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INTRODUCTION.

TO THOMAS BOX,

OF ENGLAND.

MY DEAR FRIEND:-Though thousands of miles of angry ocean lie between us, I shall never forget you nor your "Palatine Cottage." Its quiet, unobtrusive beauty, nestled as it is among trees, and flowers, and singing birds, I have never seen surpassed. To me it is doubly dear from the fact, that when I was but a boy, (yet with a heart full of earnest aspirations for a reformed world,) it was a second home to me. That sad, beautiful summer you nor I shall ever forget, nor will the dear ones of the "cottage" who watched me so tenderly when my brow burned with fever. I can see the exquisite sight from your windows even now, as I saw it then, and the fragrance of the flowers has crossed the Atlantic with me, and lingers round my heart still. So do the evenings rise up before me when you gave me such graphic pictures of the English reformers. It was new and intensely interesting to me, especially as I was deeply sympathizing with several important reforms.

I am in my native land again; months, years have passed

away since I said farewell to you. While I write, my windows open out upon a landscape not so beautiful, but more grand than yours-upon more gorgeous though not sweeter flowers than those at Palatine! I am in a new world, where we have our own beauties and defects. Here-God knows how my heart aches to say it!-here we need reformers as well as you; here the sorrowful plaint of the bondman, and the wail of the drunkard's wife are heard. And so remembering your word-pictures of English agitators, I send you a few plain, honest portraitures of some of our American reformers of the present time. They do not by any means include all of our distintinguished reformers. I am obliged to select, and have very likely sketched some persons not so distinguished as others I have not mentioned. With one exception, the subjects of these pen-portraits are living men. Rogers was so brilliant a man, was such an original, and was so intimately connected with our anti-slavery agitators, that I could not resist the temptation to speak of him in this volume. I have, in almost every instance, made extracts from the writings of the persons sketched, knowing that often wise quotation will give a better clue to character than pages of mere description.

Begging that you will excuse the errors into which I may have unintentionally fallen in this book, which was prepared for the people of this country,

I am, always affectionately, yours,

DAVID W. BARTLETT.

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MODERN AGITATORS.

N. P. ROGERS.

NEW ENGLAND has given birth to few men, who, in point of brilliancy, genius, and genuine philanthropy, are the superiors of N. P. Rogers. George Thompson, after a few hours spent in conversation with him, declared him to be "the most brilliant man in America." There was a fascination about the man, a charm in his conversation, in his presence, which was as superior to acquired politeness as nature is to art. Few discovered from his conversation, that he possessed great powers of sarcasm and indignant eloquence. For he was one of the gentlest men that ever drew breath. In many things he was like a woman. His heart was sensitive, his fancy delicate, his love without bounds, and when insult was aimed at him, or when attempts were made to wrong him, he was silent. But when insult was aimed at the cause he loved so well, when his brother was wronged, his spirit rose lion-like, and he could throw his shafts of sarcasm home to the heart of an adversary, or could

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