9 of the times up to his standard. "You have come to the land of promise," said a friend to him; "Yes," he replied, "but it is not the land of performance." We may suppose him bitterly sarcastic on the rash encouragements of his zealous inviter, Rush, with whose opinions, as time went on, and that philosopher lent an ear to rapid schemes of education without the classics, and French dreams of government, he found himself in increasing antagonism. Having once accepted the post he should have made the best of it, and not have railed ineffectually at the world, as his letters show him to have done; but there was great provocation for his wit in the temper of the times, and Carlisle, with its crude pupils and nonpaying parishioners, was a poor exchange for the solid society and support of the best people in Scotland, whom he had left behind. Honor should be done to his sacrifices and his services to American scholarship, and to what was sound in his conservative views of public affairs. He devoted himself for eighteen years to the service of the college, and died at his post at Carlisle, in 1804, having just completed his sixty-eighth year. He was a man of decided mark and ability, of humor equal to that of Witherspoon, though his inferior in soundness of judgment. Dr. Miller's account of his life does justice to his talents, and preserves many interesting memorials of his friends in Scotland. Dr. Nisbet was a scholar of picked reading in the classics and modern European languages; and being possessed of an extraordinary memory as well as ready wit, used his copious stores to great advantage. He had that vein of humorous drollery and satire which Sidney Smith encouraged, and which his friend Witherspoon's published writings exhibit. His collection of books now rests with the Theological Seminary at Princeton, having been given to that institution by two of his grandchildren, the Right Rev. Bishop M'Coskry of Michigan and Henry C. Turnbull of Maryland.* * Dr. Miller's Memoir, p. 801. Dr. Nisbet was a polyglott, and a collector of odds and ends in all languages. There is probably no such olla podrida in America as the "Nisbet Library" of the Princeton Seminary, consisting wholly of the Doctor's books. Some of these are of the 16th, and even 15th, and many of the 17th century; and a few of them, though in tatters, are among the rarest specimens of antiquarian bibliography, in the way of Elzevirs, first editions, and originals in astrology, and other outof-the-way subjects. They are in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Dutch, and many of them show how sedulously their owner had conned them. The associates of Dr. Nisbet in the work of education were James Ross, author of a Latin Grammar formerly known, professor of the Greek and Latin languages; Mr. Robert Johnston, professor of Mathematics, and the Rev. Robert Davidson, with a voluminous professorship of "history, chronology, rhetoric, and belles lettres." On the death of Dr. Nisbet the last mentioned acted for more than five years as president, when the office having been offered to Dr. Samuel Miller of New York, and declined, the Rev. Jeremiah Atwater, D.D., of Middlebury College, Vt., was chosen. He delivered his inaugural address at the Commencement in 1809. New departments of study were introduced, and the college gained ground, but difficulties arising in its government in 1815, Dr. Atwater resigned the presidency. After this, various efforts and expedients of management were resorted to for the repair of the exhausted finances, and the college was closed for six years. In 1822 the Rev. John M. Mason of New York was created president, and held the office for two years, but with failing health his great reputation could not repair the fortunes of the college. The Rev. Dr. William Neill succeeded him, and in 1829 resigned. The Rev. Dr. Samuel B. How of New Jersey was the last occupant prior to the transfer of the college interest to the control of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1833. A new organization was effected; funds were raised, and the Rev. John P. Durbin elected president. An efficient grammar-school was at the same time set on foot. The course of study followed the general outline of the New England colleges. With Mr. Durbin were associated Professors Merritt; Caldwell, of mental philosophy; Robert Emory, of ancient languages; the Rev. John M'Clintock, of the exact sciences. At present the presidency is held by the Rev. Dr. Charles Collins. The catalogue for 1854 exhibits one hundred and forty-eight students in the four classes. JAMES T. AUSTIN. JAMES TRECOTHIC AUSTIN was born in Boston, January, 1784. He was educated at the Latin School and Harvard College, and on the completion of his course at the latter institution in 1802, studied and commenced the practice of the law. In 1806, he married a daughter of Elbridge Gerry, then Vice-President of the United States. He edited for a time a literary periodical entitled The Emerald, but his chief attention was given to his profession, in which he rapidly rose to eminence. He became the Town Advocate in 1809, was for twenty years Advocate of Suffolk County, and Attorney General of Massachusetts from 1832 to 1843. He was also a member of the Massachusetts Legislature. In 1815 he delivered a Fourth of July oration at Lexington, which was published, and in 1828 a Life of Elbridge Gerry.