1859. A small portion of this library was bequeathed, with several original portraits of American authors, to the New York Historical Society.

CHARLES WILKINS WEBBER.

[Vol. II., pp. 665–669.]

In the winter of 1855-6, Mr. Webber left New York to join the forces of Captain William Walker, then endeavoring to maintain himself as a military adventurer in Central America. He took part with the forces of Walker in the battle of Rivas, and fell in some chance rencontre or ambuscade incidental to that engagement. He was in his thirty-seventh year. His descriptions of wild border-life, and his enthusiasm for natural history, exhibited in various volumes, we have already fully set forth.

JEDEDIAH VINCENT HUNTINGTON.

[Vol. II, pp. 610, 611.]

Dr. Huntington published a third novel, entitled Rosemary, or Life and Death, in 1860, a book of remarkable invention, in which the author employed his experience as a student of medicine and psychology. He was now suffering from ill health, but bore up against the consumption, which was making inroads upon his life, with characteristic resignation and strength of mind. "For many years," says the writer of an obituary in the New York Evening Post," Dr. Huntington had been an invalid, but his pen was rarely idle; he found rare comfort in domestic relations, constant happiness in the society and attachment of his friends; nature, under every aspect, life, with its mysterious vicissitudes, and art, with her pure inspirations, beguiled illness of its languor, and made his existence full of interest, while his religious faith sustained and cheered him to the last." At the close of 1861 he went abroad, and during the winter was enabled to enjoy, in the South of France, the rides and walks amid and beside the Pyrenees. There, in February, he suffered a new attack of his disease, and, after a fortnight's serious illness, died at Pau, March 10th, 1862, "full of Christian peace and hope."

HENRY D. THOREAU.

[Vol. II., p. 653–656.]

Mr. Thoreau died of consumption, at Concord, Massachusetts, May 7, 1862. Several volumes of his writings have been published from his manuscripts and uncollected essays since his death: Excursions in Field and Forest, the Maine Woods, Cape Cod, Letters to Various Persons. A biographical notice of the author, by his friend Mr. R. W. Emerson, is prefixed to the volume entitled "Excursions" (Boston, 1863). It is a pleasing sketch of the thoughtful scholar and original student of nature, whose peculiarities and humors of character, love of independence, kindly vein of observation, and happy talent of description will long cause his writings to be cherished.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

[Vol. II., pp. 503-511.]

Mr. Hawthorne continued in the enjoyment of the lucrative office of Consul at Liverpool during the Presidency of his friend Mr. Pierce, at the close of which he gave a year or two to travel in Great Britain and the Continent. The fruit of his Italian residence was shown in his next work, written in England, and published in that country and America in the spring of 1860: The Marble Faun, or the Romance of Monte Beni, a work of admitted power and subtle delineation of character, resting upon a strange theory of transformation, physical and moral, weaving the influences of far-distant heathenism with the conditions of modern society in the eternal city. The prevalent tone of the book is sombre and melancholy, and in some measure revolting, but it is redeemed by art, and relieved by many passages of delicacy of sentiment, and by a series of local descriptions of the statuary, gardens, and palaces of Rome, of great beauty.

In 1863, Mr. Hawthorne published Our Old Home; a Series of English Sketches, descriptive of scenes and incidents of his residence in Great Britain. Like all his writings, these papers are marked by their happy amenity of style, a rare descriptive talent, and peculiar philosophic introspection. Though with a keen enjoyment of English life, and particularly its historic associa tions, they occasionally exhibit a caustic satiric vein, or candid critical spirit, which brought down many animadversions upon the author in England, where, however, his genius has always been warmly appreciated. Shortly after this publication, while engaged in the composition of a new novel of New England life, The Dolliver Romance, a few chapters only of which were completed, the author, whose health had been for some months failing, died suddenly, on the 19th of May, 1864, at Plymouth, N. H., while on a tour with his friend Mr. Franklin Pierce.

PLINY MILES.

