The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-01-22
r. III. sToDDARD's TRIBUTE.


To the Late William James Linton OF
New Haven.
The following from the Critic is from
the pen of the famous r. H. Stoddard:
William James Linton.
A man of many talents and activities
passed away a day or two before the
close Of the year in the person Of Mr..
William James Linton, who died at the
house Of his married daughter, in New
Haven, just after the completion of his
eighty-f1fth year. He was one of the
very few men whom have known who
impressed me at all times as being en-
tirely natural in all that he said and
did,--a primitive man, who, consciously,
or unconsciously, was his own individ-
ral self, and could not by any possibil-
ity have been anybody else. The world
knew him as an eminent engraver on
wood--a walk OF art In which one has
to be known at all. But he was more
than that,--he was charming
draughtsman in fantastic directions,
an accomplished painter in water-col-
ors, a journalist and man of letters
a writer Of vigorous prose ana Of rug
ged, but finely imaginative verse. He
wrote several years since a rambling
account Of his career (.Three Score and
Ten Years; Recollections: 1S20-1S90."
Charles Scribner's Sons 1s94,) which, I
imagine, interested those who knew him
more than 1t did the majority Of its
readers, who found 1t less personal than
they could have wished
He seemed to write for himself rather
than for others, not knowing, or not
caring to remember, things which
would have entertained others most. He
tells us when and where he was born,
December, 1912, at "Trelands Row"
in the Mile End Road at the east end of
London; but little or nothing about his
parents and his childhood; when, at
the age of sixteen, he was. apprenticed
to wood engraver, with whose family
he lived for six years at Kensington;
how, at thirty, he became a partner of
another engraver, and the firm did
large amount Of important work for
The illustrative London News. Before
this last event he had made the ac-
quaintance Of many of the minor celeb
rifles of the PERIOD journalists and edi-
tors, painters and poets, and a num-
Der Of restless persons who made 1t
their business to discover and discuss
the political sufferings of mankind.
There was that in the personality of
Mr.. Linton, in his mind, his tempera-
ment, in his English manhood, which
attracted him to these people, and COM
PEELED him to affiliate himself with their
purposes. with Chartism at home, and,
later, with the revolutionary spirit
which possessed the nationalities of
Europe in 1s4S. His heart and his hand
were incessantiy busy in England down
to his emigration to this country in the
fall of 1865; his heart in striving to
forward patriotic movements by pro-
jecting and editing sundry newspapers
and periodicals, generally at his own
expense; his hand by alternately and
simultaneously welding the pen in con-
tributions to them in prose and verse,
and in the mastery use of his graver In
interpreting the best art of his time
whatsoever Is curious respecting the
political publications of Mr.. Linton will
find a list of the most important Of
them in MEN of the Time" and fuller
particulars there are given than in his
"Recollections" have never seen them
nor cared to see them. I say this from
no disbelief In their ability, which can
not be Of a kind that I should enjoy.
l prefer Linton the poet to Linton the
politician, Linton the engraver to Lin
ton the enthusiast, Linton as knew
him for upwards of a quarter of CEN
tury at the Century club, or my own
rooms-a man Of simple tastes and hab-
its. of kind and generous feeling,
frank and gentle of speech, sincere,
honest, Independents, the friend whom I
respected, the man of genius which I
admired. r. II. STODDARD.