* This work is one of the best presentations of the Revolutionary worthies. It is written in an agreeable style, and in addition to its narrative of the many important public transactions in which Mr. Gerry was a prominent participant, gives us pleasant glimpses of the domestic life of the Revolution, as in the following passages from a chapter on the "Private Life of the Members of the Provincial Congress." Among the members of the provincial congress, suspicion of levity in matters of religion-and everything was then supposed to have some connexion with this subject-would have been fatal to an individual's influence. There were, however, many members in that assembly who had been accustomed to the elegancies and refinement of polished society. The king's government in Massachusetts had not indeed been able to borrow the splendour of a court, but it had in some degree copied its etiquette and politeness, and possibly its less defensible manners. Distinctions existed in society not precisely consistent with republican equality, and a style of address and deportment distinguished those who considered themselves in the upper circle, which was visible long after the revolution had swept away all other relies of the royal government. This early habit induced some of the patriots at Watertown to indulge in a little more regard to dress than suited the economy of the stricter puritans, in a love for better horses, in a social party at dinner, or evening, in an attendance on balls and dancing parties, and in a fondness for female society of respectability and reputation. Most men have their besetting sins. It might The Life of Elbridge Gerry. With Contemporary Letters, to the close of the American Revolution. Boston: Wells & Lilly, 1528. 8vo. pp. 520. have been in vain that the necessity of reasonable relaxation was pleaded as an excuse for supposed frivolity. The examples of eminent men, their friends too, on the other side the Atlantic, would have been urged as an excuse equally ineffectual, when ample retaliation was taken by the offending members in finding some of the sternest of the irritated moralists drinking tea, and endeavouring to disguise this high crime and misdemeanour by having it made in a coffee pot! This indulgence of taste at the expense of patriotism, this worse than bacchanalian intemperance, prevented for a time any remarks on the "court imitations" of the backsliding brethren. The members of the provincial congress lived in the families of the inhabitants of Watertown, and held their daily sessions in the meeting-house on the plain. The congress opened early, and adjourned for an hour to give the members time to dine at one o'clock. Two sessions were usually held every day, and committees were often engaged till midnight. The time, which could be caught from such fatiguing duty without neglecting it, might well be devoted to rational diversion. A gentleman, who paid any attention to his toilet, would have his hair combed out, powdered and tied in a long queue, a plaited white stock, a shirt ruffled at the bosom and over the hands, and fastened at the wrist with gold sleeve buttons, a peach bloom coat and white buttons, lined with white silk, and standing off at the skirts with buckram, a figured silk vest divided at the bottom, so that the pockets extended on the thighs, black silk small clothes with large gold or silver knee buckles, white cotton or silk stockings, large shoes with short quarters and buckles to match. This dress, sketched from the wardrobe of a member, was not peculiarly appropriate to occasions of ceremony, but assumed with more or less exactness by the fashionable gentlemen of the day. The full bottomed wig, the red roquelot, and the gold-headed cane, which are seen in some of our ancient pictures, belonged to an earlier period, and were at that time the appropriate habiliments of persons distinguished for their age and wealth. It is not many years since some examples of this antiquated fashion were recognised in venerable men, who belonged to those interesting times, and seemed to connect a past generation with the present. They have now, it is believed, ceased from any connexion with society, if indeed any of them still have a being on the earth. Mr. Austin has also published Addresses delivered before the Massachusetts Society for Suppressing Intemperance and the Massachusetts Mechanic Association, Remarks on Channing's Discourse on Slavery, a Review of his Letter to Jonathan Phillips, in which he takes strong ground against agitation of the subject, and a number of documents on the Municipal Affairs of Boston, and on professional subjects. He has also contributed to the Christian Examiner, and on political topics in the newspapers.