ld, for the kindly bard gave orders that no child who wished to
see the chair should be excluded; and the tramp of dirty little feet
through the hall was for many months the despair of housemaids.
Thenceforward his name was to these children a household word; and the
most charming feature of the festival held on the two hundred and
fiftieth anniversary of the settlement of Cambridge (December 28, 1880)
was the reception given by a thousand grammar-school children to the
gray and courteous old poet, who made then and there, almost for the
only time in his life, and contrary to all previous expectations, a
brief speech in reply.

On that occasion he thus spoke briefly, at the call of the mayor, who
presided, and who afterwards caused to be read by Mr. George Riddle, the
verses "From My Arm-Chair," which the poet had written for the children.
He spoke as follows:--

MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS,--I do not rise to make an address to you, but
to excuse myself from making one. I know the proverb says that he
who excuses himself accuses himself,--and I am willing on this
occasion to accuse myself, for I feel very much as I suppose some of
you do when you are suddenly called upon in your class room, and are
obliged to say that you are not prepared. I am glad to see your
faces and to hear your voices. I am glad to have this opportunity of
thanking you in prose, as I have already done in verse, for the
beautiful present you made me some two years ago. Perhaps some of
you have forgotten it, but I have not; and I am afraid,--yes, I am
afraid that fifty years hence, when you celebrate the three
hundredth anniversary of this occasion, this day and all that
belongs to it will have passed from your memory; for an English
philosopher has said that the ideas as well as children of our youth
often die before us, and our minds represent to us those tombs to
which we are approaching, where, though the brass and marble remain,
yet the inscriptions are effaced by time, and the imagery moulders
away.

Again, upon his seventy-fifth birthday, there were great rejoicings in
the Cambridge schools, as indeed in those of many other cities far and
wide.

Craigie House, his residence, has already been described. In this
stately old edifice dwelt the venerable poet, who was usually to be
found in his ample study, rich with the accumulations of literary
luxury. One might find him