Jfc^^-^-^B^ Ur^ i 'j p N'i% i;i i ilii " r ii ""T" 1 R GREAT NEFACTORS A ^5 ^/ ?it\r^tTv\s " .;.\ -K* the same con- dition, apparently, in which it was when occupied by the poet's father, an employe" in the Navy Pay Office, in 1812, the year in which Dickens was born. He was from the first a sharp lad, and the shifts and necessities of his parents painfully impressed him from an early time, as the successive scenes of their daily life became fixed upon his memory. He had sad experiences of those most mournful of localities, the pawnbroker's shop and the inside of the prison in which his father was confined for debt. Wandering about the streets of London, and passing to and fro between his forlorn home and the blacking warehouse near Hungerford stairs, where he was " a poor little drudge," at an age when now even the children of the poorest of the poor are required by law to be at school, he became familiar with misery in many forms. When a gleam of sunshine came and he was sent to school, his studies were too brief and too desultory to be deserving of the name of education ; and even these advantages ceased almost within the period of childhood. It was at the age of fifteen that he " started in life," as the phrase is, as an office-boy in an attorney's office, a poor look- out for an ambitious lad, for the law had in those days closed the door of the legal profession against poor men's sons even more closely than in these times. Charles Dickens had so determined a will, so steady a power of application, and so remarkable a habit of throwing his whole heart and mind into any work that he undertook, that but for those artificial barriers it is most likely that the law would have become his profession. But it had been sternly enacted that no one should enter the legal portals without a preliminary articleship, the official OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. record of which must bear a stamp of the value of 120. The articled clerk was also peremptorily forbidden to receive any remuneration throughout his five years of servitude, and even when free he was interdicted from practising until he had paid a yearly certificate duty of 12. In the attorney's office, there- fore, no prospect offered itself, and the bar was still more inac- cessible. Nothing daunted, the lad turned his thoughts to the profession of journalism, which at least was open to the clever- est and most deserving. How resolutely he went to work to acquire the facility in shorthand writing necessary for the post of parliamentary reporter most readers know. The story of this period of Charles Dickens's life is one of the most encouraging to young men dependent on their own exertions that biography offers. Genius is, and ever must be, a rare and exceptional gift ; but the means whereby this lad rose to a position in which his great powers were able to exert themselves are certainly within the reach of average talent and opportunities. The sketches which under the pseudonym of Boz were contributed by the young reporter to the columns of an evening paper, and afterwards republished, attracted some attention. They display his powers of observation, but they are in a considerable degree imitative. The influence of Theo- dore Hook and of Hood is strongly observable in them, and, what is more important, they exhibit little of that serious pur- pose which, even amidst their abundant humor, is so conspicu- ous in his later works. To satirize the habits of the cockney of those days the spruce city clerk on his holiday, etc., the humble shopman and his sweetheart at the suburban tea- gardens, the servant girls and apprentice boys at Greenwich Fair were the common objects of the writers of sketches in the magazines of the time ; and " Boz " simply fell in with the fashion of the hour. In the sketches of London street life there is indeed indication of that marvellous observation and sympathy with the habits and pursuits of- the poor of London which afterwards attained so remarkable a development. It is more curious still to observe the influences of a literary fashion in the origin and history of his first great work, " Pickwick." CHARLES DICKENS. 391 In the satire upon the conduct of breach of promise actions in the famous trial scene, in the pictures of the inside of the old disorderly debtors' prison, and in the pathetic element of some of the little stories introduced into the work, we have a gleam, as it were, of the distinguishing qualities of his future novels. The cheerful companionship and overflowing good-nature of the scenes at the hospitable Kentish farmhouse, moreover, could never have been depicted by a misanthropic hand. But, after all, " Pickwick " cannot be said to have had any more seri- ous purpose than that of producing innocent merriment. The book, indeed, was the direct product of a merely conventional sort of humor then greatly in favor with the public. Its inspir- ing principle was simply that habit of making fun of cockneys, and above all of cockney sportsmen, which was so conspicuous in the productions of the artistic and literary caricaturists of the days of King William. In order to understand the true origin of " Pickwick," the first work that made its author famous, it is worth while to trace the history of this odd fashion. It was in the year 1831 that the old laws which aimed at confining field sports exclu- sively to the most wealthy and aristocratic class were first relaxed. Before that time the conditions of carrying a gun in pursuit of game were almost prohibitive, and even the buying and selling of game were strictly forbidden. The new law certainly did not make sporting a poor man's pastime; but the sight of even a middle-class sportsman had hitherto been so rare that the new order of things seems to have struck the minds of contemporary humorists as something exceptionally anomalous and absurd. Hence for long after that time our wits, both great and small, were' never tired of making fun of the sup- posed blunders and mishaps of the typical citizen generally assumed, by way of heightening the jest, to be a " soap-boiler's clerk " who was of a mind to go forth in quest of game. The localities of the cockney sportsman's achievements were repre- sented as rarely going farther afield than Hornsey Wood or the meadows which then existed about Copenhagen House, Isling- ton, now a populous neighborhood of houses and shops. It OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. was considered real humor to depict him as firing at ducks and hens in a dairyman's yard, or shooting gypsy babies in a hedge in mistake for hares. When he was shown as flying from the approach of an infuriated bull, and plumping, in his distress, into the very middle of a gardener's cucumber frame, or seek- ing refuge on the top of a wall thickly garnished with tenter- hooks, while a stout farmer was rapidly approaching flourishing a cart-whip, the humor was no less certain to be applauded. If a companion inquired diffidently, " Which do you put in first, the shots or the powder?" he was represented as answering, " Why, you mix them, to be sure." Even when he was seen, as in one of Seymour's most approved sketches, scattering his brains over a stubble field by the accidental bursting of a gun, there was still no pity for the imaginary cockney sportsman. When a collection of these once popular objects of the print- shop windows were republished a few years ago, it was found that their power to amuse had almost entirely evaporated. In truth, it never had much foundation beyond the novelty held in the idea of any person connected with towns and trade shoul- dering a gun on the 1st of September, and the supposed wild incongruity of the associations suggested, though traces of this bygone fashion are observable in the early sketches of John Leech and also in the earlier volumes of " Punch." Publishers are not slow to conform to the prevailing fancies of readers, and hence it occurred to Messrs. Chapman and Hall to avail themselves of the services of the popular Seymour, who engaged to furnish them with four sketches monthly ; that upon this they looked about for a writer to furnish the necessary sup- ply of letterpress, and naturally thought of the author of the " Sketches by Boz," who had exhibite'd sympathy with the fash- ion of the day, are facts that have often been told ; but it is not generally so clearly perceived that in its origin at least Sey- mour was regarded as the predominant collaborator. An ab- surd controversy raged some years ago regarding the relative shares in " Pickwick " of the original artist and the author. It was then established, no doubt, that the benevolent bald head and those most respectable limbs encased in black shorts were CHARLES DICKENS. 393 the happy inspiration of the unfortunate artist; but Seymour, as is well known, died before the appearance of the second monthly number, and the truth is that even before then the whole character of the project was becoming changed under the influence of Dickens's genius. The first number appeared on the 3ist of March, 1836. It was announced as the " Posthu- mous Papers of the Pickwick Club, containing a faithful record of the perambulations, perils, adventures, and sporting transac- tions of the Corresponding Members." Each number was to comprise four illustrations by Seymour, and twenty-four pages of letterpress. The advertisements also stated, in the mild form of fun then in vogue, " that the travels of the members ex- tended over the whole of Middlesex, a part of Surrey, a portion of Essex, and several square miles of Kent," and it was prom- ised that the narrative would show " how in a rapid steamer they smoothly navigated the placid Thames, and in an open boat fearlessly crossed the turbid Medway." " Phiz " was en- gaged to take the place of Seymour ; the proportions were changed to two illustrations instead of four, and thirty-two pages of letterpress instead of twenty-four. The club was also rapidly dropped, and the adventures of Mr. Pickwick soon acquired the new form in which it was destined to become so widely known. It is a surprising evidence of the fertility of invention and self-confidence o'f the young author that it was at that time that he undertook the editorship of " Bentley's Miscellany," in which his " Oliver Twist" the most powerful, perhaps, certainly the most terrible in its stern moral lessons, and the most pathetic in its pictures of human failing and human suffering, of all his stories first made its appearance. " Pickwick " and " Oliver Twist," in fact, were written together month by month, nor does the author appear at any time to have been much in advance of the printer's demand for manuscript. "Pickwick's" monthly " green leaves " never failed to make their appearance for the twenty months of its career ; the " Parish Boy's Prog- ress," however, was certainly once interrupted, for in the month of June, 1837, an apology appeared in the magazine for the 394 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. omission of the usual instalment, on the ground of the sudden death of a dear young relative to whom he was passionately attached. The inspiring principle of "Oliver Twist" was a noble one ; it was that of compassion for the. poor under the hardships inflicted upon them by the new Poor Law Act just then coming into operation. Dickens, it must be admitted, was quick to judge, being quick to feel. He probably knew but little of the evils of the old poor-law administration, which had grown until they had finally necessitated the application of some sharp remedy. Great changes of that kind, however wholesome in principle and beneficial in their ultimate objects, were not to be effected without inflicting some injustice ; but it seems certain that the changes in progress were accomplished in too many instances by wanton harshness. The papers were filled with complaints of " the Bastiles," as the union workhouses were called, and Dickens's heart was touched and his imagination fired by this theme. Happily the profound truthfulness of his creations saved him from doing injustice to any class. If there was exaggeration in his views, his pictures of life are still sound. From that time a purpose other than mere entertainment rarely failed to be discernible in his works. In that wonderful panorama of life and most affecting narrative, the " Old Curios- ity Shop," we find in " Kit " the first of those portraits of poor neglected street boys, for whom he was able to enlist so strong a sympathy ; and what can move compassion towards the poor more deeply than his scenes of life in the manufacturing towns and districts whither the child wanders with the" old man? In " Barnaby Rudge " how fine a lesson is administered on the folly and sin of religious hatreds ! Special evils are attacked, as all readers know, in many other of his novels ; but the general purpose of mitigating that harshness which arises from igno- rance of what is good and deserving of sympathy in others, is predominant in all his works. It was this fact, apart from his singularly impressive voice and highly studied yet thor- oughly natural delivery, which gave to his readings so fasci- nating a character, and rendered them so popular both in England and America. ROBERT BURNS. ROBERT BURNS. 397 The life of Charles Dickens is too large a theme to be treated here save ufider one such aspect as we have taken. It is to be read in Mr. Forster's interesting and elaborate but still insuffi- cient biography, and in the collection of his correspondence under the editorship of his eldest daughter. It is further to be read in his works themselves. Nearly fourteen years have now elapsed since his -death. The terrible railway accident at Sta- plehurst to the tidal train, in which he happened to be a passenger, had given to his system a great shock. Railway travelling from henceforward seems to have affected his nerves in a curious degree. The sad scenes of lingering suffering and death which he witnessed, too, on that occasion, had impressed his mind with a horror which he often recalled with painful feelings. It is a singular coincidence that his strikingly sudden death took place on the anniversary of that disastrous accident, just five years later, that is, on the Qth of June, 1870. Since then his vast reputation has assuredly undergone no diminution. Cheaper editions of his works have brought them within the range of countless readers everywhere. Certainly no other au- thor ever enjoyed in, his lifetime so great and so long-sustained a popularity ; but there is every reason to believe that the fame of Charles Dickens is destined to grow brighter yet. ROBERT BURNS. [BORN 1759. DIED 1796.] " T ET me write the songs of a people, and I care not who *-' make the laws," is an observation shrewdly applicable to the genius of Robert Burns. Where indeed, upon the broad roll of names eminent in song, is there to be found a national poet whose memory is so tenderly cherished by his countrymen as is that of the humble Scottish bard? Where is there another whose simple lays are so often on the lips or so 398 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. highly treasured as his? Wherever you find a Scot his eye lights up at the mere mention of the name of Burns. A cen- tury has rather increased than diminished the warm love and admiration in which the poet is held by the great mass of his countrymen, who celebrated the centennial anniversary of Burns's birth with enthusiasm all over the civilized world. But it is not alone to Scotland that the fame of Robert Burns belongs. " Tarn o' Shanter " and the " Cotter's Saturday Night " are domesticated in the literature of all English-speaking peoples, there to constantly renew their youth when the pretty trifles that to-day make reputations shall have outlived their brief hour of popular favor. Burns was born in the parish of Alloway, near Ayr, on the *25th of January, 1759. His father was a poor farmer who gave his son what education he could afford. Robert was taught English well, and " by the time he was eleven or twelve years of age, he was a critic in verbs, substantives, and particles." He was also taught to write, had a fortnight's French, and had ob- tained a little practical knowledge of land-surveying. He had a few books, among which were the Spectator, Pope's works, Allan Ramsay, and a collection of English songs. His reading was subsequently extended to Thomson, Sterne, Shenstone, Mackenzie, and other standard authors. This was the whole foundation upon which the young poet was to build a reputa- tion that should outlast the groundwork. As the advantages of a liberal education were not within his reach, it is scarcely to be regretted that his reading was at first so limited in its range. His mind was not distracted by a multitude of volumes. What books he had, he read and studied thoroughly, and his mind grew up with original and robust vigor. It is impossible to con- template the life of Burns at this time without a strong feeling of affectionate admiration and respect. " His manly integrity of character (which, as a peasant, he guarded with jealous dig- nity) and his warm and true heart elevate him, in our concep- tions, almost as much as the native force and" beauty of his poetry." We see him when a mere youth toiling " like a galley- slave " to support his parents, yet grasping at every chance of ROBERT BURNS. 399 acquiring knowledge from men and books. Burning with a desire to do something for Old Scotland's sake, whose very soil he worshipped, venerating the memory of her ancient pat- rons and defenders, filled with an exquisite sensibility and kindness that could make him weep over even the destruction of a daisy of the field or a mouse's nest, these are all moral contrasts and blendings that seem to belong to the spirit -of romantic poetry. His writings, as we know, were but the frag- ments of a great mind, the hasty outpourings of a full heart and intellect. 