* SAMUEL L. KNAPP. SAMUEL LORENZO KNAPP, a voluminous and useful miscellaneous writer, and the author of numerous original biographical essays in American literature, was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1784. He was prepared for college at the Phillips Academy at Exeter; was graduated at Dartmouth in * Loring's Boston Orators, pp. 470-476. Gazette; he also conducted the Boston Monthly Magazine, to which he contributed several articles. In 1826 he established the National Republican, on the failure of which, after an experiment of two years, he commenced the practice of law in New York city. In 1818 he published The Travels of Ali Bey,* a small volume purporting to furnish the observations of an Oriental traveller on the society and literature of Boston and Cambridge. This was followed in 1821 by Biographical Sketches of Eminent Lawyers, and Statesmen, and Men of Letters; in 1828 by the Genius of Free-Masonry, or a Defence of the Order; and in 1829 by Lectures on American Literature, in which he followed the subject, from its earliest sources, with warmth and interest. He was also the author of Sketches of Public Characters drawn from the Living and the Dead, a series of letters giving brief sketches of the leading politicians, authors, and artists of the United States. The Bachelor and Other Tales, founded on American Incident and Character, appeared in 1836; and in 1832 a small volume, entitled Advice in the Pursuits of Literature. It is dedicated to the members of the New York Mercantile Library Association, and designed as a guide to the study of English literature for persons engaged in business. It contains a brief review of the leading English authors from Chaucer to the present time, with occasional extracts, and a concise survey of European history, as connected with literature and the progress of learning, from the days of Homer to the settlement of the present United States. In 1833 he published American Biography, or Original Biographical Sketches of Distinguished Americans, one of the most valuable of his many productions in this department of literature. The volume does not profess to furnish more than a selection from the many eminent names which have graced our annals, and in this selection the author has been guided, in many instances, rather by his individual tastes and preferences than by the actual eminence of the persons introduced. His sketches are anecdotical and spirited, drawing largely in many cases on his own fund of personal recollection, and the work forms an agreeable and varied miscellany. It is republished in the third volume of The Treasury of Knowledge Extracts from a Journal of Travels in North America, consisting of an account of Boston and its vicinity. By Ali Bey, etc. Translated from the original manuscript. Boston: 1818. 18mo. pp. 124. + Lectures on American Literature, with Remarks on some Passages of American History. New York: 1829. Sketches of Public Characters, drawn from the Living and the Dead, with Notices of other Matters, by Ignatius Loyola Robertson, LL.D., a resident of the United States. New York: 1880. 12mo. pp. 260. Advice in the Pursuits of Literature, containing Historical, Biographical, and Critical Remarks. By Samuel L. Knapp. New York: 1882. 12mo. pp. 296. and Library of Reference. Mr. Knapp was also the author of separate biographies, in a condensed popular form, of Aaron Burr, Andrew Jackson, Daniel Webster, Thomas Eddy, and in 1843 of Female Biography of Different Ages and Nations;t a pleasant volume, having many points of resemblance to his collection of male celebrities. In addition to these numerous and industriously prepared volumes, Mr. Knapp was the author of several addresses delivered on various public occasions. He died at Hopkinton, Mass., July 8, 1838. LEVI FRISBIE. LEVI FRISBIE was born at Ipswich, Mass., in the year 1784, and was the son of a clergyman of the place. He was prepared for college at Andover Academy, and entered Harvard in 1798. During his collegiate course he supported himself by writing several hours a day as a clerk, and by teaching during the winter vacations. On the completion of his course in 1802, he passed a year at a school in Concord, and then commenced the study of the law, a pursuit which he was soon obliged to abandon on account of an affection of the eyes, from which he never entirely recovered, being for some years dependent on the kindness of friends who read to him in English and Latin, and to a writing apparatus which had been suggested for the use of the blind, for the means of literary employment. Levi Trisbi In 1805, Frisbie accepted the post of Latin tutor in Harvard College, and in 1811 was promoted to the professorship of the same department. In 1817 he married a daughter of Mr. John Mellen of Cambridge, and in the same year entered upon the duties of the professorship of "Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity" prefacing his course by an Inaugural Address. In 1821 he was attacked by