MEMOIR. THE literary productions of WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED, though given to the world many years ago, in publications more or less of an ephemeral character, continue to excite considerable interest. Of the Poems, three separate collections have appeared in America, neither of them complete or accurate, yet reflecting credit on the taste and enterprise of our transatlantic brethren. In this country, an authorized edition has for some time been announced, not before it had been long expected and desired. The delay has been occasioned by no want of zeal on the part of those more immediately concerned in the undertaking, who may rather be charged with too anxious a sense of duty, than with any indifference of feeling. Though well aware that there is a tide in the affairs of books, no less than of men, and that a debt is due to the generation which is passing away for which the next can give no acquittance, they have been willing to forego the advantage of a timely appearance, and even to be held defaulters in a matter of admitted obligation, rather than bring out what seemed to them an imperfect work, or do less than justice to him whose memory as a man, no less than an author, it is intended to preserve. The life of an individual may be written for various reasons, and the undertaking in each case be fairly justified. He may have been sufficiently distinguished in the world whether of thought or action, in literature or in public life, to draw the eyes of men to his private fortunes and character,-what he has done leading them to inquire what he was; or there may have been something in the man himself, some rare excellence, or strange peculiarity, which may impart a special interest to his portraiture; or, lastly, by a certain felicity of nature, aided perhaps by an advantageous position, he may have drawn around him so large a circle of admiring friends, that the ordinary monuments of regret and affection have been deemed inadequate. Thus the pen has been called in to make up the deficiencies of the statuary and the painter. Each of these motives might readily be illustrated by appropriate examples, but they more commonly act in combination; and so it is in the present instance. If one should be deemed weak and insufficient, it may yet add strength to the plea which it cannot support alone. Not unknown, nor without mark in the arena of political conflict, the name of PRAED is still remembered as at least that of a forward pupil in the school of statesmanship; and though his literary honors, won in earliest manhood, and sustained by the casual productions of a leisure hour, were worn carelessly, while he was preparing for higher distinctions and more serious duties, yet, now that years have gone by, and we have to audit the past with no expectation of any future account, we find that he has left behind him a permanent expression of wit and grace, of refined and tender feeling, of inventive fancy and acute observation, unique in character, and his own by an undisputed title. Some brief record, if not of the rising orator and politician, yet of the accomplished poet and sparkling essayist, may surely accompany his writings, and join in whatever welcome they may receive. Such at least may be taken as the pretext and occasion of the following biography: but it need not be concealed that the work has been undertaken from feelings of a more personal nature, and with somewhat of a higher aim. marked and individual a character, so full both in its moral and intellectual endowments, so fine in modification, so peculiar in the interchange and play of light and shade, if happily depicted, might, it was thought, be studied with pleasure and advantage on its own account. And if this language be criticised as the heightened utterance of partial friendship, it will yet be repeated by many voices. To his contemporaries, to all by whom he was intimately known, to very many who knew him mainly by report, and who perhaps cherish the remembrance of a casual meeting, the name of WINTHROP PRAED, is still as the sound of music. The depths of his nature were indeed opened but to few; not often or willingly So to them but he had a special faculty and privilege, better than any craft of will, by which he attracted even when he seemed to repel,—and was more than popular even when, in his younger and gayer days, he appeared to court animadversion and defy dislike. Winthrop Mackworth Praed, the subject of the present Memoir, was the third and youngest son of William Mackworth Praed, Sergeant-at-law, and for many years chairman of the Audit Board. He was born in London, in the house then occupied by his father, 35 John Street, Bedford Row, on the 26th of July, 1802. Bitton House, at Teignmouth, in the county of Devon, his father's country seat, is however to be regarded as his paternal home. He was called Winthrop from the maiden name of his mother, a branch of whose family emigrated to America, and rose to eminence in the time of Charles the First; and Mackworth from his father, whose family originally bore that name, but had taken the name of Praed some generations earlier. His constitution was delicate, and when about six years of age he passed through a severe illness, which threatened his life. On this occasion a copy of verses was written in his name by his father, a man of highly cultivated mind, by whom the poetic faculty which early developed itself in his youngest son was carefully fostered and directed. As these rerses, in addition to their intrinsic merit, have a iographical interest, they are here preserved. AUGUST, 1808. LITTLE WINTHROP'S MEDITATION ON HIS RECOVERY DANGEROUS ILLNESS. To Thee, Almighty God! who from the bed Of sickness hast vouchsafed to raise me up FROM A To health and strength renewed, with grateful heart May through Thy grace be constantly employed My dawning mind to seek our heavenly Father, I answered crossly, or in froward mood |