CHARLES PINCKNEY SUMNER,

The descendant of an old New England family, which traces its lineage to the early years of the colony, was the son of Major Job Sumner, "of the Massachusetts line of the Army of the Revolution." He was educated at Harvard, and, on taking his degree, in 1796, delivered a commencement poem entitled Time, which, with a valedictory poem delivered before his classmates on the same occasion, is preserved in the library of the college. A poem of the previous year, The Compass, a Poetical Performance at the Literary Exhibition in September, 1795, at Harvard University, was published by subscription, Boston, William Spotswood, 12mo., PP. 12. After celebrating the triumphs of discovery, he concludes with a picture of the New World, of Columbia and its rising features. Deprecating the ruin that threatens all empires, he adds,

"More true, inspired, we antedate the time When futile war shall cease thro' every clime; No sanctioned slavery Afric's sons degrade, But equal rights shall equal earth prevade." Mr. Sumner subsequently studied law in Boston, was admitted to the bar, but was never much engaged in practice, He was a member of the Democratic party, served in the Massachusetts legislature, and for many years held the office of sheriff of Suffolk county, till his death, in 1839. Of his writings, we may mention a poem, in 1798, before the Phi Beta Kappa of Harvard; a eulogy on Washington, delivered at Milton, February 22, 1800; a Fourth of July oration, before the young Republicans of Boston, in 1808, and A Letter on Speculative Free Masonry, being an Answer addressed to him on that Subject, by the Suffolk Committee (Boston, 1829). Mr. Sunner was a man of mark in his day, much esteemed for the integrity and independence of his character. He left a family of several children, of whom Charles Sumner, the present United States Senator from Massachusetts, and the late George Sumner, are honorably distinguished.*

CHARLES SUMNER

[Vol. II., pp. 545-547.]

its

Mr. Sumner's political course since 1855, has, in accordance with the principles with which he set out, been consistently in favor of a national policy setting the country free from the evils of slavery and its attendant corruptions. His publications of speeches and orations mostly turn on this question. In May, 1855, he delivered an address before the people of New York, The Anti-Slavery Enterprise; Necessity, Practicability, and Dignity, with Glimpses at the Special Duties of the North (Boston, 8vo, 1855). In the following year, his speech in the United States Senate, to which he had been elected in 1850-The Crime against Kansas; the Apologies for the Crime; the True Remedy-led to the criminal and cowardly assault upon his person in the Senate chamber, by Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina, which

Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, pp. 825–338.

Re

was followed by a severe illness, and the prostration of his strength for several years. elected to the Senate in 1857, he was compelled twice during his new term, in that and the following year, to visit Europe, and finally to submit to rigorous treatment for the restoration of his health. Returning home at the close of 1859, at the next session of the Senate, on June 4, 1860, he delivered one of his most thorough and exhaustive speeches, The Barbarism of Slavery, on the bill for the admission of Kansas as a Free State. On the outbreak of the war, during its continuance, and its close, Mr. Sumner, in his seat in the Senate, and by various addresses at meetings of citizens, has pursued the object of his political career in advocating emancipation, checking at every turn the slave power, and guarding against any of its future attempts at supremacy or influence as a political organization. Among his speeches in the Senate, which have been separately published, we may notice those on the bill for the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia (March, 1862); on the bill to Authorize the Appointment of Diplomatic Representatives to the Republics of Hayti and Liberia (April, 1862); on the bill providing for Emancipation in Missouri (February, 1863); on Reconstruetion in the rebel States (June, 1864); on Treatment of Prisoners of War (January, 1865). As chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Mr. Sumner has held a position of the highest importance, which he has, from time to time, illustrated by speeches in the Senate, of signal ability, on various international questions which have arisen, as, The Trent Difficulty; on the issuing of Letters of Marque and Reprisals; The Canada Reci procity Treaty, &c.

