The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-03-22
NEAL Dow.
His Portrait Presented to the City
Yesterday Afternoon.
A BRILLIANT EPISODE AT THE
MAYORS OFFICE.

A Large Gathering of Well Known Ladies
and GentIemen-The Portrait of Gen.
Dow Presented by Col. f. N. Dow
Admirable Address by Judge Symouds,
Rev. Dr. Burrage and Mayor r andali.
Yesterday afternoon at tho Mayor S
office, the admirable picture of Gen.
Neal Dow, an account of which was
given in yesterdays PRESS, was pre-
sented to Mayor Randall, representing
the city, by Col. Fred N. Dow. The
spacious apartment was filed at 4
O'Clock. with many of the best known
citizens of Portland, both ladies and
gentlemen, and the addresses of the
different speakers were received with
long continued applause.
At the appointed hour Col. Fred N.
Dow, stepping to the front, Withdrew
the folds OF the national banner that had
previously hidden the portrait, and
spoke as follows:
COL. DOW'S REMARKS.
MIR. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen
Your Honor will recollect that some
4bOitOlc SilCO you 1SNdCDlCA blO w LII
nish for this room a picture of my hon.
ored father. In conformity with that
request l present through you to the
city this portrait. [ venture to express
the hope that the city will receive it and
will care for it as it guards the likeness
Of those other chief magistrates who,
like my father, in their day and genera
ttion, have tried to render the greatest
good to the city. ] cannot properly add
anything on this occasion, but l have
two Of our fellow citizens who, even
before request was made, had spoken to
me Of the propriety of preserving here &
representation of the former features oil
one who had lived long in this commu
nifty and endeavored to guide his officia
and private life by the principle that the
public welfare should be the chief concern
or every good citizen.
Judge Symonds then spoke as follows:
JUDGE SYMONDS'S ADDRESS.
1t is always pleasure and satisfaction
to look upon the memorials of worthy
past. The habit of concentrating the
great events and the great names Of it,
own history tends to refine and to exalt g
community. The story of the life of {
commonwealth, of city, may be told IN
| picture and statue and column better thar
| by the dull lines of the printed page.
glance upon the walls of the ducal palace
it's living and breathing form hxed there
I in the fading lines; q trailing splendor
Liike the evening glow when the sun is set
/ The high role Florence once played in the
worlds history, we may hnger upon it
may muse over it. hour by hour, in the
| haunted and solemn silence under tbs
dome of the tomb Of the Medici.
| have read that Titan, in the height o.
| his career, used to revisit the little hill
! town in which he was born, where the
torrent of the Piave on its way to thu
| Adriatic rushes down to the plain, tt
| leave there in the village church O.
| Galore, among the mountains his toy
hood loved, traces Of the art which haC
flied the world with his fame; as Long
fellows thought, when youth was lost,
turning to the past, wandered back in {
\ golden mist of fancy, revery and memory
to the breezy dome of trees, the shadows
of behring's woods, the islands of tht
harbor, 1.-The pleasant streets of that deal
old town. and wove around them {
spell, light and pleasant as the wind O
summer, to haunt them forever.
/ Such memorials as these have an in
terest and value of their own, who'll,
apart from their excellence as works O.
art. They are eloquent of all that per
taips to the place and period in which
| they were created or to which they refer
! they tell us or the past, as q letter o
Pliny or of Cicero, or an oGe Of Horace
restores the grandeur OF Rome, or as q
street of Pompeii suggests the beauty O
Athens. Would thag it were more tn
mood and habit with US, more in tn
throb of olr northern blood, than it is
to demand Of art this high service, to dis
l6inguish by monument or memorial, il
I bronze or marble or painting, whateve
in our own history is great and Of per
nanent value. Nothing so invests a cit.
with peculiar interest. with the charm 0
local coloring, with an individuality o
! its own, as the custom of preserving ant
perpetuating the memories of itself, o
the events and the personages OF its owl
history.
[ wish we in our times here in PORTLAND
might look upon some masterpiece o
sculpture, portraying the first minister o
/ the town, Thomas Smith, grave and rev
erend, severe and sombre as the period 1T
4 which he lived, to stand. it might be, upol
our old First Parish grounds near tn
spot where the church overshadows tn
monument to the memory of his distin
guished successor, DR.. Nicholson upol
another work of art representing the grea
| Commodore who sailed the seas during tn
Revolution, then and in later life winning
high distinction. Inheriting heroic mem
cries, distinguishing himself when mer
youth as midshipman in the provincial
marine of Massachusetts in engagement
with English privateers, taken prisone
and held in custody in the British prison
shin in New York harbOr but soon afte