'When fame had at last lifted him to the insecure and dangerous place of a popular idol, soon to be thrust down again into poverty and neglect, some errors and some frail- ties cast a shade over the noble figure ; but with the clearing away of prejudice, envy, and uncharitableness, time has graciously restored to Burns the love and gratitude of his countrymen ; for, great as were his temptations or his frailties, the world has recognized that the inward instincts of the man were large, generous, and noble. Let us draw the veil over these frailties. He indeed suffered an earthly martyrdom, but he has been awarded a posthumous triumph. After the publication, in 1773, of Fergusson's collected poems, there was an interval of about thirteen years during which no writer of eminence had arisen who attempted to excel in the native language of the country. In the summer of 1783 Robert Burns, the " Shakspeare of Scotland," issued his first volume from the obscure press of Kilmarnock. Its influence was immediately felt, and that influence has not yet ceased to vibrate in the hearts of the Scottish race. Burns was then only in his twenty-seventh year. No poetry was ever more instan- taneously or universally popular among a people than that of Burns in Scotland. There was the humor of Smollett, the pathos of Sterne, the real life of Fielding, and the pictorial power of Thomson, all united in an Ayrshire ploughman. So eagerly was the book sought after, that, when copies of it could not be obtained, many of the poems were transcribed and sent around in manuscript among admiring circles of readers. The subsequent productions of the poet did not 26 400 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. materially affect the estimate of his powers formed from his first volume. His life was -at once too idle and too busy, and it was also too brief, for the full development of his extraor- dinary powers. It canmot be said that Burns fails absolutely in any kind of composition, except in his epigrams. These are often coarse without being entertaining. Nature had been abundantly lavish to him, but she had denied him wit. Burns had little or no technical knowledge of music. His whole soul, however, was full of the finest harmony. Not a bird sang in a bush, but it was music in his ear. He fell in love with every handsome female face he saw, and when thus moved his feel- ings took the form of song, and the words fell as naturally into their places as if prompted by the most perfect mastery cf musical rhythm. A lengthy theme wearied and chilled his Muse; but a song embodying some burst of passion, patriotism, love, or humor, was exactly suited to the impulsive character of Burns's genius and to his situation and circumstances. The Scottish poet knew, however, many old airs and more old bal- lads ; and a few bars of the music or a line of the words served as a keynote to his suggestive fancy. Burns's incentive to composition was his ardent admiration for the fair sex, and it was to one of his boyish loves that his earliest poetical effusion was dedicated. This strain of admi- ration, which in him became an element of weakness, appears throughout all his later writings. His favorites were in the humble walks of life, but he elevated them to Lauras and Ophe- lias. Having failed in attempting the business of a flax-dresser and in farming, Burns brought out his little volume of collected poems in order to procure the means of emigrating to Jamaica. It carried him instead into the best circles of Edinburgh, in whose adulation the poet soon lost his head. The brilliancy with which Burns had flashed upon the society of Edinburgh, soon suffered a partial eclipse ; but the attentions that he had received were in their consequences most disastrous to the poet's future. He contracted habits of convivial indulgence which in the end proved fatal to his prospects of advancement, while they steadily undermined his constitution. Burns tore himself away ROBERT BURNS. 4OI from the pleasures and gayety of Edinburgh to begin again the life of a farmer. Having some ^"500 in ready money remain- ing from the sale of his poems, he took Ellisland Farm, near Dumfries, and settled down into a more tranquil existence. At this time too he was legally married to Mrs. Burns, whose con- nection with the poet had hitherto formed one of the darker episodes of his career. His old habits returning upon him, finding that farm labor and its demands were a stumbling-block in the way of his literary ambition, Burns applied for and obtained the place of an exciseman for the district in which he lived. Abandoning his farm to the care of servants, Burns might now be seen mounted on horseback, pursuing defaulters of the revenue among the hills and vales of Nithsdale. The farm was soon given up, and Burns removed to Dumfries. There was no amendment, and, to make matters worse, Burns soon fell into disgrace with the Excise Board on account of his political opinions. The time, it will be remembered, was one of great excitement; for the French Revolution was then menacing the peace of Europe and turning the heads of the imaginative and enthusiastic spirits who had imbibed socialistic ideas from the false philosophy of the leaders of popular opinion in France. Burns was too independent and much too out- spoken for a placeman. Some of his imprudent expressions were reported to his superiors ; and though he retained his office, all hope of a promotion through which he might attain the longed-for life of literary leisure was now wrecked. From this time the poet's wayward fortunes rapidly declined. He became irritable and gloomy. His health gave way. In the summer of 1796 he was attacked with fever, which on the 2 ist of July terminated fatally, the poet then being in his thirty-eighth year. 402 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. [BORN 1804. DIED 1864.] THE career of this great novelist conclusively shows us how even a genius of the first rank, such as his unquestionably was, may long fail of obtaining the recognition that is its due. There is, in fact, no royal road to literary fame. Yet it must be clear to every discriminating and impartial student of Nathaniel Hawthorne's career, we think, that his discouragements and his trials arose in most cases from causes inherent in the man himself. Indeed the deductions essential to a just view of Hawthorne's life and work are easily made while we follow the successive steps by which his position at the head of American writers of fiction was reached at last. There is probably no writer whose personality seems to us so largely mingled with his productions as Hawthorne's. In truth, the man and his work are inseparable in our minds. Sometimes he seems merely repeating to us the things he has seen in his visions, for he was ever as one who dreams dreams and sees visions ; then again his intellectual and moral insight is so like one laying bare, under great stress of circumstances, the inmost secrets of his own heart, that we cannot forbear investing him with the intelligence, and something too of the dread, which we are apt to associate with clairvoyants. From this we conclude that few writers have had such power of self-absorption in their own creations as Hawthorne had, and that it is for this reason his strong individuality is so indelibly stamped upon his characters. Hawthorne's novels contain a few scraps of autobiography; his Note-Books add something to our knowledge of him ; but as his character was full of strange inconsistencies, of which he, most of all, seemed sensible, so was he averse to having his biography written, although in one of his dreamy monologues, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 405 when he seems thinking aloud, he conjectures that such distinc- tion would yet be his. Materials for Hawthorne's biography are therefore not only scanty, but fragmentary. Intimate per- sonal knowledge of the man could not be claimed by the most attached or the most trusted of his friends. It is therefore to his works that we must turn, with the secret feeling that they alone delineate Hawthorne truly. As every writer has his liter- ary models, so there can be little doubt that Walter Scott and Charles Lamb were the models upon which Hawthorne's liter- ary style was formed. These were the men who had most impressed his age. He soon entered a field in which his own brilliant imagination was supreme, and in which he is still without a peer. Nathaniel Hawthorne was born at Salem, Massachusetts, July 4, 1804. The family surname was originally Hathorne, which was altered by the novelist himself while he was a college undergraduate. His ancestors belonged to tfye stern old Puritan stock, and one of them had been a conspicuous figure in the witchcraft horror. The house in which the novelist was born is still standing. He tells us that " thousands upon thousands of visions have appeared to him in it," and that, should he ever have a biographer, he ought to make great mention of this house in his memoirs, for it was here that he kept the long and weary vigil that preceded the dawning of his fame. It is a humble dwelling in a quiet, old-fashioned neighborhood, one of scores that still make Salem a connecting link with the past. The street is narrow, and runs down to the water-side and to the wharves, and so was a convenient abode for the novelist's father, Captain Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was a shipmaster in the day when Salem was a port of importance. House and wharves alike indicate the decay of this importance. When young Hawthorne was four years old his father died in a foreign port, and the lad's care and training thenceforth fell to his mother, who after her bereavement went home to her father's house. Young Nathaniel became a sort of protege of his uncle, Robert Man- ning, who took charge of the boy's education. The Mannings were owners of some property in Raymond, Maine; and when 406 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. Nathaniel was fourteen, Mrs. Hawthorne took her children and went to Raymond to live. The Hawthornes remained there only about a year, and then returned to Salem. Hawthorne refers with unaffected pleasure to the wild and free life that he led while roaming through the woods or skating by moonlight on Sebago Lake. But he also regretfully says that it was there he got " his cursed habit of solitude " which clung to him through life. One may perhaps see in this habit of seclusion that the boy was " father to the man." At seventeen Hawthorne entered Bowdoin College. He was a member of the now celebrated class of 1825. Two benches behind him sat young Longfellow. In a higher class was Franklin Pierce, with whom Hawthorne formed a friendship that lasted through life, and that proved of much advantage to him, for Pierce, too, was a rising man, and he eventually became Hawthorne's patron ; and it was Pierce, again, who stood by Hawthorne's solitary death-bed and who closed his eyes as the last act of earthly friendship. We now see the boy changing into the man. Yet to his classmates he was a riddle. He seemed to have an existence apart from them, at most times, into which he could not and did not admit them. One of them says : " I love Hawthorne, I admire him ; but I do not know him. He lives in a mysterious world of thought and imagination which he never permits me to enter." Another says that Hawthorne never told a story or sung a song while he was in college. This reserve procured for him the name of " the silent man " among his classmates, who seem, nevertheless, to have put the most generous inter- pretation upon this unsocial disposition, thus paying a high tribute to Hawthorne's superiority. So the sensitive, serious, and shrinking student dwelt in a world apart from his fellows. His books and his own thoughts were his chosen companions, and among them his happiest hours were passed. Notwithstanding the high opinion of his abilities that his classmates had formed, Hawthorne's scholarship did not show great excellence or give high promise for the future. He did not make his mark, as the saying is, at college. Longfellow, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 407 and not Hawthorne, was the conspicuous figure in his class ; for the latter possessed far too much of that " truant disposi- tion," which we see developing more and more as the years roll on, for steady application to study. In these words, which were doubtless penned with a smile on the lip at the memories they recalled, Hawthorne reminds his friend Horatio Bridge of the time when they were lads together at this country college, " gathering blueberries in study hours, under those tall academic pines ; or watching the great logs, as they tumbled along the current of the Androscoggin ; or shooting pigeons and gray squirrels in the woods ; or bat-fowling in the summer twilight ; or catching trout in that shadowy little stream which, I suppose, is still wandering riverward through the forest ; two idle lads, in short (as we need not fear to acknowledge now), doing a hundred things that the faculty never heard of or else it had been the worse for us." After graduating Hawthorne returned to Salem, and for some time led what seemed to be an almost purposeless existence. Yet it is evident that his aspirations already pointed toward a literary career. For him, he says, the learned professions had few charms; and so far as we can judge it seems clear that his mind was steadily settling the problem of his future vocation in the direction of literary achievement. He began writing anonymously for the periodicals of the day those tales many of which he has told us were, in a fit of despondency or despair, "burned to ashes." The "Gentle Boy "and "Sights from a Steeple," were first printed in the " Token," an annual that was conducted by Goodrich, the genial " Peter Parley," who so delighted the young readers of a generation ago. Among its contributors the " Token " numbered such well-known writers as John Quincy Adams, Willis, Everett, Pierpont, Neal, Sedgwick, Sigourney, and Tuckerman ; while Longfellow and Holmes were new candidates for popular favor. Among the unknown contributors was Nathaniel Hawthorne. Besides these fugitive sketches of his, which had been chiefly drawn from the traditions or associations of his birthplace, Hawthorne published anonymously, in 1832, a romance en- 408 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. titled " Fanshawe." But he never acknowledged it, and this literary foundling has only recently been rescued from the limbo to which its author's better judgment had consigned it. Hawthorne had been writing some ten or twelve years without making, as he frankly avows, the slightest impression upon the public. Still he wrote on. His young manhood had been spent in the pursuit of a phantom which had constantly eluded his grasp, literary celebrity. If we may believe him, he had burned much more than he had published. He was as inex- orable as the Indian who puts his deformed offspring to death. Yet, in spite of all that a soul so sensitive as his must have endured while waiting for recognition, Hawthorne clung to his purpose with the tenacity of one who feels that he has great things within him, impelling him onward at the sacrifice of everything else. Others, it is true, have possessed this per- sistency without Hawthorne's genius ; but this author's estimate of himself was not a mistaken one. So far the pleasure that he had derived from literary composition was his greatest reward ; but that pleasure alone, he declares with grim irony, will not " keep the chill out of a writer's heart, or the numbness out of his fingers." Finally, Hawthorne gathered together into a volume the various waifs that he had sent forth, and offered them to Good- rich for publication. It is said to be true that Goodrich declined to print the volume without a guaranty against loss ; and that it might never have appeared at all but for the generous help of Horatio Bridge, to whom, in the beautiful dedication to "The Snow Image," the author acknowledges his debt of grat- itude in a way that does credit to both head and heart. In 1837 the volume was brought out, under the title of " Twice- Told Tales." Longfellow was one of the first to commend it as the work of genius. So little was Hawthorne known that when his name was thus publicly announced most people supposed it to be fictitious, and not the author's real one. " Twice-Told Tales " was accorded a favorable, but rather lan- guid reception. " A moderate edition was 'got rid of (to use the publisher's very significant phrase) within a reasonable time, but apparently without rendering the author or his pro- NAtHANlEL HAWTHORNE. 