A Unitarian clergyman in Cambridge, professor of sacred literature in Harvard University, 1831–37, subsequently a member of Congress and postmaster of Boston, 1861–67. His literary reputation rests upon his “History of New England,” a painstaking, accurate work, but not especially attractive in style, and marred by want of perspective. Other works by him are, “Lectures on the Jewish Scriptures;” “The Relation between Judaism and Christianity.”
Personal
A man of singular honesty of purpose and conscientiousness of action, a thoroughly trained theologian, he ripened and enlarged the somewhat partial knowledge of mankind and their motives which falls to the lot of a clergyman by the experience of active politics and the training of practical statesmanship. Needing office neither as an addition of emolument nor of dignity, his interest in politics was the result of moral convictions, and not of personal ambition. The loss of his seat in Congress, while it was none to himself, was an irreparable one for Massachusetts, to which his integrity, his learning, and his eloquence were at once a service and an honor.
Doctor Palfrey was almost distinctly of the Brahminical caste, and was long an eminent Unitarian Minister, but at the time I began to know him he had long quitted the pulpit. He was then so far a civic or public character as to be postmaster at Boston, but his officiality was probably so little in keeping with his nature that it was like a return to his truer self when he ceased to hold the place, and gave his time altogether to his history…. He was refined in the essential gentleness of his heart without being refined away; he kept the faith of her Puritan tradition though he no longer kept the Puritan faith. And his defence of the Puritan severity with the witches and Quakers was as impartial as it was efficient in positing the Puritans as of their time, and rather better and not worse than other people of the same time. He was himself a most tolerant man, and his tolerance was never weak or fond; it stopped well short of condoning error, which he condemned when he preferred to leave it to its own punishment. Personally he was without any flavor of harshness; his mind was as gentle as his manner, which was one of the gentlest I have ever known.
History of New England, 1859–64
Dr. Palfrey manifests rare gifts as an historian. First of all, he loves his subject. A New England man as thoroughly in character, as veritably by right of birth, he inherits the principles which presided in the inception of our republican institutions,—the fearless integrity, the persistent adherence to the right, the uncompromising independence, the tenacity of honest purpose, the ardent love of liberty, which were the germinal principles of these Northeastern Colonies, and which have been transplanted with our emigrant population through the entire breadth of our continent. His conscientious and painstaking industry was needed, not so much for the narration of actual events on this side of the ocean, as for the often obscure and difficult investigation of their Transatlantic causes and relations. His candor is signally conspicuous in dealing with matters in which varying opinions and interests have transmitted sectional and party strifes, not indeed in the form of animosity, but of fixed historical prejudice, to the descendants of the principal actors. His minuteness of narration leaves at no point a reasonable curiosity unsatisfied; and yet he has the rare art of multiplying details without magnifying them, so that the salient topics of interest are never overlaid or dwarfed by the pressure of collateral and subsidiary material…. The text presents an unbroken flow of easy narrative; while in the copious notes all points of controversy are elaborately discussed, discrepancies between different authorities carefully noted, and full references given.
Dr. Palfrey writes, unmistakably, as a man proud of his Massachusetts lineage. He honors the men whose enterprise, constancy, persistency, and wise skill in laying foundations have, in his view, approved their methods and justified them, even where they are most exposed to a severe judgment. He wishes to tell their story as they would wish to have it told. They stand by his side as he reads their records, and supply him with a running comment as to meaning and intention. Thus he is helped to put their own construction on their own deeds,—to set their acts in the light of their motives, to give them credit for all the good that was in their purposes, and to ascribe their mistakes and errors to a limitation of their views, or to well-founded apprehensions of evil which they had reason to dread. Under such pilotage, the passengers, at least, would be safe, when their ship fell upon a place where two seas met.
For a number of years Dr. Palfrey has been laboriously engaged upon “A History of New England,” of which the first volume appeared early in December, 1858, and of which it is praise enough to say that it comes up fully to the high expectations that were entertained of it. Evincing a noble and hearty appreciation of the early settlers of New England, guided by cool, impartial reason, and exhibiting throughout extensive research and a careful collation of facts, he has given us a work which will doubtless supersede all others upon the same subject, and be the established or classical history of that portion of our country.
