rote in the same strain of affectionate
memory of our city and its people: "I take a lively interest in all
that concerns Maryland both present and past. I have not forgotten that
my home was once there. I have many and deeply cherished recollections
of Baltimore, which will remain in my heart and mind while the power of
memory continues to act. The order of Providence and strange events
have produced changes, _but it is Baltimore, still_." Such were the
sentiments of this excellent man towards our state, and city, and
people. They continued to be cherished by him to the last hour of his
life, and were warmly repeated to me in one of the last letters he ever
wrote, received but a day or two before his death. He left Baltimore
reluctantly; his congregation parted with him painfully, and its
farewell letter, written and signed by the late Chancellor of our
state, Theodorick Bland, bears the most honorable testimony to the
success of his pastoral labors.

Yet, probably, it was not ill health alone that determined Mr. Sparks's
removal to Boston. I think he had already set his heart on the great
themes of National History, and resolved, if possible, to pursue the
work faithfully by the acquisition of the vast and scattered materials
it needed. Upon his arrival in Massachusetts in 1823, he purchased the
North American Review, and became its sole editor from January, 1824,
to April, 1830. In these seven years his industrious pen contributed no
less than fifty articles, many of profound study, and all adding to the
solid critical literature of America. It was in 1828 that he made his
first elaborate biographical essay in the attractive Life of John
Ledyard, the American Traveller. About this time, too, good fruits were
borne to him by his previous residence in Baltimore and the
acquaintance he had made with the illustrious men who, in those days,
were found every winter in Washington. In that city his worth had been
recognized by the descendants of prominent revolutionary personages, by
leading legislators and public functionaries from the several States,
and, particularly, by such persons as Chief Justice Marshall, the
biographer of Washington, and his nephew Bushrod Washington and Mr.
Justice Story, both, at that time, Associate Judges of the Supreme
Court. Thenceforward, the idea that had taken possession of his mind on
the temporary failure of his health at Baltimore--"the city of noble
souls, of large-hearted men," as he w