rbor of Southampton.

It must have been with heavy hearts and the gloomiest forebodings, and
yet buoyed up with the hope of finding a permanent refuge beyond the
ocean, for the exercise of that freedom of conscience for which they had
previously found only a temporary abode at Leyden, Holland, that the
hundred brave men and women, representing twenty-three different
families, consigned their lives and fortunes into the hands of the crew
of the little one hundred and sixty ton vessel that for almost five long
months was to battle with storm and winds across the dreaded Atlantic,
until on December 21, 1620, they anchored on the shores of
Massachusetts, and, with that spirit of loyalty, still, to the land from
which they had fled, named the spot where they first landed, Plymouth
Rock, to which they had been driven in the stress and storm, instead of
reaching the Virginia colony, for which they had set sail.

What that departure of the Pilgrims from England meant to those left
behind on the shore at Southampton can hardly be conceived by those who,
in our day, at some magnificent steamship pier, amid the strains of
music and a shower of flowers, now and anon wave a farewell to their
friends, perhaps bound on a pleasure tour in some leviathan of the
ocean, of twenty thousand or more tons burden, and fitted up in more
regal splendor than the most gorgeous palaces of the age of the
Pilgrims.

It is to the sadness of this departure that the artist, in this canvas,
has undertaken to give expression in the mournful group of friends on
the shore, waving a final farewell and wistfully gazing at the
"Mayflower," lying in mid-water and evidently waiting for the last
passengers to arrive before setting sail on its perilous voyage into the
mysterious darkness of the approaching night. There is a mellow gray
light of evening diffused throughout this painting which is almost
indescribable, with the moon casting its rays across the water, so
perfectly is it in harmony with the thread of the whole story which is
suggested by this inimitable picture.

I can think of no more fitting words to accompany this canvas than those
of Edward Everett, in his oration at Plymouth, on December 22, 1824, on
"The Emigration of the Pilgrim Fathers":

"Methinks I see it now, that one solitary, adventurous vessel, the
'Mayflower' of a forlorn hope, freighted with the prospects of a
future State, and bound across the unknown sea. I behold