[Vol. II., pp. 676, 677.]

early part of 1865. "Of late years," says an Pliny Miles died at the Island of Malta, in the

obituary notice in the New York Times, "he devoted his time and talents almost entirely to the improvement of our postal system, with a view (until the breaking out of the war made it for the time impracticable) of achieving his grand idea of one cent postage on half-ounce letters for any distance. He was a plain but forcible writer, depending upon a laborious array of facts rather than rhetorical effort. In person he was a striking figure-tall, thin, of nervoussanguine temperament, wearing a beard that never scraped acquaintance with a razor; a rapid walker, keen observer, talking with wonderful volubility, always cordial, open-hearted, and everywhere welcome for his agreeable social qualities."

LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY. [Vol. II., pp. 1835-189.]

Mrs. Sigourney died in her seventy-fourth year, at her residence in Hartford, June 10,

* May 4, 1865.

1865. The amiable life and cheerful old age, illuminated by deeds of kindness and charity, of this Christian lady, will doubtless find an enduring record in American biography. Her virtues and writings illustrate each other, for she gave life to the religious sentiments of love to God and man which are expressed in her numerous volumes. An interesting tribute to her personal character, celebrating her deeds of charity, has been paid by her friend, Miss Catherine E. Beecher, in a sketch of her career, in a popular magazine.*

ARTHUR BROWNE.

Among the many excellent men sent forth from England, by the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, on their errands of Christianity and civilization, the name of Arthur Browne is here especially worthy of mention. Of Scotch ancestry, he was born of Irish parentage, at Drogheda, in 1699, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and, becoming a convert to the exalted missionary enthusiasm of Bishop Berkeley, was ordained, and reached Rhode Island, on his work of benevolence, in 1729. He was minister of King's Chapel in Providence for six years, faithfully employed in his clerical labors, when he was called to the charge of the Episcopal church in Portsmouth, N. H. For thirty-seven years he ministered at that place, leaving an impression of his services which is recorded by his successor, the incumbent of the parish, the Rev. Charles Burroughs, in 1857, in the comprehensive eulogy, "faithful, revered, and beloved." He died on a visit to Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 10, 1773, in the seventy-fourth year of his age.

The mental capacity of Mr. Browne, as exhibited in his sermons and controversial writings, was of a high order. He was a good scholar, and of a well-disciplined mind, a sound defender of the doctrines of the church to which he belonged. His published writings, are a sermon on the Excellency of the Christian Religion, 1738; a sermon delivered on the day appointed for the execution of Penelope Kenney, 1739; a sermon on the Folly and Perjury of the Rebellion in Scotland, preached at Portsmouth, 1746; a sermon delivered at Boston before a lodge of Free Masons, 1755; a sermon delivered on the Annual Fast, 1757; a sermon on the Doctrine of Election, preached at Portsmouth, 1757; Remarks on Dr. Mayhew's Incidental Reflections, in his Observations on the Charter and Conduct of the Society, by a Son of the Church of England, 1763.

The family and descendants of Arthur Browne have been distinguished for worth and intellect, and their discharge of various important duties. His son, Marmaduke Browne, is remembered with grateful respect at Newport, Rhode Island, where a tablet, bearing his likeness in basso relievo, in the old Trinity Church, of which he was rector, records the graces of his character. This monument was erected by his son, Arthur Browne, who, born in America, after receiving an education at the school established by Berke

*Hours at Home, October, 1965.

ley in Newport, went abroad to study at Trinity College, Dublin, and remained connected with that institution, as professor of civil law, during his life. He also represented the university in the Irish House of Commons. He was the author of several works of reputation, including A Compendious View of the Civil Law and of the Law of the Admiralty, being the substance of his lectures in his professorship; A Compendious View of the Ecclesiastical Law of Ireland, with a Sketch of the Practice of the Ecclesiastical Courts, and two volumes of Miscellaneous Sketches or Hints of Essays, which are said to be written in the manner of Montaigne. The author of these works died in 1805, leaving the reputation of a liberal politician, and an accomplished scholar and jurist.*

PELATIAH WEBSTER.

