a prominent trait of Dr. Frothingham's character, the same friend writes: "I have personal knowledge of his kindness and generosity, for I have been the almoner of his bounty; and I know that some I believe that many

recall his acts of kindness and bless his memory."

The last year, especially the last winter months, of his mortal experience, were burdened with infirmities and pains which leaned too hardly on his weakened frame, and shut out every prospect but that of the great Beyond.

He died on Monday, the 4th of April, 1870. On the same day, there appeared in the columns of the "Boston Transcript" an obituary notice, by the Rev. Mr. Fox, of which the greater part is here subjoined:

"Rev. Nathaniel Langdon Frothingham, D.D., died at his residence in Newbury Street, Monday morning, at two o'clock; receiving thus a blessed relief from a protracted and painful sickness. Though for several years he has been a sufferer in the seclusion of the sickchamber, and out of the sight of all but a few friends and those who ministered to him with unwearied, filial devotion, he has not been out of the minds and the hearts of the many who highly esteemed and greatly loved him; and sincere sorrow will be mingled with the feeling that his departure was ordered in mercy.

"Quietly devoted to his professional duties, Dr. Frothingham's life was uneventful; for it was the life of the student and the man of letters. His learning was various and accurate; and he was honored for his acquirements, as well as for the high order of his intellectual gifts. In social converse he was the coveted teacher and companion of our best thinkers and scholars. His interest and delight in literary pursuits continued unabated when others, suffering from infirmities and pains like his, would have abandoned their books and pens, and felt that even to listen to reading was a luxury to be given up. Whilst sickness allowed him to work, he was never idle.

"Dr. Frothingham published several volumes of prose and poetry; and to the Christian Examiner,' the North American Review,' and several other periodicals, he frequently contributed articles of rare