409 ductions much more widely known than before. The heart of the great public had not yet been touched. The next year Hawthorne received the appointment of Weigher and Gauger in the Boston Custom House. In this unromantic capacity he continued in the public service until a change of administration turned him out of office. That this change brought no hardship along with it, is pretty clear from a perusal of one of Hawthorne's letters in which he unbosoms himself to this effect. " I pray," he says, " that in one year more I may find some way of escaping from this unblest Cus- tom House; for it is a very grievous thraldom. I do detest all offices, all at least that are held on a political tenure. And I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will stretch as much." From this most irksome and prosaic life Hawthorne now eagerly turned to the ideal. Always a dreamer, always an ardent lover of nature, haunted by the idea of a perfect Chris- tian brotherhood that should be lifted high above the debas- ing influences of the great world, and in which men should act according to the dictates of a pure reason, our author joined the community of Transcendentalists at Brook Farm. This Brook Farm episode was only the echo of that imagined by Coleridge, Southey, and a few others like them, of establishing on the banks of the Ohio a community founded on a thor- oughly social basis. The actors, in spite of merciless ridicule, showed the courage of their convictions ; but the daily drudgery that made part of the system by which these dreamers expected to revolutionize society proved too much for one like Haw- thorne, in whom intellect was supreme ; and so he came back into the world again, a wiser if not a better man. Man in his primitive estate was not, after all, what he had imagined. In- stead of being stimulated, his intellectual faculties were stunted by toil. With the feeling fresh upon him that he had escaped from a wholly unsuitable and unnatural life, Hawthorne sets down this emphatic opinion: "The real Me," he says, "was 410 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. never an associate of the Community." The future novelist was now, after this experience, building more air-castles from the materials of his fancy; and this time, at least, they were destined not to fall in ruins about him. Very likely another and even more potent influence was contributing to draw Hawthorne back into the world again ; for within a year he was married to Miss Sophia Peabody, of Salem, whom he had long known and admired. The young couple chose a home at Concord, in the old parsonage house that Emerson had formerly inhabited, but which was soon to become more famous as the " Old Manse." An exquisite pic- ture of this house and its surroundings forms the introduction to the "Mosses of an Old Manse." The doubly famous land- mark stands within musket-shot of the first battle-field of the Revolutionary War, and from its windows the startled occupants had witnessed the brief but fateful combat begun for the posses- sion of the bridge that here spanned the historic stream. This fact did not, however, greatly impress Hawthorne, who frankly owns to being little moved through the force of such associa- tions as these. The "Old Manse" had fixed, however, Hawthorne's position in the literary world. From this period the biographer has only to recount his successes. After a three years' residence at Concord to his limited circle of friends as great an enigma as ever Hawthorne had the good fortune to receive from a Democratic administration the appointment of Surveyor for the Port of Salem, and, bidding farewell to the Old Manse and to his habitual seclusion, he was presently installed within the edifice which, like everything else with which Hawthorne's gen- ius or his personality is associated, was thenceforth destined to live forever. From the Salem Custom House emanated that wondrous story of sin, remorse, and shame, "The Scarlet Let- ter." Hawthorne has told us that he found the missive from which the motive of his novel is taken in an obscure corner of the Surveyor's office. The sketch of " Endicott and the Red Cross" contains the germ of this story, which afterward became in the author's hands the work generally conceded to be his greatest. NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 411 A rare faculty of individualizing places had already become one of Hawthorne's marked characteristics. A true artist, his pictures are always so finished that whether it be an old house or some other inanimate object that he is describing we feel that we have seen it with all the power of Hawthorne's imagina- tion. Then his houses are all haunted, which strongly contrib- utes to make us consider them to have human attributes and human functions. In 1850, the year 'in which "The Scarlet Letter " was pub- lished, the turn of the political wheel again dropped the Sur- veyor from office. He soon quitted Salem; for, strangely enough, after his arrival at manhood he had never any liking for the place that was so intimately associated with his early struggles. This time he took up his residence at Lenox, in Berkshire. Here he wrote "The House of the Seven Gables," a romance founded upon the idea of a family that is predes- tined to misfortune through the wicked deeds of a wicked ances- tor. It is therefore of the same gloomy cast as "The Scarlet Letter ; " but the same subtile power of analysis, of acute de- scription, of vigorous beauty of style, speedily rendered this work a rival to that upon which Hawthorne's renown chiefly rests. After this Hawthorne went back to Concord, and settled down in the house since known as the " Wayside." The next event in Hawthorne's life for between whiles he had produced the " Wonder Book," " Tanglewood Tales," " The Biithedale Romance," and the "Life of Franklin Pierce"- was the appointment by his old friend, now President Pierce, to the American Consulate at Liverpool. This gave Hawthorne the coveted opportunity of seeing the Old World ; for it is known that he had long felt that the field in which he had achieved his successes was too narrow for him. In 1857 he resigned his consulate, and for the next two or three years travelled on the Continent, making a considerable sojourn in Italy. From this experience came " The Marble Faun," Hawthorne's third great work in which the idea of secret guilt is the dominant one. " The Italian sky, under which the story was conceived, seems to have imparted to it a degree of softness and beauty wanting 412 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. in its predecessors." Yet in spite of what Hawthorne felt, and has expressed, in regard to the difficulty of writing romances about his own country, some of the most discriminating of critics have declared that they like him best on American ground. Looking to him as being peculiarly the product of American thought and training, and as the coming exponent of a " national literature," they could not agree with the dictum that " romance and poetry, ivy, lichens, and wall flowers, need ruins to make them grow." Hawthorne returned to his native country crowned with hon- ors, but not so strong physically as when he had left it. In the retirement of his home at Concord he settled down into the old life and its quiet ways ; but at fifty-six the literary tasks that he had set for himself were no longer so easy of accomplishment as such labors had once seemed to the younger and more ambi- tious man. His melancholy seemed to increase. His country was now convulsed by civil war. His health continued steadily declining, so much so that by the winter of 1864 his condi- tion was causing much anxiety to his family and friends. In the hope of improvement Hawthorne set out with his constant friend Pierce on a journey to the White Mountains in the month of May. On the i8th the two college boys, now two gray- haired men, reached the town of Plymouth. Hawthorne retired early to rest. At four in the morning Pierce arose, went to his friend's bedside, laid his hand upon him gently, and found that life was extinct. The body was brought to Concord. Longfellow, Emerson, Holmes, Lowell, and many other literary friends stood around the bier when the coffin was lowered into its final resting-place in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Upon the coffin was laid Hawthorne's unfinished romance, of which Long- fellow has so beautifully said, " Ah, who shall lift that wand, of magic power, And the lost clew regain ? The unfinished window in Aladdin's tower Unfinished must remain." HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 415 HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. [BORN 1807. DIED 1882.] * TT may well be doubted if any one of the poets who have arisen during the last half-century has so closely touched the great popular heart as Longfellow has. Many years ago Cardinal Wiseman used this language when speaking of Longfellow : "Our hemisphere," said he, "can- not claim the honor of having brought him forth ; but he still belongs to us, for his works have become as household words wherever the English language is spoken. And whether we are charmed by his imagery, or soothed by his melodious versification, or elevated by the moral teachings of his pure muse, or follow with sympathetic hearts the wanderings of Evangeline, I am sure that all who hear my voice will join with me in the tribute I desire to pay to the genius of Long- fellow." If the true grandeur of a country lies in its illustrious men, then has no one who is identified with letters done more to exalt the American name at home and abroad than this emi- nent and gifted poet ; nor does it seem at all likely that the severest tests of time will lessen the love and admiration with which his writings have inspired the present generation of readers. Longfellow is the poet whom all the world understands. He is no mystic, no seer. His calm philosophy always teaches some worthy or enduring lesson. Even the rude Village Black- smith becomes under his hand an exemplar of human effort. His themes are as simple as his language is the perfection of melody and grace. If the right word is always a power, then may this poet's exquisite gift of language well stand for what is highest in the art of communicating one's ideas to others. His 27 416 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. " Psalm of Life." his " Excelsior," simple homilies that they are, appeal to every one, however humble, who may have had or is capable of feeling an aspiration toward what is highest and noblest, but who needs the guiding hand to lead him on. Like Abou Ben Adhem, Longfellow may well claim to be written down as one who loves his fellowmen. And even if our blood is not always greatly stirred by reading Longfellow's poetry, it graciously admits us into a sanctuary conseqrated to the purest and holiest emotions, where the strifes and tumults of the world pass unheeded by. To what worthier purpose could the poet's art be directed? He does not, indeed, seek to carry our hearts' by storm, nor to arouse our passions, but rather to conquer through the grace of an abounding love for, .and faith in his fellow-man. As a story-teller in verse, Longfellow has had no equal in his ow r n time ; while few among the great poets of the past are his peers in the power of interesting or of entertaining an intelligent audience. Witness his " Tales of a Wayside Inn," as an exam- ple of this rare gift. We do not know whether the sonorous energy of rhythm in " Paul Revere's Ride " or the playful fancy of "The Courtship of Miles Standish" charm us most. In the first we can almost feel the sting of the spur, as Revere urges his excited steed on over the rough highway, while the rhythm itself keeps time to the quick beat of hoofs, as the eager horseman, with a wild shout on his lips, rides at head- long speed through village and farm, bearing his fatal message of war; and notwithstanding our later knowledge, the fear grows upon us, as we read, that the intrepid rider will be too late. Such ballads, too, as " The Wreck of the Hesperus," leave us with the feeling that we have been made actual lookers-on while the doomed vessel, with the frozen helmsman lashed to the tiller, and the maiden praying on the wave-swept deck, was being borne steadily on to her destruction. We doubt if the realism of this terrible picture has ever been excelled. We might go on from poem to poem, as we would in some magnificent garden, plucking here a flower born of the poet's exuberant fancy, enjoying the beauties his finer instinct HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 417 has pointed out, or tasting the rich fruitage that his wand of magic power has created. And they are the choicest fruits of the vineyard. Let us say, frankly, that in Longfellow's poetry we think every one will find something that meets a want or fulfils a longing of his nature. Guide, comforter, philosopher, friend, are all combined in the personality of Longfellow ; for it is he who speaks to us, not as the Pharisee spoke, but .with the voice of abounding love, wisdom, and all charity. William Longfellow, the first English emigrant of the name, settled at Newbury, Massachusetts. He was a soldier in the disastrous expedition that Sir William Phips led against Quebec, and perished by drowning. The Longfellows had subsequently removed into the District of Maine, where Stephen Longfellow, the poet's father, was born. After graduating at Harvard, Ste- phen Longfellow began the practice of law at Portland ; and it was in this town, on the 2/th of February, 1807, that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow came into the world. The future poet had both Pilgrim and Puritan blood in his veins. His father was a man of sound and scholarly attainments, whose position and means were such as to command for his son a favorable entrance into whatsoever career he might choose to adopt. At fourteen, young Longfellow entered Bowdoin, taking his place in the same class with Hawthorne. The boy Longfellow was then " very handsome, always well dressed, with no taste for any but refined pleasure." His slight but erect figure, his fair complexion, his clear blue eye, and abundant light brown hair gave him a certain distinction among his fellows, who re- spected him for the purity of his tastes and his morals, and loved him for the gentle affability of his manners. Longfellow was, however, a conscientious student; and he speedily demon- strated to his classmates as well as to his instructors that there was no effeminacy of mind behind these rare personal traits. He left college distinguished for his scholarship. It was during his college life that Longfellow began to write poetry, first for the newspapers of his native place and after- ward for the " United States Literary Gazette." From the first his verses attracted attention. A few of these pieces were 418 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. subsequently reprinted in a group of " Earlier Poems," but the larger number remained unacknowledged by the author and uncollected until after his death. Longfellow was not yet eigh- teen when he was feeling his way to public favor by writing such poetry as " An April Day," " Woods in Winter," and the " Hymn of the Moravian Nuns." Bryant was then the foremost American poet ; and Longfellow has admitted that the author of " Thanatopsis," was the master who had inspired and guided his own youthful muse. From Bowdoin Longfellow went into his father's office to begin the study of law ; but the college overseers had kept him in mind, and within a few months he was offered and accepted the appointment of professor of modern languages at his alma mater, with the privilege of spending three years abroad before entering upon his duties. These years were passed in travel, observation, and study, whose course may be traced in " Outre Mer," a volume of prose first published in 1835. This was not, however, Longfellow's first appearance as an author ; for he had in 1833 published a translation from the Spanish of " Coplas de Manrique." The original author, Don Jorge de Manrique, was a sort of Castilian Sir Philip Sidney, and like him was devoted to both arms and letters. But before these publica- tions had appeared, an event of importance to Longfellow's life had occurred. Upon his return from Europe he had assumed his duties at Bowdoin. In 1831, at the age of twenty-four, he married Miss Mary S. Potter, of Portland, and in 1833 his trans- lation of the " Coplas " was printed. We will suspend the continuity of our story only long enough to refer to a remarkable scene which took place at Bowdoin in 1875, because it joins two eras in the poet's life. It was the fiftieth anniversary of Longfellow's graduation. The survivors of the class of 1825 had come together to celebrate the event and to renew old associations. Only thirteen members of this class were then living. Hawthorne was dead. These survivors, now grown old, assembled in the church as they had done in the old college days ; and when the venerable poet stood up and began to read his poem " Morituri Salutamus," the scene was HENRY W. LONGFELLOW. 