Pelatiah Webster was born at Lebanon, Conn., in 1725, and was educated at Yale College, where he graduated in 1746. He studied theology, and preached at Greenwich, Mass., in the winter of 1748-9. About the year 1755, or not long after, he engaged in mercantile business, more from necessity (as he states) than from inclination, and established himself in Philadelphia. Here he accumulated a considerable estate, but did not lose his love of study and literary labor. In politics he was an active whig, and during the war of the Revolution suffered on this account, both in person and estate. In February, 1778, the British being then in possession of Philadelphia, he was seized at night (by order of General Howe, as was supposed), and closely confined for one hundred and thirty-two days in the city jail. A large amount of his property was conveyed to the king's stores, on which he suffered a final loss of about five hundred pounds' value.

Soon after the commencement of the Revolutionary War, he directed his studies to the currency, finances, and resources of the country. The rapid increase of the public debt, by the issue of bills of credit, commonly called Continental money, elicited his first essay, in October, 1776, in which he strongly urged a speedy tax to provide for its redemption. In 1779, he began, at Philadelphia, the publication of a series of Essays on Free Trade and Finance, of which seven numbers were issued--the last being printed in 1785.

In 1783 he published A Dissertation on the Political Union and Constitution of the Thirteen United States of North America (Philadelphia, 8vo), an essay which Mr. Madison mentions (Introduction to Debates in Convention: Madison Papers, 706), as one of the early efforts toward directing the public mind to the necessity of a more efficient constitution of government.

Mr. Webster having given special attention to the subject of political economy and finances of the nation, and having great practical knowledge of business matters, it was customary for members of Congress, especially the Connecticut

Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, V., pp. 76–82. Allen's Biographical Dictionary. Allibone's Dictionary of English Literature.

delegation, to pass evenings with him, and consult upon the money concerns of the United States.

In 1791, he published a volume entitled, Political Essays on the Nature and Operation of Money, Public Finances, and other subjects published during the American War, and continued up to the present year, 1791. (Philadelphia, 8vo, pp. 504.) These essays are written with much ability, and constitute an important contribution to the political and commercial literature of the country.

He died at Philadelphia, Pa., in September, 1795, aged seventy.

WILLIAM SMITH.

Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, in a contribution to the Rev. Dr. Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, has presented an interesting notice of a clergyman whom he justly pronounces "worthy of memory for his influence upon the learning of the Episcopal clergy, at a period when scholarship was at a low ebb in this country; for his having left a lasting monument of himself in the American Common Prayer Book, in the office for the Induction of Ministers, of which he was the sole author or compiler; and also especially for his works on church vocal music, and their effects, certainly very great on his communion, and probably reaching to a considerable extent beyond that sphere.'

The person thus spoken of was William Smith, a native of Scotland, born about 1754, who came to this country as an ordained minister in 1785. He was well educated, and a good classical scholar. He first discharged the duties of an Episcopal minister in Maryland, then at Narraganset, in Rhode Island, and next became the rector of the Trinity Church, at Newport, hallowed by the preaching of Bishop Berkeley. He was afterwards in charge of a congregation at Norwalk, Connecticut, and came thence to the city of New York, where he opened a grammar school, and acquired considerable celebrity as a teacher. From 1802 to 1806, he was in charge of a higher Episcopal academy at Cheshire, Connecticut. At the expiration of this period he returned to the work of classical instruction in New York. He died in that city April 6, 1821.