consumption, and sank in the gradual course of that disease to its fatal termination, July 9, 1822. Frisbie's writings were collected and published by his friend and fellow professor, Andrews Norton, in 1823. The volume contains, in addition to the Address already mentioned, articles on Tacitus and Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments from the North American Review, Remarks on the Right and Duty of Government to provide for the Support of Religion by Law, from the "Christian Disciple," extracts from notes of his professional lectures, and a few poems including a version of Horace's epistle Ad Julium Florum, first published in the General Repository and Review. These remains show their author to have been a vigorous thinker and good writer. His chief literary labors are inadequately represented, as, owing to the weakness of his eyes, he was accustomed to note down merely the heads or occa New York: C. C. Childs, 1850. Female Biography; containing Notices of Distinguished Women of Different Ages and Nations. By Samuel L. Knapp. Philadelphia: 1843. 12mo. pp. 504. sional passages in his lectures, which he expanded orally when before his class. One of his poems, a general favorite, A Castle in the Air, not included in the volume of his writings, first appeared in the Monthly Anthology. A CASTLE IN THE AIR. I'll tell you, friend, what sort of wife, Inspires my waking schemes, In sweet aerial dreams. The rose its blushes need not lend, Its feelings as they rise; Features, where pensive, more than gay, The sober thought you see; A form, though not of finest mould, But still her air, her face, each charm, And mind inform the whole: With mind her mantling cheek must glow, Ah! could I such a being find, And were her fate to mine but joined To her myself, my all I'd give, For her consent to die. Whene'er by anxious gloom oppressed, My aching head I'd lay; At her sweet smile each care should cease, Her kiss infuse a balmy peace, And drive my griefs away. In turn, I'd soften all her care, My voice should soothe each rising sigh, Should gathering clouds our sky deform, Together should our prayers ascend, To praise the Almighty name; My soul should catch the flame. Thus nothing should our hearts divide, JOSEPH S. BUCKMINSTER. JOSEPH STEVENS BUCKMINSTER, an eminent clergyman and scholar of Boston, was born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, May 26, 1784. His father the Rev. Joseph Buckminster, himself the son of a clergyman, was for thirty-three years pastor of the most considerable Congregational Society there, and died in 1812 at the age of sixty one. The younger Buckminster showed strongly marked intellectual tendencies from his earliest years. He loved books as soon as he could comprehend what they were. He was taught for his pastime to read a chapter in the Greek Testament before he could be taught the language itself. And when he was between eleven and thirteen years old the period when, at Phillips Academy at Exeter, he was prepared for college-his literary curiosity was so eager that, beginning one day to read Boswell's Johnson, as he chanced to be leaning on a mantel-piece, he forgot himself so long and so completely, that he did not move, until he fainted from exhaustion. In 1797, he was entered in Harvard College, and when he was graduated there in 1800, at the age of sixteen, his performance as the leading scholar of his class made an impression still fresh in the minds of the few that heard it, and now survive, and left a tradition not likely soon to be lost. In fact, his college course had attracted much notice, and he had already come to be regarded as the most remarkable young man who had appeared in New England for more than one generation. The two next years were spent by him as a teacher in the academy at Exeter, devoting his leisure to such a thorough study of the ancient classics, as was at that time unknown among us; and then he gave three years more to an equally thorough study of theology, which had been his favorite purpose from childhood. This, of course, was followed by his public appearance as a candidate for the ministry; but he had preached only a few discourses when, early in 1805, he was settled over the society in Brattle-street, Boston;— then, and from the period before the Revolution, regarded as of metropolitan dignity among the congregations of New England. But there were circumstances connected with this decisive event in his life, which should not be passed over, because they largely illustrate the position and opinions of the clergy with whom he was at the time associated, and had much influence on his own. The following additional stanza was written by a friend of the author on reading the poem :- This Castle's fine, its structure good, A fortress made by you. Muchniinter From the middle of the eighteenth century, the old Puritanism of the Pilgrim Fathers had become much relaxed in Boston and its neighborhood. Dr. Chauncy and his friends by no means acknowledged the authority of the Assembly's Shorter Catechism; and