419 indescribably affecting. Never before had those classic walls witnessed the like solemnity. Just before leaving for their respective homes the class met in a retired room of the college, and prayed together. Then, under the branches of the old tree, which was endeared to them by its many associations with their youthful sports, each took the other in silence by the hand, spoke a last farewell, and went his way. In 1835 the professorship of modern languages at Harvard, made vacant by the death of Professor Ticknor, was tendered to, and accepted by Longfellow. He now made a second visit to Europe, and it was while there that his wife's death occurred. The " Footsteps of Angels " consecrates her memory in a spirit of beautiful resignation. Returning to Cambridge and to his duties at Harvard, Long- fellow soon established himself in the house that had formerly been the headquarters of Washington and was thenceforth to be his own home. Here much of his later poetry was written. In Washington's bedchamber Longfellow wrote " Hyperion " and " Voices of the Night." " Hyperion " contained many fine translations from the German poets, whose works were then almost unknown in America. The "Voices of the Night" was equally a revelation of the rise of a new poet among us. These two works surely established Longfellow's fame. Thenceforth his course was upward and onward. Space fails us to do more than enumerate the titles of some of his later contributions to literature. His " Ballads and other Poems " appeared in 1841 ; " Evangeline," in 1847; "The Song of Hia- watha," in 1855 ; " Courtship of Miles Standish," 1858; "Tales of a Wayside Inn," 1863; "Flower de Luce," 1867; "New England Tragedies," 1868; "Three Books of Song," 1872; Aftermath," 1874; " The Masque of Pandora," 1875 ; " Poems of Places," 1876-79; "Keramos," 1878; "Ultima Thule," 1880; "Michael Angelo," a posthumous work, 1883. Although in " Hiawatha " Longfellow had fully met the demand for an American poem, that he aimed at something broader than an American reputation is as clear as day. With him universality was a canon of literary art. So lately as 1853 420 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. an English journal of reputation could say, " They [the Ameri- cans] have not yet produced a great poet; but they have produced men, like Mr. Longfellow and others, who promise, at no distant day, to reach the highest summit of poetic art." The promise was so far fulfilled that it is doubtful if any one of Longfellow's contemporaries is so widely read or so highly esteemed as he is. His poems have been translated into every cultivated tongue ; and that universality which he instinctively felt to be the only measure of true greatness has welcomed him. to the great brotherhood of cultivated nations as a benefactor of mankind. Art is indeed the interpreter of all languages. In 1843 Longfellow was again married, his second wife being Miss Frances Elizabeth Appleton, of Boston, whose tragic death (she was accidentally burned to death in her husband's library) left such a deep and lasting impression upon the poet's mind that for many years he was never known to refer to it. This happened in 1861. Two sons and three daughters were born of this marriage, all of them in the historic Cambridge man- sion. In March, 1882, shortly after the completion of his seventy-fifth year, and after only a week's illness, whose fatal ending was not at first anticipated, the poet died in the fulness of his fame, lamented as few of the great ones of earth have been, but leaving behind so vital a part of himself that we can scarcely say that he is dead. Longfellow was a man of noble and gracious presence, free from the littleness or hauteur that so often degrades great men, a friend to every call of humanity, a foe to every wrong, a guide and benefactor to all who sought his counsel or assist- ance, a patron of true worth, and a most devoted lover of the arts. No literary man of his century has left so sweet a remem- brance behind him, or, what is far more, so high an example of his own simple precept that " We can make our lives sublime." Longfellow had a grave and gentle humor that was most win- ning. He was a delightful companion and a charming host. His manner was the union of courtliness and of bonhomie, aSfllii ififr-- ifi- , '-, ^ ,:>,; HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 423 the blending of a Sidney with an Agassiz. Calumny never approached, nor could flattery spoil, him. Though his hand will nevermore touch the pen, we say again that Longfellow is not dead, for his genius still abides with us. 1 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. [BORN 1812.] A T the mature age of forty Mrs. Stowe took up her pen to ** write what proved to be the greatest book of the cen- tury, with probably little or no idea of the extraordinary effect that it was destined to produce, that her work was, in fact, the weapon by which slavery in the United States should receive its deathblow. This is not saying a word too much for the influence that effort of genius, " Uncle Tom's Cabin," exerted upon the public mind ; for what statesmen, politicians, political economists, with all the agitators of the antislavery school, had so far failed to bring about, namely, the creation of an overwhelming popular sentiment against slavery, Mrs. Stowe did almost with a stroke of the pen. By such humble means are the destinies of nations decided ! In the non- slaveholding communities "Uncle Tom" created a feeling of national degradation, certain to recoil upon its cause, which feeling was greatly intensified by the almost unanimous voice of the outside world raised in condemnation of this sarcasm upon the name of free institutions. This voice of the people has often been compared with the voice of God. The revul- sion against slavery was instantaneous. And so "Uncle Tom" became, without any special purpose in its author, a great moral t force. Emancipation was indeed a long time deferred; yet it is undoubtedly true that by bringing slavery to the bar of an 1 The portrait of Mr. Longfellow is from a picture selected by the poet himself, and pronounced by him to be the most satisfactory likeness he had ever sat for. 424 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. aroused public opinion, and thus constituting it the one ab- sorbing question, political and moral, of the hour, its ultimate downfall was rendered a matter of certainty. " Uncle Tom " was a book that everybody could under- stand. The poor and down-trodden wept over it; the rich and powerful were haunted and reproached and humbled by it; while the slaveholders, seeing the whole civilized world arrayed against them through the agency of one weak and obscure woman, realized that at last slavery and the public conscience stood face to face. The event could not long be uncertain. Mrs. Stowe has, it is true, written much besides, but nothing that can compare with " Uncle Tom." That book began a new era. Her "mission" in the world and the phrase has its true significance here was achieved at a single stroke through the simple and truthful tale which flowed from her pen under the impulse of a noble passion that could not be restrained. Slavery was the fatal bequest of the founders of the Republic ; it was surrounded with safeguards ; it had created a privileged class, in whose hands it had always been an element of power in the nation ; and it was growing more and more arrogant and aggressive. In vain did a few philanthropic men try to make head against it. Slavery stood intrenched behind the Constitu- tion of the nation, and defied them. Nay more, scorn, abusive epithets, and violence were liberally meted out to this weak band of agitators, even in the free section of the Union. Garri- son, Whittier, Phillips, Tappan, Birney, and their intrepid co- laborers were barely tolerated at home. In the slave States no one dared to raise a voice against the iniquitous domestic insti- tution. But "Uncle Tom's" myriad voices could not be silenced. An English writer of eminence has spoken of it as one of those books which insist upon being read when once begun. And read it was, both North and South. Slaveholders read it se-' cretly. Resistance to the encroachments of slavery upon free territory began at this era. That resistance produced open war. between the sections ; war brought about emancipation ; and in a little more than ten years after the appearance of " Uncle Tom" no slave was lawfully held in bondage within the vast HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 425 territorial limits of the American Union. We can now look back and see how it was that Mrs. Stowe did more to bring about this result than all other agencies put together. " Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life among the Lowly," was pub- lished in 1852. Its success from a literary standpoint was prodigious; and as that success is the key to its moral influ- ence, we will give a few facts in relation to it. In a few weeks' time fifty thousand copies had been sold ; in a few months two hundred thousand had been struck off, and the demand was still for more. Within two years, it is said, two million copies had been spread throughout America and Europe, where it was quickly translated and scattered broadcast over the continent. Editions in nine different languages have been printed. It was dramatized and acted on the stage from one end of the North- ern States to the other, and in every capital in Europe, thus greatly enlarging the sphere of its influence by bringing the realism of its pictures of Southern life and manners home to multitudes of spectators. And notwithstanding the fact that slavery with all its accompanying evils has now been for twenty years dead and buried, the story continues to be read and acted, and has enduring interest, both as an incident of the greatest social convulsion of modern times and as portraying an extinct social phase with originality and power. In any case, we conclude that the history of the great civil conflict in the United States can hardly be read understandingly without a reference to " Uncle Tom " and its gifted author. In 1853, the year after the appearance of "Uncle Tom" in this country, Mrs. Stowe went to Europe, arriving in England in May. She was accompanied by her husband and by her brother, the Rev. Charles Beecher. " Uncle Tom " had already preceded her, and all classes were eager to see and do honor to its creator. She was welcomed at Stafford House by a most distinguished gathering, numbering many of the highest personages in the kingdom. Everywhere her reception was of the most flattering kind. In Edinburgh she was tendered a public banquet, at which the Lord Provost presided. The cere- monies were concluded with the presentation to Mrs. Stowe by 426 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. ladies of Edinburgh of .1,000, in gold, the product of an " Uncle Tom Penny Offering," to be applied by Mrs. Stowe to the cause of emancipation. The ladies of Aberdeen presented her with 120 for the same purpose: Yet while the talented author was being thus feted and caressed, and while the press was saying the most flattering things of her, England was being flooded with cheap " Uncle Tom's," for which Mrs. Stowe never received a penny. The antecedents of such a woman are naturally interesting. Mrs. Stowe's mind was formed in a good school. Lyman Beecher, her father, was the son of a New England blacksmith, and had followed his father's trade until convictions of duty had carried him into the pulpit, where he became a commanding figure. Strong and sturdy common-sense were his prominent characteristics. It was while he was pastor of the church at Litchfield, Connecticut, and rising in fame as a pulpit orator, that Harriet was born. From Litchfield Lyman Beecher was called to the pastoral charge of the Hanover Street Presbyte- rian Church, in Boston, where he remained until 1832. In that year he removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, in order to assume the charge of Lane Theological Seminary, an institution founded by the New School Presbyterians for the purpose of preparing young men for the ministry of that denomination. Mr. Beecher remained at the head of the Seminary for eighteen years, until 1850, when in consequence of the decline of the institution he returned to Boston. As these eighteen years formed the impor- tant period of Harriet Beecher's life, the history of Lane Sem- inary is to some extent that of the work which subsequently won for her an enduring literary fame. The year 1833 inau- gurated a bitter agitation of the slavery question ; and that agitation, begun by the Abolition Convention which met at Philadelphia, reached and disturbed the Seminary on the banks of the Ohio. This institution was soon in a blaze of excitement. It became a centre of active abolition feeling and effort. The merchants of Cincinnati, whose business relations with Ken- tucky were close and intimate, took the alarm. The mob, urged on by slaveholders or by those who sympathized with them, HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 427 threatened to pull down the Seminary. Public opinion de- manded that its voice should be silenced, and it was silenced. The students then deserted it almost to a man, leaving the Fac- ulty to do what it could towards restoring to the institution its lost prestige. The Beechers were silenced with the rest. One member of the Faculty was the Rev. Calvin E. Stowe, Professor of Biblical Literature in the Seminary. Harriet Beecher married him in 1832, the same year that she went to Cincinnati. When this important event in her life took place, she was not quite twenty-one. . She had previously taught a female school, with her sister Catherine, in Hartford, and the two sisters had opened a similar one at Walnut Hills; so that, although still young at the period of the disorders at the Semi- nary, Mrs. Stowe was already an experienced observer of hu- man nature, with the added advantage of having always lived in an intellectual atmosphere in which her mind steadily expanded and matured. For eighteen years, then, Lane Seminary was Mrs. Stowe's home. We have seen that the effort to convert that institution into neutral ground had brought nothing but disaster to it or its friends. But such close contact with the horrors of slavery and of all these none was more harrowing than the pursuit of many miserable fugitives into the free territory of Ohio was every day increasing the antislavery feeling. Cincinnati soon became a battle-field of the two factions, who grew more and more exasperated and determined in their hostility towards each other as the conflict progressed. One protected the poor fugitives and aided them in their flight. The other retaliated by mobbing known abolitionists, destroying abolition presses, or by murderous assaults upon the free negroes of the city, who were shot down in the streets, and their quarters plundered and sacked, as if they had been the most dangerous enemies to public order. To all of these scenes Mrs. Stowe was an eyewitness. The road which passed her door was the one commonly spoken of as the " Underground Railroad ; " for it was the route over which fugitive slaves made their escape from Kentucky to Canada. 428 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. To more than one of these trembling outcasts her husband gave food, shelter, and a God-speed on his forlorn way to free- dom ; and to the sad chapter of actual experience thus gained by Mrs. Stovve, under conditions which burned its incidents and its lessons deeply into her memory, the world owes the pro- duction, a dozen years later, of " Uncle Tom." She had shed many tears over the unwritten wrongs of the slave, but she lived to see a world weeping over her touching story of these wrongs ; and, what is more, she has lived to see them redressed. " Uncle Tom" was not written, however, under the uncontrol- lable impulse of the moment. Mrs. Stowe herself alludes to the period of observation during her residence at Lane Seminary in these words : " For many years of her life the author avoided all reading upon or allusion to the subject of slavery, con- sidering it too painful to be in'quired into, and one which advancing light and civilization would live down." We know, therefore, that she did not believe herself to be appointed in any special way an advocate of the antislavery cause ; but we have at the same time no difficulty in perceiving the strong tendency of her mind in that direction from the moment the opportunity to speak out presented itself. Until then her woman's heart bore the scar of an unhealed wound. That opportunity came at last. Upon his return to New England Professor Stowe had accepted the appointment of Divinity Pro- fessor at Bowdoin, and with his gifted wife had taken up his residence at Brunswick. It was there, while occupied with the cares of a family, that Mrs. Stowe received from Dr. Bailey, of the " National Era," a request for the great story, which first appeared in the weekly issues of that paper. Having once been a victim of mob violence in Cincinnati himself, no man could better appreciate the truth of " Uncle Tom " than Dr. Bailey. He knew and esteemed the Beechers. He had read with approval Mrs. Stowe's first volume of tales, " The May- flower," which she brought out in 1849. Upon this request, which was accompanied with a check for $100, Mrs. Stowe began to write during such intervals as could be snatched from household duties. Her ambition had been aroused in its true WILLIAM CAXTON. WILLIAM CAXTON. 431 direction. She wrote on with increasing force and intensity. We are told how absorbed and fascinated she became with her theme, and with what fidelity she reproduced the scenes that had filled her womanly soul with horror and indignation. But as yet " Uncle Tom " had made little impression upon the pub- lic. The " National Era " was a partisan newspaper of limited influence, so limited, indeed, that comparatively few persons are now aware that Mrs. Stowe's great novel first saw the light in its columns. Mrs. Stowe's subsequent literary labors have been eminently productive, so much so that no woman of her century has con- tributed more to good literature than she. But our purpose is limited to the presentation of the one work upon which rests her claim to the name, not alone of a benefactor to her race, but of humanity everywhere; and with that we must remain content. WILLIAM CAXTON. [BORN 1412.! DIED 1492.] *"" INHERE are some men who have lived and worked among -- us in such a manner as to merit the name of " Bene- factors," whose legacy to posterity has been too great to be estimated, too pervading almost to be even felt. Like the immeasurably beneficial forces of nature, like the glorious sunlight, the life-sustaining heat, and water, the source and the emblem of purity, we are too much accustomed to them to be capable of appreciating them. Such is printing, the art by which these thoughts are at this very, moment being conveyed, respected reader, to your mind. Four hundred and forty years ago, or thereabouts, for exact figures are not attainable, a German, who is now con- 28 1 The exact date is not known. 432 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. ventionally recognized as John Gutenberg, discovered the art of mechanically reproducing on paper, by the use of movable types, words and pages that had previously been only engraved on blocks of wood, as books are produced in China at this day. Printing was known to the ancients and was practised by them. Paper was common enough a century or two before. For years mankind had been blundering on the verge of the great discovery of typography. Cheap books of different kinds were on sale in every country of Europe, before types were thought of. But this man, by his invention of a simple mould for cast- ing characters, provided the world with facilities for its intel- lectual advancement, useful for all time, and capable of infinite utilization. All who have visited Strasburg have seen his statue, a fac-simile of which is appropriately placed in front of the government printing-office at Paris. At the base of it stands the grand inscription, Et la lumiere fut, "And there was light." That light beamed, intellectually, from the print- ing-press as when heaven's own light burst out, materially, at the command of the Almighty. We need not recount the incidents of the life of the great proto-printer, his troubles at starting, the injustice his im- pecuniosity brought down upon him, his death imbittered by neglect, rendered the more satirical by the fact that he was the wearer of a courtier's dress. His art spread like wild-fire all over Europe. No modern inventor, even with the facilities of publication which we possess, and which were then wanting, has ever made such initial progress. Steam, railways, gas- lighting, and now the electric light, have passed through a long childhood ; printing attained its majority in a day. From France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and even Russia, it spread with a velocity reminding one of the transmission of news in Macau- lay's Ode on the Armada. It took, however, nearly thirty years to reach England. Printing was invented about 1440; it was introduced into Eng- land not before 1476 or 1477. In 1450 the whole Bible in the Vulgate Latin was printed ; a copy of it (worth about 4,000) may be seen in the British Museum. Yet for so many years WILLIAM CAXTON. 433 did England, destined to occupy so pre-eminent a place in the intellectual traffic of the world, remain without the "art pre- servative of arts." The man who brought the British nation this gift was not a professional printer, not a craftsman. William Caxton for that is our benefactor's name never, in fact, became a good printer; early English books are not to be compared for ele- gance and taste to the contemporary productions of Continental countries. But he enjoyed the grand position of being ihejfirsf printer in England, and brought over with him a blessing only comparable to that which was given to us by the first apostle of Christianity. The mind would like to dwell on the lineaments of such a man. Unhappily we have no pictorial presentment of his form and features ; the reputed portrait is absolutely fictitious. So much historical interest, however, attaches to the conven- tional likeness of Caxton that our artist has reproduced it, as well as some of the most noteworthy scenes of his labors. Nor do we know much about his life. He is not mentioned in any public document of his day; his name appears in certain deeds and books of account, but not in connection with the achieve- ment that has immortalized him. All our knowledge of him is obtained from a peculiar gossiping habit he had of interlarding his writings with biographical reminiscences and personal sen- timents. A few of these must now be referred to ; but in this sketch we avoid mere historical or statistical details, with a view to appreciate the man's mission rather than to investigate his life. He was born we do not know when in the Weald of Kent. Of the locality even we are ignorant. It was then a rude, almost barbarous country. The language was so broad as to be hardly recognizable as English. In fact, a century and a half after the nativity of onr benefactor, a topographical writer described it as " a desert and waste wilderness," " stored and stuffed with herds of deer and droves of hogs only." Caxton's father was^ probably a landed proprietor; else he could neither have given him such a good education as he undoubtedly pos- 434 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. sessed, or apprenticed him to a London mercer, which proved the foundation of his fortunes; After being at school, Caxton was sent to London, and apprenticed to Robert Large, member of the Mercers' Com- pany. The latter was, as documentary evidence proves, a man of great influence and wealth. He was a merchant as well as a mercer; and it is nearly certain that among his merchandise were books. They were, however, rare, and consequently costly ; hence the mercer's apprentice was placed in favorable circumstances to cultivate a taste for reading, which otherwise could not have been gratified without an expense obviously beyond his reach. Robert L'arge was Lord Mayor of London in 143940; in the following year he died, leaving to Caxton twenty marks, a very considerable sum in those days. We now begin to get glimpses of the career of the future printer from stray records, and find that shortly after the decease of his master he went abroad. In 1464 Edward IV. issued a com- mission to Caxton and another to be his ambassadors and pro- curators to the Duke of Burgundy, in order to arrange a new treaty of commerce. This was effected: trade with England, which had been suspended for many years, was resumed. Caxton appears to have remained abroad on the scene of his diplomatic success at Bruges. He employed his spare time in literary pursuits, and produced a book which would not, how- ever, commend itself to the taste of the present day. It is called "The Recuyell of the Histories of Troy," and was begun in 1468. It treated of chivalry, and its contents were a curious agglomeration of romance and fact, philosophy and facetiae, with a thread of pious aspiration running through the whole. The translation was handed about in manuscript, and was highly appreciated. We are now again on conjectural ground, and know not certainly how it came to be printed or by whom. Certain it was that the " Histories of Troy" was the first pub- lished book in the English language. It is not yet settled from whom Caxton learned the art or where. There are two emi- nent authorities on the subject, Mr. Blades, of London, and Mr. Madden, of Versailles. The first believes that he learned it WILLIAM CAXTON. 435 from Colard Mansion at Cologne ; the other, from Ulric Zell, of Bruges. A vast amount of controversy has ensued on this particular point. Caxton published several other books abroad, whose titles we need not specify. Suffice it to say, that after remaining out of his native land for about thirty years, he came back to London with a practical knowledge of the art of printing. In 1477 there was issued a book called " The Dictes and Sayinges of Philosophres " " Emprynted by one William Cax- ton, at Westminster." It was the first book printed in England. Caxton's press was set up in the precincts of the sacred build- ing, and there he labored up to the time of his death. His publications are very numerous, his enterprise was indefatigable, and probably his financial success was not inconsiderable. We cannot here give a bibliographical list of " Caxtons," those precious volumes now worth sums averaging ^400 and ^500 each. But we must refer to one indicative in its tone of the prevailing sentiment of its author. It was written, as we know, from the words of an apprentice who survived his master, Wynken de Worde, when the old printer was just on the verge of the grave. The title is, " The Art and Craft to know well to Die," and in the commencement are the following words : " When it is so, that what man maketh or doeth it is made to come to some end, and if the thing be good and well made it must needs come to good end ; then by better and greater reason every man ought to intend in such wise to live in this world, in keeping the commandments of God, that he may come to a good end. And then out of this world, full of wretchedness and tribulations, he may go to heaven unto God and his saints, unto joy perdurable." A very little later, in 1492, Caxton had come to his own end. Such is a very rough outline sketch of the life of a real " benefactor," not of an age, but for all time. He was not a great scholar, like some of his contemporaries ; he seems to have eschewed politics and played no part in the eventful drama of his time ; it is probable he did not die in affluent 436 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. circumstances. But his life presents a variety of lessons and suggests many thoughts. His filial affection, his earnestness, his industry, his enthusiasm, and his rectitude are not unworthy of imitation in an age like our own, apt to undervalue such virtues. His piety was tinged with mediaeval superstition, yet was unaffected and sincere. He never overrated his work, although he must have foreseen its tremendous importance and significance. England may well be proud of such a man; and although she has no monument of him in brass or stone, his memorial is universal. As was said of the great German proto- printer, his monument is "the frailest, but the most enduring, it is THE BOOK." SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN. [BORN 1632. DIED 1723 ] /CHRISTOPHER WREN was born at East Knoyle, in Wilt- ^- / shire, the rectory of his father, Dr. Christopher Wren, Dean of Windsor, on the 2Oth of October, 1632. His uncle, Dr. Matthew Wren, who was successively Bishop of Hereford, Norwich, and Ely, was eminent in the ecclesiastical history of England. He was impeached, shortly after Archbishop Laud, for his devotion to the royal cause, but was never brought to trial, though he suffered a protracted imprisonment of nearly twenty years. Cromwell, who often met the young Christopher at his son-in-law Claypole's, sent a message by the youth to the Bishop that " he might come out of the Tower if he pleased." But the Bishop utterly refused, disdaining the terms proposed for his enlargement. Wren was one of those whose future eminence was early fore- seen, and whose riper years redeemed the promise of his youth. Like all great men he manifested large general powers, a versa- tility not arising from a smattering of a vast variety of knowl- edge, but from the grasp of those common principles that CHRISTOPHER WREN. SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN. 439 underlie all knowledge, and which give the fortunate possessor not only the mastery over any special field of study, but a facil- ity of comprehension over the entire domain of knowledge. It is recorded that at the age of thirteen he -had invented an astro- nomical instrument, an account of which he dedicated to his father in a Latin epistle. This essay was followed by others of the same kind. He was in infancy and youth extremely delicate in health. Wren received his early education under his father, and at the age of fourteen was sent to Wadham College, Ox- ford, where his attainments procured him the friendship and patronage of the most eminent persons, among whom were Bishop Wilkins and the celebrated Oughtred, who in the preface to his " Clavis Mathematica" mentions Wren as having attained at the age of sixteen such a knowledge in mathematics and in natural philosophy as gave promise of future eminence. Wil- kins introduced him to Prince Charles, Elector Palatine, as a prodigy. As early as 1645 he was one of a club of scientific men connected with Gresham College, who met weekly to discuss philosophical questions, of that club from which sprung the Royal Society. More fortunate than his father and uncle, though he also lived in troublous times, he pursued his course straight to the object of his ambition while conflicting parties were exhausting themselves in acts of violence. It was not until Wren's time that the inductive process became duly understood and appreciated. It was the example of a few eminent men, of whom Wren was one, that first led the way to the adoption of the new philosophy, of reasoning gradually from particulars to thooe one step more general, and not, as formerly, adopting general positions hastily assumed from particular instances. But we must not tarry to dwell on his numerous contributions to science, microscopical, astronomi- cal, mathematical, physiological, mechanical, etc. The inven- tion of the barometer was even claimed for him. He (in conjunction with Wallis, Huyghens, Newton, Leibnitz, and the Bernouillis) occupied himself with the investigation of the cycloid, which had been discovered by Pascal. He was also 440 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. eminent as a demonstrator and anatomist, and originated the experiment of injecting various fluids into the veins of living animals. But to enter upon a detailed account of all the studies and discoveries of Wren would in fact be to give the history of natural philosophy in his age. And now we reach the history of his crowning work, the grand Protestant monumental edifice, St. Paul's. This cathedral is the triumphant record of the culmination of the Reformation in England, of religious views as diametrically opposed to those which preceded them as the architecture of the present building to that which it supplanted. This fact must be imper- atively borne in mind in the contemplated internal decoration of the cathedral. For St. Paul's is the typical monumental edifice of what may be termed England's Protestant history. From every point of vantage in the suburbs its emphatic dome points a moral and caps the vast city. Soon after the Restoration Charles II. contemplated the repair of the old cathedral, which had become dilapidated during the Commonwealth, and its choir converted into a bar- rack. In 1660 a commission was issued in which Wren was named to superintend the restoration. He was long employed in considering the best mode of effecting this. The cathedral nad been partly repaired by Inigo Jones. But all these plans and projects of restoration were upset by the Great Fire in 1666, which completed the ruin of the ancient edifice and ren- dered them impracticable. Charles had, during his residence abroad, imbibed a taste for the arts, particularly for architecture, and upon his deciding to repair St. Paul's, to reinstate Wind- sor Castle, and to build a new palace at Greenwich, had Wren sent for from Oxford in 1661 to assist Sir John Denham, the surveyor-general, who of course understood nothing about archi- tecture. Denham remained the surveyor with the salary ; Wren as his deputy performing all the duties of the office. About this date he made the design for the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford, which has a flat roof eighty by seventy feet, without arches or pillars to support it, and for the chapel of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN. 44! In 1665 Wren went to Paris for the purpose of studying its architecture and preparing himself for his grand work. From France he had intended to have passed into Italy and to study Vitruvius amidst the remains of antiquity ; but this latter intent does not, unfortunately, appear to have been carried out. At this date the Louvre was in progress, one thousand hands being daily employed on the works ; and he saw Bernini and Mansard. He surveyed all the great -buildings in Paris, and drew plans of them. In a letter he says : " Bernini's design for the Louvre I would have given my skin for, but the old reserved Italian gave me but a few minutes' view. It was a fine little draught on five pieces of paper, for which he had received as many thousand pistoles." After the nomination of the commission for building St. Paul's there arose much discussion and cavilling as to the plan. Wren's first design was to have had but one order and no side oratories or aisles, as appears in the model still preserved ; but this part of his intention was overruled by the Catholic Duke of York (James II.), who looked forward to the reinstatement of his Church ; and notwithstanding Wren protested even to tears it was in vain. Interference in matters of monumental art, irre- spective of such a motive as actuated the Duke of York, is peculiarly incidental to England, where people in general un- derstand so little of art. There is scarcely any great work of art, more especially, perhaps, of architecture, in which the artist has not been compelled to abandon somewhat of his original design. However, after considerable contention, Wren received an express order from the King to proceed ; and thirty- five years from the commencement of the building the highest and last stone was laid by Christopher, the son of the architect. Thus was this splendid edifice completed in thirty-five years by one architect, under one Bishop of London, at a cost of only ,736,000, which was raised by a small impost on coals ; while St. Peter's, the work of twelve architects, took, under nineteen pontificates, one hundred and forty-five years to build. One of the principal objections urged against the design of 442 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. St. Paul's is that Wren adopted two orders and not one, as in St. Peter's ; though this, as we have already stated, was his orig- inal intention. But Bramante could resort to the quarries of Tivoli, yielding blocks of nine feet in diameter, for the columns, whereas Wren had only the quarries of Portland, which could not supply blocks of a greater diameter than four feet, and were even of this dimension not easily procurable, on which account, and also that he might preserve the just proportions of the cornice (which Bramante by the failure of the stone had been compelled to diminish), he finally adopted the two orders. Wren took a mean proportion between the relative heights of the dome of the Pantheon and of St. Peter's, which shows its concave every way, and is lighted by the windows of the upper order that serves for the abutment of the dome itself, which is two bricks thick, every five feet having a course of bricks eighteen inches long bonding through the whole thickness. In consequence of the prejudice in favor of steeples, and that no disappointment might arise of the new church falling short of the old one, Wren, to give a greater height than the cupola would gracefully admit of, felt compelled to raise another struc- ture over the first cupola. For this purpose he constructed a cone of brick, so as to support the vast stone lantern which surmounts it. This cone was covered with an oak roof, and this again with lead in the same manner as the other parts of the cathedral. Between this outside covering and the brick cone there is a staircase to the lantern, lighted from the lantern above. The inside of the whole cupola was painted by Sir James Thornhill, under the sanction and supervision of