At one of the customary afternoon meetings of the members of the Saturday Club, I dined with them as the guest of Dr. Howe. Among those present were Mr. Sumner, Professor Wyman, Mr. Lowell, Judge Hoar, Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Professor Gurney, the editor of the North American Review. Mr. Emerson was the chairman. The possibility of spontaneous generation, was the topic that happened to be chiefly discussed. Professor Wyman had been carrying out a series of experiments at Cambridge, and he told us what had been the results of his experience. He said that he had ascertained that the theory that boiling water killed life was, to a certain extent, erroneous. A first boiling killed some of the living creatures, a second boiling killed more, living organisms being reduced gradually in quantity. After a fourth severe boiling he failed to trace any life whatever. Finally after having carried out with great care, tests of all natures, he doubted the possibility of creating life where no life had previously existed. In the following year I accepted the invitation of Mr. Ticknor to stay a few days with him before leaving America, and I was fortunate in meeting at his house, Mr. Longfellow, who, at the time of my previous visit to Boston, was away from home, travelling in England, chiefly, as he afterwards told me, amongst the English lakes and in Devonshire. He proposed that I should go and see him at Cambridge, and this was arranged, and I went down there upon the first available day. I found him in his study, a small room looking out upon the lawn, and commanding a view of the country towards the bridge. Before dinner, he showed me a bill of fare which had been given to him at a public banquet in London, which was framed and placed on the mantel piece of the dining-room. It was a coloured drawing of a scene described in his poem of “Hiawatha.” The sun was shining on the still waters of a lake, or inland sea, and a group of Indians were gazing at it. I think it was meant to represent the final departure of Hiawatha, westwards towards the sunset. Mr. Longfellow said that he was much pleased with this mark of attention, not only on account of the merit of the picture, but because he appreciated the feeling that prompted the gift, as “Hiawatha” was the poem by which he most cared to be remembered. He expressed strong sympathies with the poetical legends and traditions of the Iroquois and Dakota Indians. His conversation was, however, chiefly directed to the question of the future social and political condition of the negroes in the Southern States.