Of Mr. Sumner's recent publications, we may mention, as containing a summary of his views on important national questions of the day, Our Foreign Relations, an elaborate address before the citizens of New York, in September, 1863; Security and Reconciliation for the Future; Propositions and Arguments on the Reorganization of the Rebel States (Boston, Rand & Avery, 8vo, pp. 32); The National Security and the National Faith; Guarantees for the National Freedman and the National Creditor, a speech at the Republican State Convention, in Worcester, September 14, 1865; and The Promises of the Declaration of Independence, a candid and eloquent eulogy on Abraham Lincoln, delivered before the municipal authorities of the City of Boston, June 1, 1865, marked by the author's habitual literary cultivation, exact method, and force of expression.

GEORGE SUMNER. [Vol. II., p. 546.]

George Sumner was born February 5, 1817; died at Boston, October 6, 1863. He was educated at the Boston High School, and on coming of age visited Europe, where he resided a number of years, travelling through Russia and the East, making himself thoroughly acquainted with the state of central Europe, and the counties bordering on the Mediterranean. He passed much of his time in Paris, and

66

is a narrative poem in rhyme, exhibiting with much felicity, in a series of picturesque illustrations, the search after happiness of a monarch of the Middle Ages, in whose palace a bell was raised, to be rung only when he was perfectly happy. The usual pursuits of a sovereign are depicted in love, and war, and affairs of state; but the bell, pointing the moral of the insufficiency of life, is rung only at the last, or the hour of death. Thus, in the words of one of the poet's critics, "the pursuit of pleasure the inward history of almost every mortal-is allegorically expressed in this poem; and not only does the author depict in this guise the aspirations and hopes of the future, but also the memory of past joys. To our mind, there is nothing in the work more touching than the king's fond remembrance of his young queen, whom, while living, he endured, but whom, when dead, he loved. Mr. Stoddard has given to the public, in the King's Bell, a series of most delicate suggestive pictures, which will cause the reader to often pause and wonder whether, after all, he, like King Felix, is not also awaiting the blissful moment when he can bid his happy bell' to sound, and whether he too will only hear its tones upon his death-bed." Mr. Stoddard has also published The Life, Travels, and Books of Alexander Von Humboldt (New York, Rudd & Carleton, 1859), published anonymously, with an introduction by Bayard Taylor; The Loves and Heroines of the Poets (New York, Derby & Jackson, royal 8vo, 1861), an illustrated holiday book, biographical, critical, and descriptive, written with a poet's appreciation of the subject; and Adventures in Fairy Land, a Book for Young People. Mr. Stoddard's latest publication is a felicitous poem in memory of President Lincoln.

WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER

[Vol. II, pp. 718, 719.]

Since 1855, Mr. Butler has been actively engaged in the practice of his profession of the law, in New York, especially in connection with the more important mercantile interests of the city. Though almost wholly engrossed by these duties, he has yet found time, however, occasionally to contribute to the literature of the day, and always with marked success. The poem by which he is most widely known as an author, Nothing to Wear, originally published, anonymously, in Harper's Weekly, in February, 1857, achieved a remarkable popularity. It passed through the usual ordeal of successful anonymous works. Like Mackenzie's "Man of Feeling," the production of a lawyer in active practice, whose literary efforts were aside from his ordinary pursuits, it was made the subject of a claim which compelled the poet to the course adopted by the English novelist, the avowal of his authorship in self-defence, to prevent the appropriation by others of the productions of his pen. It was followed by numerous kindred efforts, imitating, if not adopting, its new style of versification and poetical treatment of current topics and popular ideas. The editions of the poem were more numerous in England than in the United States. Besides the handsomely

