church a fine memorial window to his partner brother, and an appropriate memorial of himself is about to be placed within the walls.

To every object connected with the welfare and religious and humane works of his church, Mr. Thayer, though wholly lacking in all limitations and motives of sectarian zeal, was promptly responsive. He was at times a committee of one, and an efficient one. Strongly attached to the simplicity and method of the liberalized Congregational form of worship under which he had been trained, that of his father and his home, though he in no way opposed or objected to the adoption of a form of service by a book in the First Church, he was hardly in sympathy with it.

In his full health and vigor, Mr. Thayer enjoyed the refined pleasures, the hospitalities, and social clubs of his city life. His business interests led him to frequent and extensive journeys over the country, and he made the usual European voyages.

Mr. Thayer will always be most pleasantly remembered in his associations with Lancaster by those who were privileged to be his guests there. He was never weaned from the home of his youth, and it became more attractive and satisfying to him in his later years. The widow of Dr. Thayer spent the remainder of her life-which closed June 22, 1857, in the same year as that of her son, John Eliot - in the old parsonage. Mr. Thayer's mode of life here, as well as in the city, was characterized by an elegant and graceful simplicity. There was every provision and appliance for comfort. and true enjoyment, with no trace of ostentation or parade, no elaborateness of equipage or liveries, no overdoing in anything. It always seemed to his guests that their host, in many things, was regarding them rather than himself, and could on his own part dispense with much that was around him were it not that they might enjoy themselves to the fullest.

The guests of Mr. Thayer in his country home could not fail to note the relations of intimacy and acquaintance in which he stood with the people of the town, and with all its local interests, civil, social, domestic, and religious. It seemed sometimes as if he recognized and was acting under a sort of large and general responsibility entailed upon him by his

father. Of all the residents of his own age, and in good part of their children, he knew the names, employments, and condition, and was on a footing of most cordial familiarity with them.

He loved patriotism, and he would commemorate patriots in a way to promote that and other virtues. So his choice for his native town was for a free public library, with wellladen shelves, a reading-room, and all needful appliances. In this should be reared a pure white marble tablet, bearing in letters of gold the names of the honored dead, so that every youth coming for a book should have the memorial with its lesson always before him. "See what you can do about it " was his word to his townsmen. The town treasury contributed five thousand dollars to the object. Private subscriptions added six thousand more. The balance, being about two thirds of the whole cost, was defrayed by Mr. Thayer, who also funded a generous sum for its support. So too in the restoration, slating, and adornment of the substantial brick meeting-house built during his father's ministry, he added to his contribution to the work an endowment of ten thousand dollars for the parish. And in providing a new chapel his word was repeated, "See what you can do about it;" adding, "While you are about it you had better have it done in the best manner." The balance lay with himself. He pursued the same course in the restoration, enlargement, and beautifying of the old burial-grounds, in one of which rest the remains of his parents. In his private beneficences, in a large variety of subjects and directions, he kept his own secrets. His stock farm for many uses of distribution represented what his bank of deposit did in the city. It was by these methods of a wise and generous co-operating liberality that the most cordial and mutually respectful relations existed between Mr. Thayer and his townsmen. A very impressive manifestation of their tender regard for him was shown when, on the day of his funeral from his city church,—a day of storm, of snow and rain and sleet, and of discomforts in travel, -the porch and aisles were filled by unsummoned groups of those mourning friends.

The last three years of Mr. Thayer's life, though free of any severity of pain and suffering, were attended by an enfeeblement of bodily vigor which occasionally impaired the

full exercise of his mental powers. He was gentle and patient under the needful suspense of his business activity and in the seclusion of his home. His release came on the seventh day of March, 1883, at the age of seventy-four.

Mr. Thayer married, June 10, 1846, Cornelia, daughter of General Stephen Van Rensselaer, of Albany, New York. She, with two married daughters, and two married and two unmarried sons, survive him. He was interred in his lot in Mount Auburn Cemetery.

In 1881 the members of the old Congregational Parish in Lancaster erected a brick chapel of the same style of architecture as the meeting-house, to which it is attached. It bears the name of the Thayer Memorial Chapel, in grateful remembrance of Dr. Thayer and his wife, with portraits of them, and a brass memorial tablet. Since the decease of Mr. Nathaniel Thayer the parishioners have set up in it a memorial tablet to him of Caen stone.

APRIL MEETING, 1885.

The Annual Meeting was held on Thursday, the 9th instant, at twelve o'clock, M.; the Hon. ROBERT C. WINTHROP in the chair.

The Recording Secretary's report of the previous meeting was read and accepted.

Among the donations to the Library for the past month, the Librarian mentioned the gift of twenty-eight volumes from the children of the late Admiral Preble; and two volumes of the "Narrative and Critical History of America," from Messrs. J. R. Osgood & Co., the publishers. It was voted that grateful acknowledgments be made for these acceptable gifts.

The Corresponding Secretary announced that the Hon. J. L. M. Curry and Mr. Amos Perry had accepted their election as Corresponding Members.

The PRESIDENT then said:

We have come once more, Gentlemen, to our Annual Meeting, the ninety-fourth since the Society was founded. But, agreeably to our usage, we will proceed with the ordinary business of a monthly meeting, and leave the Annual Reports and the election of officers to come last.

Before calling, however, for communications from others, I may mention several historical works which have reached me since our last meeting, and which are likely to attract some well-deserved attention.

First, there is a new volume of Dr. Brinton's "Library of Aboriginal American Literature." It is the fifth volume of the series, and is entitled "The Lenâpé and their Legends; with the complete text and symbols of the "Walam Olum, or Red Score of the Lenâpé," and with a new translation, and an inquiry into its authenticity. Dr. Brinton is a Professor of Ethnology and Archæology at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and he has recently delivered a course of our Lowell Lectures. His new volume

contains much of interesting and instructive matter about the Algonquin languages and tribes.

A second work, of much greater general interest, is the "History of the Huguenot Emigration to America," in two volumes, by the Rev. Charles W. Baird, D.D., of New York. Dr. Charles Baird is a brother of Dr. Henry Baird, whose name is on our Corresponding Roll, and who has written an able and elaborate account of the Huguenots in France. The present work is full of interesting details of not a few of our American families whose ancestors came over on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and settled in South Carolina, New York, Massachusetts, and elsewhere. The settlement at Oxford, in Massachusetts, is noticed quite at length; and there is a print of the monument in memory of the settlers there, which was dedicated as lately as October last.

A third and still more notable work is "The Narrative and Critical History of America," of which two noble volumes, the third and fourth, have appeared within a week or two past. I dare not attempt to speak of volumes so varied in contents and so rich in illustration. The third volume is especially remarkable, and contains papers of the highest value, and many of them of particular interest to New Englanders, from pens which give authority to all they write. Our own Society is represented most honorably in its chapters, and, above all, in the general direction of the work, as well as in important contributions to it, by our accomplished Corresponding Secretary, Mr. Winsor, whose "Memorial History of Boston" and now this "Narrative and Critical History of America" entitle him to the gratitude of all laborers in the historical field.

Meantime we must not forget the fruits of labor still nearer home. Our Secretary and the Publishing Committee furnish us to-day with a new volume of Proceedings, bringing down our record to the last meeting but one, and furnishing fresh evidence of the devotion of our faithful Secretary, to whom and the Publishing Committee our thanks are most justly due.

I must not omit to call your attention to an interesting Heliotype, handsomely framed, for which we are indebted to the Mayor of Charleston, S. C., who accompanied it with the following letter: