THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._


VOL. XVIII.--DECEMBER, 1866.--NO. CX.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICKNOR
AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the
District of Massachusetts.

[Transcriber's note: Minor typos corrected and footnotes moved to end of
article.]

* * * * *

JOHN PIERPONT.


Most men of "fourscore and upwards," like Lear, and who, like Lear, have
been "mightily abused" in their day, are found, upon diligent inquiry,
to have long outlived themselves, like the Archbishop of Granada; but
here is a man, or was but the other day, in his eighty-second year, with
the temper and edge and "bright blue rippling glitter" of a Damascus
blade up to the very last; or rather, considering how he was last
employed, with the temper of that strange tool, found among the ruins of
Thebes, with which they used to smooth and polish their huge monoliths
of granite, until they murmured a song of joy, whenever the morning