printed edition of Sampson & Co., a cheap issue had an immense circulation there, and a broad sheet, with colored cuts exhibiting the salient points of the satire, was first issued in London, and afterward reproduced in Philadelphia. It was translated into French prose by one of the Paris feuilletonists, and into German verse, somewhat paraphrased, and with adaptations to the meridian of the translator. "Nothing to Wear" was followed by a poem of similar character, entitled Two Millions. As the former had exhibited the fashionable extravagance of the day, and its moral had been accepted by the public with the interest with which it listened to Hood's plea in "The Song of the Shirt," so the latter was directed against the social immoralities attendant upon the accumulation of wealth in the prevalent rapid development of material interests. "Two Millions ,, was written at the request of the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Yale College, and delivered before them, July 28, 1858. In 1859, Mr. Butler delivered an address before the New York Bible Society, The Bible by Itself, which was published at the request of the society (New York, Carter & Brothers, 1860, 18mo, pp. 32). In 1860, and subsequently, he published a series of papers, Real Life in New York, and other sketches, in the New York Independent. One of his articles, printed in this journal, written on the decease of President Van Buren, with whom he had been intimately acquainted, was published separately, with the title, Martin Van Buren: Lawyer, Statesman, and Man (New York, Appleton & Co., 18mo, pp. 47).

DONALD G. MITCHELL

[Vol. II., pp. 701, 702.]

During the last few years, Mr. Mitchell has varied the routine of farm life at his country seat in Connecticut, by his contributions to Harper's Magazine and the Atlantic Monthly, where his articles have constantly appeared, and the occasional publication of a volume. Several of his recent works owe their origin to his rural pursuits.

My Farm of Edgewood appeared in 1863, a book pleasantly descriptive of the adventures of a gentleman in search of a farm, and his adventures in maintaining it, re-enforced by "curious and valuable information, founded on the results of actual experience, and in wise suggestions which indicate a mind of earnest purpose and acute observation." A sequel to this, Wet Days at Edgewood (New York, 1864), is a series of sketches reviewing the poetical and other literature and past history of gentleman Seven Stories, with farming and agriculture.

Mr. Mitchell's recent volumes. He has at present Basement and Attic, is the title of another of a novel of New England life and manners, entitled Doctor Johns, in course of publication in the Atlantic Monthly.

* In London, "Nothing to Wear" was published with a statement of fashionable extravagance, taken from the proceedings of a Bankruptcy Court, and advertised with humanitarian tracts on the Evils of the Dress-Making System."

New York Tribune, November 7, 1868.

CHARLES PINCKNEY SUMNER,

The descendant of an old New England family, which traces its lineage to the early years of the colony, was the son of Major Job Sumner, "of the Massachusetts line of the Army of the Revolution." He was educated at Harvard, and, on taking his degree, in 1796, delivered a commencement poem entitled Time, which, with a valedictory poem delivered before his classmates on the same occasion, is preserved in the library of the college. A poem of the previous year, The Compass, a Poetical Performance at the Literary Exhibition in September, 1795, at Harvard University, was published by subscription, Boston, William Spotswood, 12mo., pp. 12.

After celebrating the triumphs of discovery, he concludes with a picture of the New World, of Columbia and its rising features. Deprecating the ruin that threatens all empires, he adds,

"More true, inspired, we antedate the time When futile war shall cease thro' every clime; No sanctioned slavery Afric's sons degrade, But equal rights shall equal earth prevade." Mr. Sumner subsequently studied law in Boston, was admitted to the bar, but was never much engaged in practice, He was a member of the Democratic party, served in the Massachusetts legislature, and for many years held the office of sheriff of Suffolk county, till his death, in 1839. Of his writings, we may mention a poem, in 1798, before the Phi Beta Kappa of Harvard; a eulogy on Washington, delivered at Milton, February 22, 1800; a Fourth of July oration, before the young Republicans of Boston, in 1808, and A Letter on Speculative Free Masonry, being an Answer addressed to him on that Subject, by the Suffolk Committee (Boston, 1829). Mr. Sumner was a man of mark in his day, much esteemed for the integrity and independence of his character. He left a family of several children, of whom Charles Sumner, the present United States Senator from Massachusetts, and the late George Sumner, are honorably distinguished.*

CHARLES SUMNER

[Vol. II., pp. 545–547.]

its

Mr. Sumner's political course since 1855, has, in accordance with the principles with which he set out, been consistently in favor of a national policy setting the country free from the evils of slavery and its attendant corruptions. His publications of speeches and orations mostly turn on this question. In May, 1855, he delivered an address before the people of New York, The Anti-Slavery Enterprise; Necessity, Practicability, and Dignity, with Glimpses at the Special Duties of the North (Boston, 8vo, 1855). In the following year, his speech in the United States Senate, to which he had been elected in 1850-The Crime against Kansas; the Apologies for the Crime; the True Remedy-led to the criminal and cowardly assault upon his person in the Senate chamber, by Preston S. Brooks, of South Carolina, which

*Loring's Hundred Boston Orators, pp. 825–333.