The contribution of Dr. Smith to the Book of Common Prayer, already alluded to, was prepared at the request of the Diocesan Convention of Connecticut, and accepted by the General Convention in 1804. His work on church music, published by Swords, in New York, in 1814, is entitled, The Reasonableness of Setting Forth the Praises of God, according to the use of the Primitive Church, with Historical Views of Metre Psalmody. This now rare volume, says Mr. Verplanck, "though full of curious learning, and technical knowledge of music, is written in a very popular style, always perspicuous and entertaining, sometimes sprightly and sometimes earnest, animated, and rhetorical. His main object is to prove that the prose chant, by its simplicity, dignity, and expression, is the true and only proper musical vehicle of Scriptural psalmody, or of other passages of prayer, or prayer from Scripture, introduced and used as

such in our public worship. For the ancient chants, used in different ages of the Christian church, he almost claims an inspired origin, tracing them back to the Hebrew Psalter and the temple worship. In the course of these arguments he ranges familiarly from discussions on the Hebrew metres and classical prosody, to the literature and practice of modern music. interspersing here and there a curious and ingenious, though probably over-refined criticism on words or phrases of the Greek Testament, involving ideas of vocal music, together with much other singular and interesting matter." His theory, in fact, extends to the exclusion of modern versified portions of the Scriptures; not, however, to the prohibition of hymns of professedly human composition, "in this spirit commending the Methodist Collection, but bitterly denouncing Pope's parody, as he terms it, of the Lord's Prayer, which is found in some collections."*

ELKANAH WATSON,

On

A descendant of one of the early Puritan settlers of New England, was born at Plymouth, Massachusetts, January 22, 1758. He was educated in boyhood at the common school of his native town, and at the age of fifteen went to Providence, Rhode Island, where he became apprentice to Mr. John Brown, an eminent merchant of the place. The opening scenes of the Revolution inspired the youth with martial ardor, and he engaged with spirit in the military adventures of the times in Rhode Island. In the autumn of 1777 he was sent by his employer on a confidential overland journey to Charleston, South Carolina, carrying funds for a mercantile venture. He was more than two months on his way, passing along the seaboard, through Virginia and North Carolina, to the successful accomplishment of his errand. coming of age he was associated with Mr. Brown and others in mercantile transactions abroad, visiting France in 1779, the Netherlands in 1781, and England in 1782, remaining in the latter country after the conclusion of the war, till the summer of 1784, when he returned to the United States. During this foreign residence he had frequent opportunities, of which he diligently availed himself, of becoming acquainted with Dr. Franklin, and other American agents in Europe, and with Englishmen of celebrity, associated in various ways with the American question. On his return home he was the bearer of a present of books from Dr. Sharp, a brother of Granville Sharp, to General Washington, whom he visited at Mount Vernon. He found Washington busily engaged in his plans for improving the navigation of the Potomac, was instructed by him on the subject, and henceforth was much occupied in canal and other schemes of internal improvement. In 1789, Mr. Watson removed from Providence, Rhode Island, to Albany, New York, and in 1791 made a tour through the State, in company with Jeremiah Van Rensselaer and others, to examine into the practicability of the schemes of inland navigation of which he was now a per

Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, V., pp. 345–349.

The publications of Mr. Watson chiefly relate to canals and agriculture. In 1790 he published at Worcester, Massachusetts, A Tour in Holland in 1784; in 1820, at Albany, a History of Agricultural Societies on the Modern Berkshire System; History of the Rise, Progress, and Existing Condition of the Western Canals, in the State of New York, 1788-1819; and The Rise, Progress, and Existing State of Modern Agricultural Societies. The most interesting of his writings are the series of journals which he kept during the greater part of his life, faithfully recording, in an agreeable style, the incidents of his tours, his interviews with public characters, and other observations of a curious, intelligent traveller and enlightened philanthropist. These journals have been edited by his son, Winslow C. Watson, in a volume of great interest to the historical student, entitled, Men and Times of the Revolution; or, Memoirs of Elkanah Watson, including his Journals of Travels in Europe and America, from the Year 1777 to 1842, and his Correspondence with Public Men, and Reminiscences and Incidents of the American Revolution. Accompanying the second edition, published in New York in 1857, is an engraving of Mr. Watson, after a portrait painted by Copley, in London, in 1782.*

WILLIAM RAWLE

This eminent jurist was born of Quaker parentage, at Philadelphia, April 28, 1759. He received a liberal education, and was instructed in law by Counsellor Kemp, of New York. He then went to England, and pursued his legal studies in London, at the Temple, returning to America in 1783, when he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court, and became one of the leading practitioners at Philadelphia. He was appointed District Attorney of the United States in 1791, by Washington, and held the office for eight years, having inore than once refused the offer of the position of Attorney General. He was early associated with the movements for the abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania. His published writings, are an Address before the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, in 1819; two Addresses to the Associated Members of the Philadelphia Bar, published in 1824; his chief work, A View of the Constitution of the United States of North America, the first edition of which appeared in 1825; and a Discourse on the Nature and Study of Law, delivered before the Law Academy of Philadelphia, in 1832.