It is to the praise of his work that its merit lies more in its tone of thought and its weight of opinion, than in pictorial effects. Brilliancy is cheap; but trustworthiness of thought, and evenness of judgment, are not to be had at every booth. Dr. Palfrey combines in the temper of his mind and the variety of his experience some quite peculiar qualifications for the task he has undertaken…. In the maturity of his powers, he devoted himself to the composition of the History which he has now brought to the end of its third volume, and to the beginning of a new period. It is little to say that his work is the only one of its kind. He has done it so well, that it is likely to remain so. With none of that glitter of style and epigrammatic point of expression which please more than they enlighten, and tickle when they should instruct, there is a gravity and precision of thought, a sober dignity of expression, an equanimity of judgment, and a clear apprehension of characters and events, which give us the very truth of things as they are, and not as either he or his reader might wish them to be.
The “History of New England,” by John G. Palfrey, is distinguished by thoroughness of investigation, fairness of judgment, and clearness and temperance of style. It is one of the ablest contributions as yet made to our colonial history.
Not only the most satisfactory history of New England we have, but one of the most admirable historical works ever produced in America. It shows great learning, industrious research, comprehensive views, critical acumen, and sound judgment. In addition to these great qualities, it possesses the charm of having been written in a graceful and agreeable style.
Palfrey, plain, matter-of-fact, straightforward, interests us from the start. The “History of New England,” as he prepared it, could be made the basis of a compendious work for popular reading, and also could win the applause of Mr. Lowell and other critics of high standing. Palfrey, indeed, though read by a general public, seems to me an authors’ author in some such sense, mutatis mutandis, as Landor was a poets’ poet. He wrote of a subject familiar to at least twenty scholars of high standing, living in his own community, and within reach of the authorities upon which he relied; yet the trustworthiness of his work was not impeached in important particulars. Scholarly, accurate, and terse, he made his history, in itself, almost an original authority. His field was narrower than Bancroft’s, but broader and more diversified than those covered by single works of Prescott or Motley; this fact, perhaps, accounts for the comparative obscurity of his name, as set beside those of other American historians of the first rank. One thinks of Palfrey, after all, as he would think of a nineteenth-century Thomas Prince or William Stith. But that he is an historian of an honorable rank in his country’s literature, can hardly be doubted. In ability of several kinds he surpasses Hildreth, and it does not seem rash to suppose that the passage of years will emphasize the fact. Like Hildreth, he left behind plenty of obscure books, of no lasting value; but the greater achievement, though it cannot redeem the lesser from their fate, will at least be prominent in itself.
Probably the best single large piece of work that has been done in America on any part of our colonial period…. If Dr. Palfrey was not a man of great insight into popular movements, and was too constant an apologist of the rulers of New England, his book was nevertheless admirable on account of his extensive knowledge of sources, his industry, clearness, accuracy, and skill in narration. Among its many excellences, one which deserves particular notice is the degree of attention which it bestows upon the history of England itself during the Puritan era, and upon the mutual influence of Old England and New England during that period of exceptionally close sympathy and connection.
General
For ourselves, we have perused them [“Sermons”] with satisfaction and thankfulness to the author. The careless, and we know not but we should add, the critical reader, will scarcely help complaining of the occasional length of the sentences, and some times, it must be confessed, of an involved expression, leaving him in doubt of a meaning, which upon search, he may find too good and full to be lost or obscured. But with this exception, he will not fail to profit from the discriminating, weighty, and instructive manner of the preacher; from the tone of deep seriousness, moreover, and not seldom the eloquence, with which his various topics are enforced.
He has a reputation for scholarship; and many of the articles which are attributed to his pen evince that this reputation is well based, so far as the common notion of scholarship extends. For the rest, he seems to dwell altogether within the narrow world of his own conceptions; imprisoning them by the very barrier which he has erected against the conceptions of others.
Without being dazzled by excessive admiration of the wisdom or the learning of the modern continental school of critics, and as little disposed as most persons to rate very highly that show of erudition, which consists in incumbering one’s pages with quotations and references, we still think that more should have been done to make us acquainted with the history and present state of discussion on many of the moot points here brought under review…. It is a valuable and opportune contribution to the theological literature of the country, and when completed will take precedence, we doubt not, of every other general treatise on the subject, in English, which has as yet appeared.
Dr. Palfrey’s style is clear and exact; if it is considered as lacking in vivacity, it shows conscientious care, and is free from the verbiage that sometimes passes for rhetorical ornament.
His “Academical Lectures” remain as a palpable landmark in the progress of American rationalism.