Re

was followed by a severe illness, and the prostration of his strength for several years. elected to the Senate in 1857, he was compelled twice during his new term, in that and the following year, to visit Europe, and finally to submit to rigorous treatment for the restoration of his health. Returning home at the close of 1859, at the next session of the Senate, on June 4, 1860, he delivered one of his most thorough and exhaustive speeches, The Barbarism of Slavery, on the bill for the admission of Kansas as a Free State. On the outbreak of the war, during its continuance, and its close, Mr. Sumner, in his seat in the Senate, and by various addresses at meetings of citizens, has pursued the object of his political career in advocating emancipation, checking at every turn the slave power, and guarding against any of its future attempts at supremacy or influence as a political organization. Among his speeches in the Senate, which have been separately published, we may notice those on the bill for the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia (March, 1862); on the bill to Authorize the Appointment of Diplomatic Representatives to the Republics of Hayti and Liberia (April, 1862); on the bill providing for Emancipation in Missouri (February, 1863); on Reconstruction in the rebel States (June, 1864); on Treatment of Prisoners of War (January, 1865). As chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Mr. Sumner has held a position of the highest importance, which he has, from time to time, illustrated by speeches in the Senate, of signal ability, on various international questions which have arisen, as, The Trent Difficulty; on the issuing of Letters of Marque and Reprisals; The Canada Reciprocity Treaty, &c.

Of Mr. Sumner's recent publications, we may mention, as containing a summary of his views on important national questions of the day, Our Foreign Relations, an elaborate address before the citizens of New York, in September, 1863; Security and Reconciliation for the Future; Propositions and Arguments on the Reorganization of the Rebel States (Boston, Rand & Avery, 8vo, pp. 32); The National Security and the National Faith; Guarantees for the National Freedman and the National Creditor, a speech at the Republican State Convention, in Worcester, September 14, 1865; and The Promises of the Declaration of Independence, a candid and eloquent eulogy on Abraham Lincoln, delivered before the municipal authorities of the City of Boston, June 1, 1865, marked by the author's habitual literary cultivation, exact method, and force of expression.

GEORGE SUMNER.

[Vol. II, p. 546.]

George Sumner was born February 5, 1817; died at Boston, October 6, 1863. He was educated at the Boston High School, and on coming of age visited Europe, where he resided a number of years, travelling through Russia and the East, making himself thoroughly acquainted with the state of central Europe, and the counties bordering on the Mediterranean. He passed much of his time in Paris, and

previously delivered by Mr. Marsh, in a lecture before the Smithsonian Institution, and printed with one of the reports of that Institution.

In 1857, Mr. Marsh was appointed by the governor of Vermont, to make a report to the legislature in regard to the artificial propagation of fish. He had been previously appointed one of the commissioners to rebuild the State-house at Montpelier. From 1857 to 1859, he held the post of railroad commissioner for Vermont.

