[420] Savage, who is now, I think, seventy-five years old, is uncommonly vivacious and active. He is now getting proof-sheets of the first out of four volumes of his book of vain genealogies . . . . It may be hoped he will live to carry it through the press; and perhaps we ought to hope that he will not long survive its completion. He would be unhappy without the work into which he has put so large a part of his life. Hillard is very well, and very active. . . . . These are the three people we see most constantly; oftener than we see anybody out of the family. . . . . Tell dear Ellen that I love her just as much as I did when I was at Rutland Gate and Malvern, and hope still that she will come to the United States once more before I die. I talked much about her lately with Sam Eliot, who, with his wife and children, spent a week with us at New Year, and again, only yesterday, with Cogswell, who, after spending three or four days with us, went to New York this morning. The two Annas and Lizzie send love. So do I. So do Prescott and Hillard, to whom I gave your messages, and so does Savage, to whom you sent none. Always yours,
To Sir Walter Calverly Trevelyan.
Boston, U. S. A., June 28, 1859.my dear Sir Walter,—. . . . Hillard1 can tell you all you will want to know about this country . . . . On the Maine Liquor Law, which interests you so much, and which, if it were possible to execute it honestly, would interest me equally, he knows at least as much as I do. But I rather think his opinion is substantially like mine; namely, that it has not advanced the cause of temperance among us, and that it has tended much to bring all laws into disrepute which are not in themselves popular . . . . . It looks as if legislation upon the subject were effete. But we are a people fond of experiments; and, perhaps, in time we shall hit upon something that will do good. I am sure I hope we shall. Just now I am much more troubled about the European war than about our liquor law, which I do not hear mentioned once a month. But, if you will keep out of it in England, I will be content. At one
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1 Then visiting England, and introduced to Sir Walter Trevelyan by Mr. Ticknor.
Boston, J. R. Osgood and company, 1876.
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