we therefore herein to excell,
and suffer not this crown to be taken away from us: Be we
a holy people, so shall we be honorable before God and precious
in the eyes of his Saints."

To these eminent Concord authors should be added the name
of William S. Robinson. He was one of the brightest and wittiest
men of his time. He very seldom had praise for anybody, although
for a few of his old Anti-Slavery friends he had a huge liking.
When I was a little boy he was in a newspaper office in Concord,
where he got most of his education. Afterward he was associated
with William Schouler in editing the Lowell _Courier,_ a Whig
paper. When Schouler became editor of the _Atlas,_ Robinson
succeeded to the paper. But when the Free Soil movement
came in, he would not flinch or abate a jot in his radical
Anti-Slavery principles, which were not very agreeable to
the proprietors of the cotton mills in Lowell, who depended
both for their material and their market largely upon the
South. Sumner described their alliance with their Southern
customers as an alliance between the Lords of the Loom and
the Lords of the Lash. So Robinson was compelled to give
up his paper, in doing which he voluntarily embraced poverty
instead of a certain and lucrative employment. He started
an Anti-Slavery weekly paper in Lowell known as the Lowell
_American._ That afforded him a bare and difficult living
for a few years. After the Anti-Slavery people got into power
he was made Clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
Then he began to write his famous letters to the Springfield
_Republican,_ which he signed Warrington. They were full
of wit and wisdom and displayed great knowledge of the best
English literature. He made many enemies and finally, by
a concert among them, was turned out of office. He lost his
health not long after, and died prematurely.

He was quite unsparing in his attacks on anybody who offended
him, or against whom he took a dislike; and he seemed to dislike
everybody whom he did not know. It was said of him that,
like the rain of Heaven, he "fell alike on the just and on
the unjust." He attacked some of the most venerable and worthy
citizens of the Commonwealth without any apparent reason.
He used to call Chief Justice Chapman, one of the worthiest
and kindest of men, Chief Justice Wheelgrease. He had a controversy
in his paper of long standing with a man named Piper, a pompous
and self-important little per