Mr. Marsh, having steadily pursued the life of a laborious scholar, was, in 1858, called upon by the Trustees of Columbia College, New York, to deliver a series of lectures in the post graduate course of instruction then first organized by that institution. He accordingly, in the autumn and winter of 1858–59, having chosen for his subject a topic upon which he had already bestowed much study, delivered, under the direction of the college, in New York, thirty Lectures on the English Language, which were, the year after their completion, published in an octavo volume with that title, by Mr. Scribner. In this work, the author supplies the reader rather with the results of his original study than attempts any formal recapitulation of the labors of authors. The book is thus eminently suggestive, as it traces the sources, composition, and etymological proportions of the English tongue, and adduces various peculiarities of its structure, in its grammatical inflections, its changes of pronunciation, its usages of rhyme, with some of the accidental influences which have left their traces upon its character. The examination of the Anglo-Saxon element of the language is throughout a leading topic, pursued with great nicety and perseverance, yet without pedantry. This is a rare quality in one who has brought such exactness to his work, and it is pleasing to see in his pages how the just claims of authority may consist with desirable freedom and liberality. "So far as respects English or any other uninflected speech," he writes, "a knowledge of grammar is rather a matter of convenience as a nomenclature, a medium of thought and discussion about language, than a guide to the actual use of it, and it is as impossible to acquire the complete command of our own tongue by the study of grammatical precept, as to learn to walk or swim by attending a course of lectures on anatomy. When language had been, to use an expressive Napoleonism, once regimented, and instruction had grown into an art, grammar was held with the Greeks, and probably also with the Romans, so elementary a discipline, that a certain amount of knowledge of it was considered a necessary preliminary step towards learning to read and write; but in English, grammar has little use to systematize, and make matter of objective consideration, the knowledge we have acquired by a very different process. It has not been observed in any modern literature, that persons devoted chiefly to grammatical studies were remarkable for any peculiar excellence, or even accuracy of style, and the true method of attaining perfection in the use of English is the careful study of the actual practice of the best writers in the English tongue."* The lectures

Lecture iv., Foreign Helps to the Knowledge of English.

of Mr. Marsh are in accordance with this remark. His investigations are based on careful examination of the recorded facts of the language in its early literature, while his subtilty is brought to bear in detecting analogies and the secrets of development. At times even curious in his researches, he is always at once acute and philosophical.

In the winter of 1860-'61, Mr. Marsh pursued the subject thus entered upon at New York by a second series of lectures, occupied with the grammatical history of English literature, delivered before the Lowell Institute, at Boston, which was published in a volume entitled, The Origin and History of the English Language, and of the Early Literature it embodies (New York, 1862, 8vo, pp. 574). Mr. Marsh has also undertaken a work of considerable labor in the preparation of an American edition of Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood's "Dictionary of English Etymology," to which he has made large additions

and annotations.

In 1861, Mr. Marsh received from President Lincoln the appointment of first Minister to the new kingdom of Italy--a sphere of duty for which he was admirably adapted by his previous diplomatic occupations abroad, in Greece and Turkey. An honorable testimony to his qualifications in this respect is borne by the Earl of Carlisle, who, in his "Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters," published in 1855, records an interview with Mr. Marsh at Constantinople, at the table of the British ambassador: "Mr. Marsh, the Minister," writes that nobleman, "is one of the best conditioned and most fully informed men it is possible to find anywhere. He would be the best successor they could send to London." In a note to this passage, Professor Felton, who edited the Diary for the American publishers, adds: "All who know Mr. Marsh will be gratified by this testimony to his worth, from a man so competent to measure his talents and acquirements. He filled the place of minister to Constantinople with great ability for four years, and left a reputation honorable not only to himself but to the character of his country. Besides his diplomatic duties there, he was sent to Athens, under the instructions of Mr. Webster, and afterwards of Mr. Everett, to adjust the difficulties that had arisen between the Greek government and the Rev. Jonas King, acting vice-consul of the United States. Mr. Marsh addressed himself to the task with a thoroughness, vigor, and talent which surprised the diplomatists of Athens, showing a masterly knowledge of the Greek constitution and legislation, as well as of international law."

In 1864, Mr. Marsh published Man and Nature; or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, (New York, Scribner, 8vo, pp. 560). The object of this work, as stated by the author, is "to indicate the character, and, approximately, the extent of the changes produced by human action in the physical conditions of the globe we inhabit; to point out the dangers of imprudence and the necessity of caution in all operations which, on a large scale, interfere with the spontaneous arrangements of the organic or the inorganic world; to suggest