tion and the files of bound newspapers and manuscripts, 21,120 volumes. The number of pamphlets is more than 36,000. The accessions have been fewer than usual, though many of them are of decided value. This falling off is due, of course, to the removal and storing of the Library while the new building was erecting. During these changes, so far as is known, no volume has been lost or injured. At the present time the books are all placed on the shelves. In conclusion, the Librarian cannot refrain from congratulating the Society on having its invaluable treasures in a convenient and fire-proof building. Respectfully submitted.

SAMUEL A. GREEN, Librarian.

Report of the Cabinet-keeper.

The Cabinet-keeper reports that during the past year the Cabinet has received gifts from twelve different persons, three of whom are members of the Society; and has also received the bequest of General Sumner, comprising portraits, articles of antique furniture, and other curiosities.

The Cabinet was safely removed, stored during the alteration of the building, and returned.

A large number of the Society's collection of portraits have been hung under the superintendence of Messrs. Perkins and Appleton, for whose help in this matter the Cabinet-keeper is greatly indebted. A portion of the relics and curiosities have been replaced in the cases formerly occupied by them; but much larger accommodation is needed for their permanent arrangement and for the display of articles hitherto concealed, when the Society shall be fairly settled in its new quarters.

It seems to the Cabinet-keeper very desirable that such accommodation should be furnished soon in as accessible a part of the building as possible, and under the eye of the person in charge of the rooms, for the greater security of the many valuable articles now owned by the Society, and the many others that it may reasonably hope to receive when prepared to take charge of them.

Respectfully submitted.

HENRY G. DENNY, Cabinet-keeper.

Mr. SOLOMON LINCOLN, from the committee appointed to nominate candidates for officers for the ensuing year, reported the following list, which was adopted by the Society:

On motion of Mr. SALTONSTALL, the thanks of the Society were voted to Messrs. Quincy and Hillard, the retiring members of the Standing Committee, for their valuable services the past year.

Dr. ELLIS wished to add a few words of congratulation on the occasion and upon the scene which he saw before him. He observed that upon the printed list giving the names of the members of the Society, in the order of their election, there were now only two names preceding his own, though the large majority of those who came after were his elders in years. He had had the honor and privilege of membership for thirty-two years, during which period the membership had been almost completely changed. In the eighty-two years of the Society's history there had been less than three hundred members altogether. This was the third aspect under which he had seen their rooms, and he welcomed this second renovation which gave them these spacious, beautiful, and he hoped fire-proof, halls. Their first aspect, as he recalled it, was dingy enough. In the early years of the Society, it appears from the records that it received many gifts of objects more or less interesting, as nat

ural curiosities, plants, insects, birds, &c., supposed to be in a state of "6 preservation."

These, continued Dr. Ellis, either from neglect or from their succumbing to the law of things earthly, turned to dust, and a musty odor from them once pervaded the apartments. That faithful and honored man, that diligent and earnest antiquary who then served us as Librarian, being a member of the Society, and therefore substantially held to our usage which forbids us to receive any compensation for service performed for it, felt at liberty to open or close the apartments according as it was or was not convenient for him to sit here and pursue his own studies. His urbane and courteous manners were in keeping with the old gentilities. His inartistic wig seemed to be one of the antiquities of the place. Indeed, I remember that our genial associate, Dr. Young, sought to impose upon my green inexperience, by suggesting that it might have been appropriated by the wearer from one of our cabinets. There was an old drum stove, called air-tight, and we used to think sometimes it was also heat-tight. ChiefJustice Shaw asked, in those days, if the resources of the Society would enable it to purchase three more wooden chairs. The change made sixteen years ago for the reception of the Dowse Library was the first improvement, and under the present cheerful and delightful aspect of the rooms they might hope to enter upon a new period of prosperity. The resuscitation of the Society was to be dated to the time of the election of the present President; and the remarkable discovery, a few years later, of that immense trunk of "Winthrop Papers," which had lain undisturbed and unopened for more than a century, had furnished us with materials of the very highest historical value. The volumes which have already been printed from that rich collection have thrown new light upon some of the most important points of our early history, and added. much to our personal knowledge of some of the men and women concerned in it. New facts had therein been disclosed to us relating to the founding of the College. The remarkable. though fragmentary papers thus furnished to us by our President from his ancestral stores, read at a recent meeting, with the explanatory comments of our Recording Secretary, Mr. Deane, gave us for the first time, after the lapse of two hundred and forty years, information of the details of the controversy between Roger Williams and the Government of the Bay Colony. Those abbreviated minutes of the matter of an old alarm and anxious strife have confirmed me in the opinion which I have long held, that though Roger Williams, as he

mellowed in years, became an old man of a singularly lovely and amiable character, he was in his prime a dangerous intruder and an agent of mischief; and that, of the two, Governor Winthrop, besides being a man of a better balance and a superior discretion, was also the more tolerant in spirit, and the more forbearing and patient of the disputants.