Wren, in eight compartments. The design of these decorations is admirably adapted to its purpose, and we trust that the public will not permit it to be changed, except the figure subjects be repainted in color, as originally intended. A great deal has been said about Wren's intentions with regard to the decorations of the dome, etc. But he had proba- bly very little experience in such matters. He had never seen the great Italian examples. He certainly proposed mosaic as the method, but his own notions did not extend beyond the sug- SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN. 443 gestion of some arabesques in the cupola and figures in the lunettes under the gallery. This may be gathered from the large contemporary engraving of the cathedral by William Emmet. To so trifling an extent did his conceptions in the first instance venture in this respect that the major portion of the dome is represented in the engraving as panelled. This panelling was probably filled up in order to make an even sur- face for Thornhill's paintings. As matters of architectural dec- oration Gibbon's carvings even are out of keeping with the edifice. The charge of plagiarizing the work of Michael An- gelo which is brought against Wren is sufficiently refuted by the comparison of numerous differences, both in general design and in detail. The delight which we may conceive Wren enjoyed in con- templating the growth of the vast edifice which his creative genius had called into existence was not undisturbed or unal- loyed. Many improper persons had been appointed with him in the commission, who, having selfish interests to serve and selfish feelings to indulge, were thwarted by the inflexible hon- esty of Wren, who exposed at once both their meanness and their ignorance. This was neither forgotten nor forgiven. It was not that his enemies endeavored to retard the progress of the building only. They procured a clause to be inserted sus- pending a moiety of his pittance (200 a year) till the building should be completed. But Wren was not to be defeated by a cabal without a struggle. After having fruitlessly applied to powerful individuals, he brought his case before Parliament and obtained the justice he sought. His arrears of salary (^"1,300) were ordered to be paid. At the death of Queen Anne Wren lost the last of his royal patrons. His talents, his uprightness, and his fame were all for- gotten. The disposal of patronage in the new reign was" most corrupt. Wren was turned out of office at the age of ninety to make room for a court favorite, who was soon after disgraced on account of his dishonesty as well as his utter incapacity. Wren, as Sir Richard Steele said of him, possessed a virtue as fatal in its effects as poverty, modesty ! V 444 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. Wren retired without a murmur from the busy hard world to his home at Hampton Court, and his son states that the vigor of his mind continued with a vivacity rarely to be found in per- sons of his age. It was not till within a short period of his death that he could relinquish the great aim of his whole life, namely, to be a benefactor to mankind. His 'chief delight to the very close of his life was- to be carried once a year to see his great work. His dissolution was as placid as the tenor of his existence. On the 2$th of February, 1723, his servant, conceiv- ing that he slept longer after dinner than was his wont, entered his room and found him dead in his chair. He received the chill honor of a splendid funeral, and his remains were deposited in the crypt under the choir of the cathedral, where a tablet bears the following inscription : " Subtus conditur Hujus ecclesiae et urbis conditor CH. WREN, Qui vixit annos ultra nonaginta Non sibi sed bono publico, Lector, si monumentum quaeris Circumspice. " Wren was not only appointed the architect of St. Paul's, but for the rebuilding of the whole city after the Great Fire. Space, however, will not permit us to enlarge on his magnifi- cent project for raising a new metropolis and embanking the Thames, which was laid before the King and Parliament, but which vested interests prevented being carried out. Among his architectural works were the Monument; Greenwich Hospi- tal; Hampton Court ; St. Mary-le-bow; St. Michael, Cornhill ; St. Dunstan in the East ; St. Magnus, London Bridge ; and the celebrated St. Stephen, Walbrook. Wren was nominated to the Savilian Professorship, and created LL.D. in 1651, chosen Fellow of All Souls in 1653, appointed Professor of Astronomy in Gresham College in 1657. On the death of Sir John Den- ham he became Surveyor of the Works, and was knighted in 1674. In 1680 he was elected President of the Royal Society. He was made architect and commissioner of Chelsea Hospital, GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL EStf born February xxm MOCLXXXJX died April xi MDCCLix^g GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL. GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL. 447 and Comptroller of the Works at Windsor. He was M.P. for the borough of Plympton in 1685, and for Weymouth in 1700, and was deprived of the surveyorship of the royal works in 1718 through political intrigues. His friend and associate, Sir James Thornhill, was dismissed at the same time, and died of grief. GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL. [BORN 1685. DIED 1759 ] OF all the varied types of philanthropists, philosophers, men of science, humanitarians, and others, who have labored zealously and unselfishly for the good of mankind, there is not one, perhaps, who has rendered more signal service to all ranks and classes of society than the musician. He has not only afforded a refined and elevating occupation to thousands, not only invested the offices of religion with solace and consolation to many a troubled mind, but he has, over and over again, placed society under obligations of that peculiarly practical character, which is invariably regarded as the true test of sym- pathy with one's fellow-creatures. The assistance of his genius is enlisted for the purposes of charity more frequently than any other, not excepting that of the dramatic writer. A great ca- tastrophe occurs, a terrible fire, an appalling inundation, which deprives hundreds, it may be thousands, of their all or of their means of livelihood. The aid of Handel or Beethoven or Mozart or Mendelssohn, or others of the great brotherhood, is invoked, the works they have left us are performed, funds are raised, and the impoverished relieved and comforted. It has been finely said of the masterpiece of him whose life and character we propose 'to consider, that " it has fed the hun- gry, clothed the naked, and fostered the orphan." That this is literally true, appears from the fact that within the space of a few years the sum of ,10,300 was actually raised by 29 448 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. performances of the " Messiah," and handed over to one charity alone, the Foundling Hospital. Who can estimate the vast good that must have been directly effected in this one instance only? Enough, we may assume, at any rate, to entitle its au- thor to a high place among the "benefactors" of mankind. Like other men of genius, George Frederick Handel encoun- tered the gravest obstacles at the outset of his career. Born in 1685, the son of a hard-worked doctor in Halle, he was des- tined for the law by the latter, who viewed with the utmost dis- quietude, and even disgust, the passion for music displayed by his son almost as soon as he could speak. Accordingly all instruments were removed out of reach ; he was not allowed to visit friends who possessed any ; and he was set to learn Latin as a solid corrective to his wild ambition. The boy, however, was not to be daunted. He outwardly submitted, but contrived after a time to procure an old clavichord, which he smuggled up to his bedroom, and on which he played away in fear and trembling during the long winter nights when every one else was asleep. One day, when he was about five years old, his father set off to visit a relative at the court of the Duke of Saxe- Weissenfelds. His little son implored to be allowed to accom- pany him. The request was refused; but, nothing daunted, he started off and followed, until his father was perforce compelled to lift him into the vehicle. On reaching their destination, while Herr Handel was paying his respects at the palace, George wandered off and found his way into the chapel, where, perceiving the organ open, he promptly sat down and com- menced to play. The sounds attracted the Duke, himself a musician, and he proceeded to the gallery and discovered the boy at the instrument. At once struck with the marvellous tal- ents he displayed, and having ascertained that his father was not doing much to help him, he remonstrated with the latter, and after some little difficulty obtained from him a promise to' interfere no further with the evident bent of his son, impressing upon him that he should assist by every means in his power, instead of throwing obstacles in the way of such wonderful abil- ities. His father yielded, apparently with rather a bad grace, GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL. 449 and Handel returned to Halle in the most exuberant spirits. To such an accident was due, in all probability, his preserva- tion from a profession in which he would have lived and died a nonentity. From that auspicious moment the history of Handel is but an unbroken record of the most intense, unremitting energy. Almost without cessation from that date to the year of his death he continued to pour forth the exhaustless resources of his prolific imagination. At seven years of age he was master of the spinet; at eight he was apprenticed to Sackau, the organist of Halle, where we find him composing a sacred motet, or can- tata in eight parts, every week. He remained here four years, during which his industry and perseverance enabled him to make himself thoroughly acquainted, not only with the organ, but also with the violin, harpsichord, and hautboy. His predi- lection for the latter was very marked, as may be seen from the frequency with which he composed for it in after years. At fourteen he went to Berlin, where he attracted the attention of the Elector of Brandenburg, who wanted to send him to Italy ; but both Handel and his father demurred to this proposal. He accordingly returned to Halle, where his old master, Sackau, had, with a candor that did him credit, admitted to every one that he could do him no more good, for the pupil knew more than the master. His father dying in 1703, he went to Ham- burg; and Matheson, whom he met there, describes the effect his first public performance created, an effect heightened by the fact that in a spirit of mischief he had previously affected great ignorance. Here his public career as a composer practi- cally commenced, for on the 3Oth December, 1704, was per- formed his first opera, " Almira." It met with great success, as did his second venture, " Nero," early in the following year. A remarkable feature in Handel's character appears to have been his independence, and a certain consciousness of, and pride in, his own genius, which, though very far removed from conceit, caused him to disdain offers of assistance of a flattering nature, which most men in his position would have accepted with effusive gratitude. An instance of this occurred in 1698, 450 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. when he declined the Elector of Brandenburg's offer to send him to Italy. Having, however, in 1709 by his own industry and economy accumulated sufficient funds to take him there, he set out for the classic land of poetry, music, painting, and sculpture, and within a few months of his arrival at Venice he produced the opera of " Agrippina," which, composed at their request, was received with intense enthusiasm by the Vene- tians, and greeted with cries of Viva el caro Sassone, " Long live the dear Saxon." It had a run of thirty nights. From Venice he went to Rome, where he was fortunate enough to obtain an introduction to Cardinal Ottoboni, one of the most appreciative and generous patrons that music has ever seen in Italy or elsewhere. The Cardinal himself was a man of great musical taste, and every week the grand salon of his palace was thrown open for the performance of an instrumental concert. At these reunions Handel proved a great acquisition, and it was under the Cardinal's roof that he composed " II Trinonfo del Tempo." From Rome he went for a short time to Naples, where his " Acis e Galatea " took the town by storm. Towards the end of 1710 he returned to Germany, en route for England, and pro- ceeded in the first instance to the court of the Elector of Brandenburg, who settled on him a pension of 1,500 crowns to induce him to stay. Handel, however, was bent on England, where he perceived his genius would have abundant scope ; and the close of the year 1710 saw him in London, though he re- tained his German pension. In the spring of the next year the Elector of Brandenburg ascended the English thrpne as George I. ; and it appears that Handel, in consequence of his determination not to return to Germany, had incurred his dis- pleasure. This did not affect his reception in London, however, which was exceedingly favorable ; and an opportunity soon oc- curred which enabled him to make his peace with the King. At a water-party given by the latter, Handel, through the interest of a friend at court, obtained an opportunity during the excursion of surprising his Majesty with some exquisite music he com- posed for the occasion. So great was the King's delight with the composition, that, on hearing whose it was, he instantly GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL. 451 ordered Handel to be brought before him, and there and then conferred on him a pension of ,200 a year, which was soon afterwards increased by .200 more, when he was intrusted with the musical education of the young princesses. From 1715 to 1718 he lived with Lord Burlington, a nobleman who, disgusted with the noise and bustle of the fashionable world of London, which then centred round the Strand and Charing Cross, had built for himself, we are quaintly told, "a country mansion in the fields of Piccadilly," to which he added a beautiful chapel, on the organ of which Handel found full scope for the exercise of his wonderful powers. At this time he had begun to attract attention, and in 1719 and 1720 he had reached what was not perhaps the most famous but certainly the most enjoyable pe- riod of his life. The two latter years he spent with the Duke of Chandos at Cannons. The Duke was one of the most remarkable men of his remarkable age. Having amassed pro- digious wealth as Paymaster-General under Queen Anne, his chief ambition was to lavish it in the encouragement of art and in the advancement of the sciences. His residence at Can- nons, near Edgware, was adorned and embellished on a scale of almost barbaric splendor; and not the least remarkaBle thing about it was, that, while marble, granite, and other indestructible material figured largely in its construction, to the cost of .230,000, yet within ten years of the Duke's death there was not a trace of it to be found, a doom that had been foretold for it in the most singular manner by one who had been a frequent guest within its walls. Not far from the man- sion was a church erected in the Italian style, and here Handel was installed as chapel master. Schoelc.her relates that Dr. Pepusch was his immediate predecessor, but that the Duke, who " loved to worship God with the best of everything," one day invited Handel to play, and Pepusch, with a generosity that did him infinite credit, candidly admitted his rival's superi- ority, and resigned in -his favor. Handel accordingly took up his abode for two years with the Duke, and set to work with characteristic energy. It was here that he composed the two Chandos Te Deums and the twelve Chandos Anthems, works 452 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. among the grandest he ever wrote, but now among the least known. Indeed, it is a singular reflection that, in spite of the appreciation of the great composer shown by the present generation, so prolific was his genius that a large proportion of his best and grandest compositions. are lying at this mo- ment dormant and unrecognized. Let us hope that some enter- prising caterer for the musical public will erelong have the courage to disinter these masterpieces now lying buried amid the sands of an unmerited oblivion. Handel's operas, for in- stance, are now seldom, if ever, even mentioned, but many of them rival his oratorios in beauty; indeed, some of the most favorite airs in the latter are founded on a theme he had previ- ously conceived in an opera. His Passion Music, too, is emi- nently beautiful, and it is said he himself preferred it to the " Messiah." Handel appears to have considered that at Cannons he had reached the highest point of his fortunes. Under the protec- tion of a powerful and munificent patron, with unlimited means at his command for the cultivation of his magnificent genius to the utmost, with his reputation as the first musician of the age fairly established, he seemed to have attained the summit of his ambition. Yet, at this time, the sweet harmonies of the " Messiah," the grand choruses of " Israel in Egypt," and the touching recitatives of "Samson" had not ravished the ears and delighted the hearts of the musical world. The great master- pieces, the names of which are household words in our day, were then unconceived, and yet their author was known as the most consummate musician of the day. What a pity it is that we never hear the works which had already gained for him a European reputation ! In 1720 Handel entered upon the direction of the Royal Academy of Music, and plunged into that troubled career of operatic management which in a few years ended in grave pecuniary embarrassment, and from which he was compelled to retire in disappointment and defeat. His independence of character soon involved him in serious difficulties with the aristocratic patrons of the Italian Opera, whom in those days GEORGE FREDERICK HANDEL. 