the stern power of Calvinism necessarily died out yet more, a little later, when men like Dr. Freeman and Dr. Kirkland were enjoying the highest consideration of the community in which they lived. Mr. Buckminster had been educated among the straitest of the sect, in which, so far as New Hampshire was concerned, his father was a leader. It was the old school divinity. But his own inquiries carried him in a different direction. One doctrine after another of the Calvinistic system was given up by him, until at last he abandoned it altogether, and associated himself with the class then called Liberal Christians ;--the same, which, with some modifications, is now recognised under the less comprehensive name of Unitarians. It was a great sorrow to his father; and once or twice, the young man nearly abandoned his pursuit of the profession he had chosen, rather than run counter to the feelings of one he so much venerated. But, at last, the parental assent was given, and the elder Buckminster preached his son's Ordination sermon. His health, however, was uncertain. For four or five years he had suffered from slight epileptic attacks, and his fond and admiring parish, alarmed by their recurrence, proposed a voyage to Europe. He went in 1806 and returned in 1807; but though the interval of relaxation thus afforded him refreshed his strength and increased both his resources and his earnestness to use them, no permanent improvement in his health followed. Nor did he misinterpret the sad signs of such a visitation. On the contrary, from memoranda found among his papers, as well as from letters to his father, it is plain that he understood the usual results of the terrible malady with which he was afflicted, and foresaw the probable decay and wreck of his brilliant powers. But, though he always felt that he was standing on the threshold of the most awful of human calamities, and that he might be required to linger out a life gloomier than the grave, he never lost his alacrity in the performance of labors however humble or however arduous, and walked firmly and gladly onward in the path of duty, as if neither danger nor darkness were before him. But, at last, the summons came-not with the dreadful warning he had feared, but with a single, crushing blow. He died in Boston June 9, 1812, at noon, after only a few days of unconscious illness; and his father, who was then in Vermont journeying for his health, died the next morning, without the least knowledge on his own part, or on the part of those near him, that his son was even indisposed, but saying, almost with his last breath, "My son Joseph is dead!" adding when assured that he must have dreamed it; "No, I have not slept nor dreamed-he is dead;" a circumstance, which, however much men were persuaded that it was an accidental coincidence, produced an electric effect at the time, and will be remembered among the strangest of the few facts of its class that are recorded on unquestionable testimony. Mr. Buckminster was only twenty-eight years old when he died. He was ordained as a clergyman before he was twenty-one, and having been absent in Europe eighteen months, the proper term of his public service was only about five years and a half. The period was certainly short; and when to this is added his youth, we may well be surprised at the large space he filled in the interests of the community while he lived, and the permanent results he produced as a scholar and public teacher." As a scholar, he did more to revive and establish in New England a love for classical literature, than any man of his time. The period during which the study of the great Greek and Roman masters was in favor, and when such a book as the "Pietas et Gratulatio" of 1761 could be produced at Harvard College, was gone by. The Revolution, its trials and consequences, had impaired the authority of such studies, and they had well nigh died out. His essays and reviews, above forty in number, scattered through the Boston Monthly Anthology-a publication which did good service to the cause of letters between 1803 and 1811, and out of which, not without his efficient help, grew the Boston Athenæum,-show beyond all doubt his earnest efforts in this direction. When he was in Europe in 1806-7, he collected a larger and more choice library of the ancient classics than was then possessed by any other private individual in the United States, and thus set the decisive example which has since been so well followed. If we add to this, that he not only invited young scholars to the freest use of its treasures, but by his advice and example showed them how best to profit by his kindness, it will be understood why it is not too much to say, that the first impulse to that pursuit of classical accomplishments in Boston and its neighborhood, which is still recognised there, is due more to him and to his library, than to any other cause whatever. His apparatus for the illustration of the Scriptures in their original languages, and for the study of Biblical criticism, constituted, however, the |