landed on this continent from the good ship "Mayflower." The "Pilgrim
Fathers" were, in their native land, refused liberty of conscience and
freedom of discussion; their apparent loss was our gain, for if it had
not been for that despotism, and the corresponding re-action, which
made those stern old zealots give to others many of the inalienable
rights of liberty denied to themselves, you and I could not to-night
perhaps be allowed to meet face to face, without fear, to discuss
metaphysical and social questions in their broadest aspects, without
the civil or theological powers intervening to close our mouths.

"Fragile in health and frame; of the purest habits in morals; full of
devoted generosity and universal kindness; glowing with ardor to attain
wisdom; resolved at every personal sacrifice to do right; burning with a
desire for affection and sympathy," a boy-under-graduate of Oxford,
described as of tall, delicate, and fragile figure, with large and
lively eyes, with expressive, beautiful and feminine features, with head
covered with long, brown hair, of gracefulness and simplicity of manner,
the heir to a title and the representation of one of the most ancient
English families, which numbered Sir Philip Sidney on its roll of
illustrious names, just sixty-four years ago, and in this nineteenth
century, for no licentiousness, violence, or dishonor, but, for his
refusal to criminate himself or inculpate friends, was, without trial,
expelled by learned divines from his university for writing an
argumentative thesis, which, if it had been the work of some Greek
philosopher, would have been hailed by his judges as a fine specimen of
profound analytical abstruseness--for that expulsion are we the debtors
to theological charity and tolerance for "Queen Mab."

Excommunicated by a mercenary and abject priesthood, cast off by a
savage father, the admirer of that gloomy theology founded by the