The work on the Constitution, which passed

Memoirs of Elkanah Watson. New England Historical and Genealogical Register, April, 1863.

as a standard authority, was introduced to the public with this modest preface: “If the following work shall prove useful as an elementary treatise to the American student, the author will be gratified. If foreigners are enabled, by the perusal of it, to obtain a general idea of the merits of the Constitution, his satisfaction will be increased. To the American public in general its value may chiefly consist in the exhibition of those judicial decisions which have settled the construction of some points that have been the subjects of controversy."

Mr. Rawle died April 12, 1836, leaving an impression of a career of public usefulness, and a character marked by singular personal worth and even enthusiasm of feeling, as the testimony of one of his pupils, Mr. David Paul Brown, witnesses. The allusions are to several unpublished writings.

"With Rawle," says that gentleman, in his sketches of the Philadelphia bar, "the law was but one of the elements in the proud structure of his eminence. The whole circle of the arts and sciences was tributary to its formation. In painting and sculpture his taste had been modelled by the best standards; and in the former of those arts there were but few amateurs that could excel him. Of poetry he was a devoted admirer, and he himself wooed the muses with all the grace and success of a legitimate suitor. In philosophy he was a zealous disciple; and his beautiful translation from the Greek of the Phædon of Plato, with his own practical commentary, would in themselves, and alone, suffice to protect his name against oblivion. Among the most cherished of his works are those pertaining to the subject of religion. His Essay upon Angelic Influences' is replete with the most fascinating speculation and soundest reflection. Nor is his discussion of the subject of Original Sin and the Virtue of Baptism,' although less elaborate, undeserving of the highest regard and encomium. Added to these, there is to be found

among his manuscripts an argument of the most which is to show that there is sufficient proof of polished and cogent character, the object of the truth of Christianity to be derived from the parables of our Saviour alone."'*

WILLIAM PINKNEY,

The eminent Maryland orator, was born at Anof a loyalist, the youth chose the patriotic side in napolis, in that State, March 17, 1764. The son the war of Independence. His early education of the times, but he had some instruction in the was imperfect, in consequence of the disturbances classics from a private teacher, and made some progress in the study of medicine at Baltimore, when he fell in with Samuel Chase, afterward Justice of the Supreme Court, who prepared him for admission to the bar. Soon after his admission, at the age of twenty-two, he began to acquire distinction in the law of real property and the science of special pleading, forming for himself an exact, polished, labored diction. He he became celebrated by preliminary political was drawn into the diplomatic career, in which

The Forum, I., 506, 507.

service in his own State, and the appointment by Washington in 1796 commissioner to England, to determine certain claims of American merchants under Jay's treaty. His written opinions in these cases exhibit his powers as a thinker and writer. In 1804 he retured to the United States, and practised law with eminent success at Baltimore, and the following year was appointed Attorney General of Maryland. He returned to England in 1806 with Monroe, to treat with the English government concerning the rights of neutrals, and on the departure of his colleague was left Minister Resident in London, occupying that position till 1811. He was next appointed by Madison Attorney General of the United States, and discharged the duties of the office with ability at that critical period. He resigned this place in 1814. In 1815 he represented Baltimore in Congress, and before the expiration of his term was appointed by President Monroe Minister to Russia and Special Envoy to Naples. He was two years abroad in these relations, most of the time in Russia. After his return to America he was, in 1820, elected to the United States Senate. He died of a sudden attack of illness, on the 25th of February of that year.