453 it was indispensable to propitiate ; and his frequent quarrels with the artists he engaged Carestini, Cuzzoni, and finally Sene- sino eventually culminated in a rival establishment being started, and an active cabal set on foot to injure him. It is not a pleasant task to recall these years of Handel's life, and we will not therefore linger over them. Suffice it to say that in 1741 he decided to leave England and try his fortunes in Ireland, whither he had been frequently invited. Accordingly, after paying a memorable visit to a friend in Leicestershire, memorable for the fact that within the marvellous space of twenty-four days he composed both the " Messiah" and " Samson," he made his way to Chester, whence, having re- hearsed the " Messiah," he proceeded to Dublin, and immedi- ately commenced a series of concerts which were well received. After a short delay the " Messiah " or, as he then called it, the " Sacred Oratorio " was performed, and produced a profound impression. After a prosperous stay of nine months in Ireland, he returned to England, and produced " Samson," which, favored no doubt by the reception of the "Messiah " in Ireland, was wel- comed cordially by the musical world of London. From this time Handel continued to produce oratorios till within a short space of his death ; but, with the exception of the two just men- tioned, they were almost entirely pecuniary failures. Nothing daunted by these repeated failures, he again plunged into the cares and anxieties of management, and with an almost incred- ible fertility wrote opera after opera, of which no sooner was one produced than it was withdrawn for the next. Many of these he considered among his finest works, but they quite failed to satisfy the vitiated musical taste of that day. Handel, however, remunerated his performers so generously that in 1745 he found himself again in difficulties, and compelled temporarily to suspend payment. Thanks, however, in great measure to the steady friendship of George II., he persevered, and, being in the enjoyment of a permanent income of 600 a year from pensions granted him by the Court, he gradually retrieved his fortunes, and spent the closing years of his life in comfort. 454 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. Time rolled on, and when past seventy Handel had the mis- fortune to become almost totally blind ; but the energy that had stood him in such good stead in earlier life did not desert him now, and the fine oratorio of " Judas Maccabaeus," composed after his misfortune had overtaken him, testified that neither his genius nor his courage had departed with his sight. He con- tinued up to the end to conduct his own oratorios at the organ, the only difference he made being to improvise the accompani- ments, the orchestra waiting for the signal of a shake from him to introduce the choruses. It must have been a touching sight to see the grand old man led on to the stage, tottering and helpless till he was seated at the organ, when, as it were, his genius would come to his aid, his imagination would take fire, and he would descant with all his old power and vivacity. His last public appearance was on the 6th of April, 1759, and he died peacefully that day week, the 1 3th, a fancy he had frequently expressed that he might die on a Friday being thus strangely gratified. He was buried in Westminster Abbey ; and amid all the mighty dead who lie there, his resting-place is not .the least illustrious. Of him it may be truly said that he devoted a lifetime to one of the most ennobling of all avocations, which he did more to ennoble than any that went before or have come since. His style will be ever memorable, no less for the loftiness of his themes than for the grandeur and simplicity of his conceptions. While his compositions attract by their sweet and touching harmonies, they inspire awe and solemnity by the majesty of their cho- ruses. In this combination Handel appears to surpass all musicians, though in elegance and brilliancy others may bear away the palm. The former are, perhaps, the characteristics which the ordinary mind can appreciate best, and they in all probability account for the popularity of those compositions of the great master in which they appear most conspicuous. He was bitterly attacked during his management of the opera, but he opposed to all the intrigues and machinations directed against him the " triple brass " of an indifference founded on a consciousness of his own genius. When person- WILLIAM HOGARTH. WILLIAM HOGARTH. 457 ally crossed, however, his outbreaks were vehement, and the presence of royalty itself never prevented the free expression of his indignation, when, during the performance of any of his works, conversation was indulged in by those present, or want of appreciation otherwise shown. But these were faults inci- dental to his bold, self-reliant nature, and as such should meet with the forbearance of the historian. Take him for all in all, it will be long ere the world looks upon his like again, long before the creations of his magnificent genius cease to move the hearts and to sway the imaginations of mankind. WILLIAM HOGARTH. [BORN 1697. DIED 1764.] ~\ /TORE than a century ago the fashion in art, in architecture, *"* and in literature was classic. W.e see the evidences in the dreary edifices of that time, and we wonder at the statues then erected of Englishmen shivering in the toga or strutting in the buskin of antiquity. Literature was even more stilted, dreary, and unnatural. When Benjamin West painted the death of General Wolfe, he scandalized the world of art critics by the innovation of representing him in the costume of the time. Hitherto most pictures had consisted of Romans or Greeks ; and when Sir Joshua Reynolds, a great stickler for clas- sicality, saw the picture, he was compelled (though after great hesitation) to exclaim, " I am wrong, and West is right." To West seems to have been given the entire credit of the reform. In this, however, William Hogarth has been overlooked, a natural consequence, probably, of the fact that he was never " fashionable." Charles Lamb has pointed out, with his accus- tomed felicity but with more than ordinary force, the intense power possessed by Hogarth in raising the humblest and most wretched scene into a subject of the highest moral interest. OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. ' He is very happy, for instance, in his description of the subject of Gin Street. He makes the remark, " I have seen many turn away from it, not being able to bear it. The same persons would perhaps have looked with complacency on Poussin's celebrated picture of the 'Plague at Athens.'" Although taste has greatly changed since Hogarth's time, and those of his works which had much of the coarseness of the period never now see the light, yet his grander productions those in which he attacked the vices and follies of the age are classed, and most deservedly, in the front rank of art. Rising from obscurity, he made a name even in the age in which he lived, when there was but little patronage for true merit. He says, in his Memoirs : " I was born in the city of London, November 10, 1697. My father's pen, like that of many au- thors, did not do more than put me in a way of shifting for myself. As I had naturally a good eye and a fondness for drawing, shows of all sorts gave me uncommon pleasure when an infant, and mimicry common to all children was remarkable in me. An early access to a neighboring painter drew my attention from play, and I was at every possible opportunity employed in making drawings." His father consulted his son's indications of talent as far as his limited means would allow, and he was articled to a silver-plate, or what is technically called a " bright," engraver. But he aspired to something better than engraving griffins on teapots, and worked with en- thusiasm to make himself a perfect draughtsman. Mr. George Augustus Sala, in his celebrated series of essays on William Hogarth, published in the early numbers of the "Cornhill Mag- azine," describes this portion of the great artist's career in a most interesting and exhaustive manner ; in fact, the whole of the papers possess remarkable power. On leaving his master he established himself in business on his own account, and con- tinued to practise the trade to which he had been bred, en- graving shop bills, coats of arms, and figures on tankards, etc. He then got employment in making designs and engraving frontispieces for publishers ; the most important of these was a set to illustrate Butler's "Hudibras," published in 1726. Soon WILLIAM HOGARTH. 459 afterwards he began to seek employment as a portrait painter. These performances were generally small family pictures, which he calls " conversation pieces." They are about twelve to fif- teen inches in height ; and as his prices were low they were very popular. In 1729 an event of a romantic nature somewhat varied his pursuits, he contracted a stolen marriage with the daughter of Sir James Thornhill, the then fashionable painter and member of Parliament. Sir James at first was furious, but after some time he relented, and a reconciliation was effected. It is said that the admiration Sir James had for a series of prints produced by Hogarth in 1731, and entitled the " Harlot's Prog- ress," was the cause of his forgiveness. These were very popu- lar and created a great sensation. Success encoUraged Hogarth to produce another set in 1735, which he called the "Rake's Progress ; " but the most popular of the whole series then, as now, was the " Marriage a la Mode." These were not engraved till 1745. For the "Harlot's Progress" twelve hundred subscribers' names were entered. The subject was dramatized in various forms, and it was even drawn on fans. The merits of the pic- tures, however, were not appreciated, and Hogarth, too proud to reduce his prices, determined to put them up to public sale ; but instead of the usual form of auction, he devised a complex plan with the view of excluding picture-dealers, to whom he had a mortal aversion (an aversion which seems still to per- meate the profession), and to induce men of wealth and position who wished to purchase to judge for themselves. But the scheme failed. Nineteen of the principal pictures produced only 427 7-r., not averaging 22 los. each. The " Harlot's Progress" passed into the possession of Mr. Beckford, of Font- hill Abbey; but five pictures were destroyed at the fire. The " Rake's Progress " was purchased by Sir John Soane, the emi- nent architect, and are still to be seen in the museum in Lin- coln's Inn Fields. "Marriage a la Mode" was sold in 1750, when only one bidder appeared, and to him they were knocked down at the preposterously low price of >\ 15 los. Mr. Anger- stein purchased them for 1,381, and they are now in the National Gallery. It would be a curious thing to know how 460 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. much they would bring at the present moment. In judging of Hogarth's talent there can be but little difference of opinion. He possessed that essential quality in a great artist of inventing his own subject, unlike many of the profession, who go to other people's brains for their pictures. In fact, whenever he had to take a subject from any one else he always failed. Evi- dence of this fact may be seen at the Magdalen Hospital, the " St. Paul Preaching." When we look at the absolute work in his pictures, it is sim- ply marvellous. The painting of the countess's head in the second picture of " Marriage a la Mode " is a wonderful speci- men of technical skill. Again, how beautifully the perspective of the background is carried ! One cannot help wondering if Hogarth really took out his perspective himself, instead of call- ing in architectural aid, as is done by some of our modern paint- ers. In a brief article like the present it is impossible to dwell long on the wondrous beauties of that one series alone ; but as long as art is appreciated, those six pictures will always be looked upon as the production of a man of the highest genius. At one time his earnings must have been wretchedly inadequate to his sustenance, and he must have made most of his income, to use a well-known phrase, from " Pot-boilers." He has left an account of his own life which contains some curious and interesting matter concerning his own modes and motives of thought. He also wrote verses, which, though containing some humor, were rugged, and in some cases coarse. His most im- portant literary work is the " Analysis of Beauty," in which he endeavored to fix the principles of taste. He struck out the idea that the fundamental form of beauty, either in nature or in art, is the serpentine line. The work shows great originality and some power of analysis. William Hogarth marks an era, so to say, in English art, and his name is undoubtedly a " household word." It seems a disgrace to his profession that the house in which he lived so long at Chiswick is going to decay. True, one artist of well-known fame, a resident in the neighborhood, tried to buy it when it was put up for auction ; but a tradesman in the vicinity, fancying from the anxiety WILLIAM HOGARTH. 461 shown by the artist that there was some unknown pecuniary value in the place, outbid him, and the country residence of the great English artist is now a dairy. The latter days of Hogarth were imbittered with his well-known squabble with \Vilkes. It was a quarrel unworthy of either the painter or the politician. He spent the summer of 1764 at Chiswick, and the quiet and fresh air seemed to revive his strength so much that all thought he would long be spared. But the amendment was only temporary, and on the 26th day of October of the same year this truly great English painter passed to his rest. The picturesque churchyard of Chiswick contains the plain tomb erected to his memory, which tomb some years ago was falling into decay, and which was, by the liberality of a lover of art, put into a decent state. How odd it seems that it is often to private generosity we have to look to keep for us the memo- rials of our great teachers ! Hogarth's great friend, the friend he had so often painted and the friend to whom he was so greatly attached, wrote the epitaph on his tomb : " Farewell, great painter of mankind, Who reached the noblest point of art, Whose pictured moral charms the eye, And through the eye correct the heart. If genius fire thee, reader, stay ; If nature touch thee, drop a tear ; If neither move thee, turn away, For Hogarth's honored dust lies here." D. GARRICK. Ruskin, the great art critic of the age, says that posterity will scarcely care about our pictures representing costume and man- ners of the Middle Ages, but will probably be much more inter- ested in pictures depicting the costume and manners of the day at the present time. Has not Hogarth proved this opinion to be right? What a source of interest it is to go through folios of his engravings, to dwell on his pictures, to study the cos- tumes, the furniture of the rooms ! He painted life as he saw it, and consequently in his work there is that quality of individ- uality which Stamps every picture that is painted from nature. 