eculiar institutions, and that therefore he must be placarded
and mobbed. Hand-bills were issued, and widely circulated. But they did
not effect their object. They only drove this son of the Quakers to
_swear_ that he would stay in Portland. And he did stay, and established
a literary paper, though he once said to us that 'he would as soon have
thought of setting up a _Daily Advertiser_ in the Isle of Shoals three
months before.'

His marriage took place about this time, and was, as he used to say, his
pledge for good behavior. His wife was one of the loveliest of
New-England's daughters, and looked as if she might tame a tiger by the
simple magic of her presence. It is several years since we have met
Neal, and near a dozen since we saw him in his home. At that time he
must have been greatly in fault not to be a proud and happy man. If a
calm, restful exterior, and a fresh and youthful beauty, are signs of
happiness, then Mrs. Neal was one of the happiest women in the world.
The delicate softness, the perfection of youth in her beauty, lives
still in our memory. It is one of those real charms that never drop
through the mind's meshes.

Judging from Neal's impulsive nature, he was not the last man to do
something to be sorry for; but his wife and children looked as if they
were never sorry. We remember a little girl of some five or six years;
we believe they called her Maggie. Her dimpled cheek, her white round
neck and arms, and the perfect symmetry of her form, and the grace of
her motions, have haunted us these twelve years. We would not promise to
remember her as long or as well if we should see her again in these
days. But we made up our mind then, that we would rather be the father
of that child than the author of all Neal had written, or might have
written, even though he had been a wise and prudent man, and had done
his work as well as he doubtless wishes now that he had done it. Neal is
only half himself away from his beautiful home. There, he is in
place--an eagle in a nest lined with down, soft as eider. There his fine
taste is manifest in every thing. If we judge of his taste by his
rapidly-written works, we are sure to do him injustice. We find in him a
union of the most opposite qualities. We can not say a harmonious union.
An inflexible industry is not often united with a bird-like celerity and
grace of movement. With Neal, the two first have always been
combined--the whole on occasions, which might have