The reputation of Pinkney at the bar was very great. The testimony to his eloquence by such witnesses as Justice Story is unquestionable. His style, said that authority, had “an air of originality, force, copiousness, and expressiveness which struck the most careless observer." His biographer, Henry Wheaton, the eminent jurist, has exhibited the secret of this influence in the volume which he published in 1826, entitled, Some Account of the Life, Writings, and Speeches of William Pinkney. It is divided into two parts, the first including a memoir, extracts from correspondence, and an elucidation of the speeches; the second, such speeches and arguments as have been preserved. Among the latter is the speech before the Supreme Court, in 1815, on the case of the Nereide, involving various questions of public law of importance and novelty.

The volume includes also Mr. Pinkney's speech in the House of Representatives on the treatymaking power, in 1815; his argument in 1819, on the right of the States to tax the National Bank, in which he defended the bank against the imposition; and his speech on the Missouri Question, in 1820, in opposition to the slavery restriction.

Pinkney's mind, says Wheaton, "was acute and subtle, and at the same time comprehensive in its grasp-rapid and clear in its conceptions, and singularly felicitous in the exposition of the truths it was employed in investigating. He had the command of the greatest variety of the most beautiful and appropriate diction, and the faculty of adorning the driest and most unpromising subjects." He was a careful student of English literature, exact and even punctilious in his nicety of language.

NATHANAEL HOWE,

This characteristic divine of the old New England school of theoretical and practical Christianity, as we learn from an interesting memoir written by the Rev. Elias Nason, of Exeter, New Hampshire, was born at Ipswich, Massachusetts,

October 6, 1764. After being instructed in several New England academies, he passed a year at the college of New Jersey, under the presidency of Dr. Witherspoon, whose example and sound homely precepts remained with him, a vigorous encouragement to independence and virtue through life. From Princeton he passed to Harvard College, where he graduated in 1786. He then taught school in his native town, and entered on a course of theological study, which he completed with the celebrated Dr. Emmons, of whose Calvinistic theology he became a zealous expounder. In 1791, he became minister of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and remained in that relation till his death, in the seventy-third year of his age, in 1837.

He is remembered in New England, beyond the limits of the town where he labored so long, by an extraordinary sermon, delivered at the hundredth anniversary of the incorporation of Hopkinton, in 1815. This was printed at the time, and called forth a notice from the North American Review of that day, recording its "plainness and originality," and pronouncing it a "unique specimen, and beyond all praise." Its attractiveness consists in its quaint pictures of early theology and manners, the downright utterance of the speaker's opinions, without regard to polish or complaisance, and the light which it incidentally throws on past New England habits and opinions. Its statistics of town life are valuable. The preacher is particularly severe upon his congregation, for their cuipable lack of support of his ministry, which had compelled him to sacrifice some of the duties of his calling to extort a scanty subsistence as a small farmer from the reluctant soil. In his religion he was, as we have stated, a Calvinist, holding "the doctrine of personal election from eternity to everlasting life as the only doctrine that makes it absolutely certain that any of our sinful race will be saved," and "the doctrine of total depravity as laying the only solid foundation for regeneration." In politics he was from the start a Federalist, "believing then as he believes now, that he ought to have more regard to his country, than to any particular part of it."

This " Century" sermon has passed through several editions. The fourth, with the memoir by Mr. Nason prefixed, was published in Boston, in 1851.

Besides this sermon, Mr. Howe published several other discourses, and A Catechism, extracted chiefly from the Assembly's Catechism, to which are added Miscellaneous Questions concisely answered, and a Chapter of Proverbs for Common Life, for the Children under his pastoral care. From the latter, Mr. Nason gives some striking examples of the proverbs of the practical Benjamin Franklin school, fruits of observation and experience: for instance, "To do nothing is the way to be nothing;" ;""Leisure is time for doing something useful;" "The careless man is seldom fortunate;" "A dead fish can swim with the stream, but a living one only can swim against it" "Great minds are always candid:" and the like wise, sententious aphorisms of a sound understanding and good heart.