But Mr. Curtis long since gained national reputation as a lecturer. His first venture in that line was “Contemporary Art in Europe,” in 1851; then he fairly got under way with “The Age of Steam,” and soon became one of that remarkable group, including Starr King, Phillips and Beecher, who built up the lyceum into an important institution, and went all over the country lecturing. Mr. Curtis gave lectures every winter until 1872. I remember his saying, some time before that, “I have to write and deliver at least one sermon a year”; and indeed they _were_ sermons, of the most eloquent kind, rife with noble incitements to duty, patriotism, lofty thought, ideal conduct. In 1859, at Philadelphia, having long before engaged to speak on “The Present State of the Anti-Slavery Question,” he was told that it would not be allowed. Many people entreated him not to attempt it; but, while disclaiming any wish to create disturbance or to be martyred, he stated that he found himself forced to represent the principle of free speech, and that nothing could induce him to shrink from upholding it. Accordingly he began his lecture from a platform guarded by double rows of police. A tumult was raised in the hall, and a mob attacked the building simultaneously from without, intending to seize the speaker and hang him. For twenty minutes he waited silently, while vitriol-bottles and brick-bats were showered through the windows, and the police fought the rioters in both hall and street. The disturbance quelled, he went on for an hour, saying all that he had to say, amid alternate hisses and applause, and with the added emphasis of missiles from lingering rioters smashing the window glass. Is it surprising that this man should have the courage to rise and shout out a solitary “No,” against the hundreds of a State convention, or that he should have dared to “bolt” the Presidential nomination of his party, in spite of jeers and sneers and cries of treachery? Mr. Curtis’s adversaries, in whatever else they may have been right, were apt to make two serious mistakes about him. One was, that they considered him a dilettante in politics; the other, that they overlooked his “staying-power.” For over thirty-four years he not only closely studied and wrote upon our politics, but he also took an active share in them.