May our new members, from this time onward, with our new promise of prosperity, and our new materials for their labor, contribute their full share to the accomplished services of this Society.

The following letter was received the day after the Annual Meeting, but it seems to find a fitting place here:

DEAR MR. WINTHROP,

EDGEHILL, near Charlotte C. H., Virginia,
April 7, 1873.

Unless I am mistaken, you will meet for the first time in your new Hall at your next meeting, and I congratulate you and your learned associates mo-t heartily on so auspicious an event. It will also be your annual meeting, which is, even on ordinary occasions, a starting-point in the course of such an institution as yours. You thus enter with favorable auspices and with blended influences on a new scene of usefulness and honor. Should it be the will of Providence to spare the lives of your present members for ten or fifteen years to come, the result of your labors will be a most valuable accession to our historical literature.

I read with unfaltering interest the serials of your "Proceedings," as they issue from the press. From my habits of research, and from the necessity of getting materials from every available quarter, I am, perhaps, better qualified to appreciate the worth of the contents of each serial, and to award them their peculiar merit, than the mere cursory reader, who seeks only the amusement of the moment. As I read the number, I mark with a pencil facts and opinions that may be useful to me hereafter, and the pages are well scored as I pass along.

The memoir of John Singleton Copley, by Mr. Perkins, is a very handsome contribution to the history of American art. The paper on Governor Winthrop's "Conclusions" shows the deliberation with which important topics were managed in his day, and is in strong contrast with the rapidity with which the gravest state papers are dashed off in ours. The tribute to the memory of Mr. Seward, by Mr. Adams, is a remarkable production. It is the photograph of the inner man of a prominent political leader in a great crisis, made by one who had the most favorable opportunities of knowing his subject, and who shared with him the responsibilities of the times; and the contemporaneousness of the sketch with the decease of its subject enhances its value. It is wholly immaterial to the worth of such a portrait whether you agree or dissent from the subject or the speaker. It is

enough that you have a true image of the character as it exists in the mind of an able and intimate associate, who is also a skilful artist.

The death of Mr. Folsom I learned for the first time from the serial of December. Your own remarks in introducing the topic, the graphic and genial letter of Dr. Palfrey, and the observations of Dr. Lothrop, which, beside other good things, presented a fine instance of decision of character in the deceased at a critical moment, brought fresh before me the person and the presence of this excellent man and liberal scholar, as I saw him more than once during my visit to Boston, in 1867. His modesty was quite conspicuous, and even lovely. The maxim which unconsciously ruled his life was that long ago adopted and acted upon by Lord Somers, bespeaking a mind conscious of its powers, yet quite willing to leave the ordinary game of life in the hands of the regular players, prodesse quam conspici,- a maxim which few have the self-command to act upon, and which betokens the existence of a catholic humanity. He was not willing to let a single act of courtesy slip from his memory; and I recall the kind feeling with which he showed me some books presented to him by Virginia students in Harvard half a century ago.

-

I can also bear witness to the warm affection which the late Admiral Farragut cherished for Mr. Folsom. Passing through New York, on my return from my New England visit, I called on the ladies of the Admiral's family, whom I have known from their childhood, and there I met the Admiral; and when I was speaking of the persons whom I had seen in New England, he inquired with the deepest interest whether I had met with Mr. Folsom; and when I told him that Mr. F. was one of the first whom I had seen, and the last, with the exception of my excellent host, with whom I had parted, he seemed evidently excited, gave me an account of his early connection with Mr. F., and expressed himself in very strong terms of his influence in controlling the destinies of his life. He then left the room, and after a short interval returned with a Turkish dirk, sheathed in a massy carved silver scabbard, which he said Mr. Folsom had given him in his earliest youth, and which he regarded as the most precious memorial that he owned.

When I saw Mr. Folsom, he had passed the period of the Psalmist, and was the model of a septuagenarian. His stature was erect, his step elastic; and his clear complexion, his eyes yet unaided by glasses, his serene and even buoyant spirits, the readiness with which he would enter into a discussion of the true reading of a line in Horace or Homer, appeared to me to foreshadow a long and genial Indian summer, which, when accompanied by the blessings of friendship, by a moderate competence, and by the free play of all the faculties, is probably the most delightful portion of our earthly existence. There must be something wrong in your domestic economy, or in the deportment of the study, when such men as Everett and Folsom, who entered in such fine condition upon the threshold of threescore years and ten, fail to reach the age of eighty-one.

Before I saw Mr. Folsom, I had looked over his edition of Livy,