462 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. Setting aside the great artistic quality of his works, their truth- fulness, as borne out by the literature of the day, gives them for the student a peculiar value, and places them among the truly reliable sources of contemporary history. JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. [BORN JULY, 1730. DIED JAN. 3, 1795.] THERE are few lives the importance of whose bearings on industry and commerce it is more difficult to summarize than that of Josiah Wedgwood, the " father of^British potters; " and fewer still whose influence has been, and will continue to be, so widely felt. Born in an age when real art, as connected with fictile manu- factures, was next to unknown, surrounded by difficulties not easy to surmount, with ignorance to deal with on every side, and possessed of anything but a robust constitution to grapple with his many obstacles, Josiah Wedgwood, by his own indus- try, his natural genius, his keen perception for the beautiful, his innate love for science, and his own indomitable persever- ance, made for himself a name and a fame that are imperish- able, and gave that impetus to the potter's art that has resulted in its becoming not only one of the most beautiful, but assur- edly the most important and successful, of British branches of industry. He came into the world a member of a family of em- inent potters, in the midst of a district consecrated to that art, at a time when rapid strides had begun to be made in the form and the decoration as well as in the " body " of various wares ; and he devoted himself untiringly, throughout his long and busy life, to the improvement and development of that art, with a result that was as rapid as it has been firm and enduring. Starting in life the youngest of a family of thirteen children ; losing- his father, Thomas Wedgwood, the well-to-do potter of 30 JOSIAH WEDGEWOOD. JOSIAH WEDGWOOD. the Churchyard Works at Burslem, when only nine years of age ; apprenticed at the age of fourteen to his brother Thomas for five years; afflicted with illness and incapacitated from much bodily labor during his apprenticeship; thrown on his own resources when only a little over nineteen with a legacy of twenty pounds to start in life ; entering into partnership first with Harrison, a practical potter, and next with Whieldon, the most eminent potter of his day, and with whom he produced many new varieties of wares and glazes ; commencing business entirely on his own account, and working energetically at his trade, Josiah Wedgwood found his genius and enterprise so well rewarded that he gradually increased his operations until they resulted in the founding of a new village, " Etruria," by him, and the establishment of a trade that has been of imme- diate practical benefit to thousands of people in the district, and, collaterally, to the whole of the civilized world. He thus, by improving and assisting to develop an important branch of industry, and by his many and valuable inventions and discoveries connected with that art, became a benefactor to mankind, and sowed the seeds from which have sprung England's proud pre-eminence in ceramic art. But it was not only in pottery that Wedgwood benefited mankind. He did much to improve the roads in his native county " as a means to the end " of developing its trade, and he was one of the most energetic of the promoters and sup- porters of water communication by means of canals between town and town. In conjunction with his friend Brindley, and with the incentive of the Duke of Bridgewater's success and his ultimate aid, the " Grand Trunk Canal " was formed, and the proud task of cutting the first sod was assigned to him. " If for no other reason," it has been remarked, " the part he took in carrying out to a successful issue the scheme of canal commu- nication, to which undoubtedly the Staffordshire Potteries owe their prosperous increase, would fully entitle Josiah Wedgwood to the thanks of his country and to be ranked among the fore- most benefactors of mankind." Of the character of Josiah Wedgwood it has been written 466 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. in these words, that he was " one of the most wonderful of all the ' self-made men ' a nation of great and noble geniuses has ever produced. Not only did he stand out as a clear statue from the men of his own time, but in high and bold relief from those of every time and every age. Original in thought, far- seeing and clear in his perceptions; with a mind capable ot grasping the most difficult problems and working them out to a successful issue ; with a firmness of purpose and a determina- tion which carried him safely through all his schemes ; a power of wrestling with and overthrowing every obstacle which came in his way; a genius which soared high above his fellow- laborers in art, and led them on to success in paths unknown to them before ; with an energy, a perseverance, and an industry which never flagged ; an unswerving fixedness of purpose which yielded not to circumstances, however adverse they might seem ; with a heart warmed by kindliness, goodness, and charity to all men, and a mind imbued with that true religion, a conscientious discharge of his duty to God and man; with a strict probity and a scrupulous adherence to all that was honorable and right, Josiah Wedgwood hewed out for himself a path through the world-jungle which surrounded him that led him to the highest point of worldly prosperity, and earned for him a name which has been, and always will be, received with honor." It is not always that laudation on tablet or tombstone is deserved by those whose memory is intended to be perpetuated, but in the case of Josiah Wedgwood the lines in Stoke Church were truly merited. The tablet, besides bearing a Portland and an Etrus- can vase, has a sculptured medallion of the " father of potters," Josiah Wedgwood, " Who converted a rude and inconsiderable manufacture into an elegant Art and an important part of national commerce. By these services to his country he acquired an ample fortune, Which he blamelessly and reasonably enjoyed, And generously dispensed for the reward of merit and the relief of Misfortune. His mind was inventive and original, yet perfectly sober and well-regulated ; JOHN FLAXMAN. JOHN FLAXMAN. 469 His character was decisive and commanding, without rashness or arrogance ; His probity was inflexible, his kindness unwearied ; His manners simple and dignified, and the cheerfulness of his temper was the natural reward of the activity of his pure and useful life. He was most loved by these who knew him best, And he has left indelible impressions of affection and veneration on the minds of his family, who have erected this monument to his memory." JOHN FLAXMAN. [BORN 1755. DIED 1826.] " r I "HE uneventful lives of artists " is a common platitude, - whereas the execution of grand works in painting and sculpture is among the greatest events in history, and the thinking world shows that it considers them to be so by its undying appreciation. Of all the eventful history of mediaeval Italy, its art events are beyond all compare the greatest; and now that all her stage properties and pageantry are rele- gated to oblivion, her poets and artists reign supreme. To common minds an event is only some occurrence which strikes them between the eyes of consciousness with mischievous vio- lence. Such passively witness the virtue of the modest and unobtrusively progressive, but pass it by with very slight, if any, consideration. Thus it was with the genius of John Flax- man, whose life was in the better sense of eventfulness grandly eventful, but who was allowed to enter into a European fame before Englishmen had at all adequately recognized what man- ner of man they had as a glorious possession. In forming an estimate of Flaxman's genius, we must not lose sight of the nature of his constitution ; his delicate frame 470 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. emancipated his intellect, and left it supreme. His works, there- fore, although they manifest to the full a spiritual and concep- tive excellence, often lack, especially the larger, some degree of physical completeness. This is a defect ; for perfect art, as the perfect manhood, consists in the combination of the two. Art to be complete must be perfect in both form and spirit. It is useless to urge that the intellectual conception is, in all the arts, the " better part;" for should a beautiful thought be imperfectly embodied, it is sent forth halt and limping to the world, and fully justifies the reproaches of criticism. To note a fine thought would be sufficient if the different arts did not demand special forms of expression, and perfection in those forms. But such a spirit as that of Flaxman descending upon an art which had been, till his coming, of the earth earthy, breathed into it at last the breath of life, and for this benefac- tion we must be devoutly thankful. John Flaxman was born in York, July 6, 1/55. He did not, as many celebrated artists have done, work his way from some uncongenial sphere to art, but was early and quietly in- ducted into his profession, and must have very early become acquainted with the technique of sculpture through his father, who was employed for many years by the sculptors Roubillac and Scheemakers as a moulder, and who himself kept a shop for the sale of plaster figures from the antique. This shop was the young Flaxman's first art-school, for the delicate boy very early took to the pencil and to kindred studies. As he ad- vanced in years, and improved in health and strength, he seems to have resolved to become a sculptor, and in due course became a student of the Royal Academy. One of the earliest to recognize the boy's talents was the Rev. Mr. Mathew, to whose wife, a gifted and agreeable woman, he was soon after introduced. He was some eleven years old when he first saw this fascinating lady at her house in Rathbone Place, where thenceforth he frequently repaired to hear her read Homer and Virgil, and discourse upon sculpture and verse. Here he was encouraged to study the classics. However, there is no evi- dence that he ever attained to any great proficiency in these JOHN FLAXMAN. 471 studies. His education was of a very desultory kind ; he attended no college, and distinguished himself in no eminent seminary; he gathered his knowledge from many sources, and mastered what he wanted by some of those ready methods which form one of the strongest proofs of genius. It is said that while Mrs. Mathew read Homer he sat beside her making sketches of the subjects of such passages as caught his fancy. These juvenile productions are still preserved. The taste dis- played in them induced Mr. Crutchley, of Sunning Hill Park, to commission him for a set of six drawings. The praise be- stowed on those early and imperfect works was grateful to the young artist. In his fifteenth year Flaxman became a student of the Royal Academy. In 1770 he exhibited a figure of Neptune in wax, and in 1827 the statue of John Kemble in marble. These were his first and latest works, and between them lies a period of fifty-seven years, intensely devoted to the pursuit of sculpture. He was soon known at the Academy as an assiduous and enthusiastic student. His small slim form, his grave and thoughtful looks, his unwearied application and undoubted capacity, won upon the hearts of all. who watched him, and he began to be spoken of as one from whom much was to be expected. Among the students his companions were Blake and Stothard. During his teens he made some attempts with oil colors, and it is said with such success that one of these was afterwards sold as the work of an old master. After gaining the silver medal he entered the contest for the gold with one Engleheart, and lost. The general opinion was in favor of Flaxman's work, but the Royal Academy approved and rewarded his rival's. Flaxman, although somewhat morti- fied, redoubled his exertions. But he had now to win his bread, and to turn somewhat aside from the paths that he most loved. It is as well, perhaps, that men of imaginative genius should serve an apprenticeship in the rough workshop of the world. During this period he designed and modelled for the Wedg- woods. This employment was so far profitable that it main- tained him ; but then he was a frugal person. From boyhood 47 2 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. to old age he lived the same quiet, simple, secluded sort of life, working by day and sketching from the Bible, the " Pilgrim's Progress," and the poets, and reading by night. During the ten years which preceded 1782, Flaxman exhib- ited some thirteen works at the Royal Academy, including por- traits in wax and terra-cotta, also a sketch for a monument to Chatterton. The subjects were " Pompey after his Defeat," " Agrippa after the Death of Germanicus," " Hercules with the Poisoned Shirt," " Acis and Galatea," the " Death of Caesar," etc. All were less than half life, and none of them were trans- ferred to the marble, which would have been the case if patron- age had smiled. In 1782 he quitted the paternal roof for a small house and studio in Wardour Street, there collected casts from the antique, etc., set his sketches in order, and took unto himself a wife, Ann Denman. She was amiable, had a taste for art and literature, and was an enthusiastic admirer of his genius. When the old bachelor, Sir Joshua Reynolds, heard of the mar- riage, he told Flaxman that he was ruined as an artist. Upon this he resolved to visit Rome, and to negative Sir Joshua's prediction. Between his marriage and departure for Italy he exhibited seven works, among these the monuments to Collins the poet and to Mrs. Morley, the one for Chichester and the other for Gloucester Cathedral. Having disposed of all his works, he set off for Rome in the spring of 1787. In Rome he was naturally struck with the beauty of the remains of ancient art as well as with the grandeur of the mod- ern. Flaxman, fully understanding the motive of mediaeval Italian art, conceived the design of devoting his powers to the Protestant cause, and the greater and most noble portion of his works bear the impress of this resolve. His life-work was sym- bolized in his St. Michael beating down Satan ; very many of his works illustrate, in various forms, the triumph of Good over Evil. In such designs his genius was pre-eminent. It was in Rome that he executed his famous outline illustra- tions of Homer, ^Eschylus, and Dante, which have earned for him a European reputation. Patrons now began to make their appearance. For Mr. Thomas Hope he executed a group JOHN FLAXMAN. 4/3 of Cephalus and Aurora; for the eccentric Frederick, fourth Earl of Bristol, a group of four figures of heroic size, represent- ing the fury of Athamas, for the ridiculously inadequate sum of 600. He next undertook the restoration of that splendid torso, the " Torso," which is generally supposed to be a frag- ment of a Hercules. The remains of ancient sculpture in Italy engaged not a little of Flaxman's attention. He made many drawings, and still more numerous memoranda, subsequently embodied in his lectures on sculpture. After spending upwards of seven years in Rome, thus assidu- ously working as well as comparing the extravagance of Bernini with the temperance of the antique, and in disciplining his eye in a severe school, having during this time been elected member of the Academies of Florence and Carrara, Flaxman prepared to return home. On his arrival he found Bacon, Nollekens, and Banks fully employed. He took a house in Buckingham Street, Fitzroy Square, erected shops and studios, and made his reappearance in England known by his monument to the Earl of Mansfield, which had been commissioned while he was in Italy. For this fine work, erected in Westminster Abbey, he received 2, 500. During the progress of this monument he wrote the poem and made the designs which he dedicated in a book to his wife. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1797, and in his forty-fifth year full Academician. Then in succession came the monuments to Sir William Jones for Oxford ; his proposal for a statue of Britannia, two hundred feet in height, to be placed on Greenwich Hill; the noble works, the monuments in memory of the family of Baring, embodying the words, "Thy will be done," "Thy kingdom come," " Deliver us from evil; " those to Mary Lushing, Mrs. Tighe, Edward Balme, and the Rev. Mr. Clowes, of St. John's Church, Manchester. Flaxman executed also several historical monuments, but these are not his ablest works. They were embodiments of paragraphs from military gazettes, done in marble, in which British Lions, Vic- torys, and Britannias, the usual properties, extensively figured. Much of his poetic invention forsook him when he approached 474 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. modern subjects. The statue of Howe, in St. Paul's, was so clumsy, that after its erection months were consumed in chisel- ling it down. He adopted a perilous course in working his marbles from half-sized models. His physique may have led him to this. Latterly, however, he became sensible of the dis- advantages of such a course, and modelled the group of the Archangel overcoming Satan of full size. Among his statues were those of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir John Moore, and Pitt. But space does not permit the enumeration of all his works, which may be divided into four kinds, the religious, the poetic, the classic, and the historical. In each of these he has left specimens which give him high rank, but in all of them he has not attained the same degree of excellence. In the historical he was embarrassed with the unpoetic costume of those days of buttons and capes ; in the classic he was compelled to follow the antique ; but in the poetic and the religious he has been surpassed in purity and simplicity by no modern sculptor. His religious compositions consist of groups and figures embodying moral and spiritual passages from Scripture ; they are gener- ally of moderate dimensions, carved in moderate relief, sketches in plaster and in outline. Of these there cannot be less than a thousand. It was a wish that possessed him early in life to dedicate his genius to morality and devotion. That he did not accomplish all that he wished in this direction was the fault of the age, not his. We cannot, however, dismiss a partial enu- meration of his work without mentioning his famous bas-relief of Mercury and Pandora, and the alto-relief of the " Deliver us from Evil." The original models of many of his fine works, including the St. Michael, together with numerous drawings, are collected in the hall of University College. In 1811 he delivered the first of his course of lectures on sculpture at the Royal Academy. Mrs. Flaxman died in 1820, and from this bereavement some- thing like a lethargy came over his spirit. He was now in his sixty-sixth year, and surrounded with the applause of the world. His studios were filled with commissions; among these was that of the Archangel Michael, already alluded to, and the JOHN FLAXMAN. 475 famous Achilles' Shield, designed for Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, the eminent silversmiths. The exhibition of mind in works of art is, as we have ad- mitted, the "better part; " but it is only a part, the grander and nobler part, but not the whole. Material blemishes may be regarded with leniency in works thus endowed, but for the absence of intellect there is no redemption. It was in that intellectual and " better part " that Flaxman was pre-eminent, and this pre-eminence gained for him the admiration of the civilized world, and the title of public benefactor. It was on the 2d December, 1826, that a stranger called upon him to present a copy of a work entitled " Al Ombra di Flaxman," which its author had no sooner published than he found to his consternation that the great artist was living, and had now sent through his envoy a copy and an apology. Flax- man smiled and accepted the volume with unaffected modesty. On that day the great sculptor was well and cheerful ; but the next Sunday he went to church, felt himself suddenly affected with cold, refused all medicine, and went to bed. An inflam- mation of the lungs was the result of the cold, and all attempts to arrest the deadly malady were in vain. On Thursday, the 7th December, 1826, he died without a struggle, and on the 1 5th of the same month he was buried with artistic honors in the churchyard of St. Giles in the Fields, the Flaxman whose remains deserved a tomb in either Westminster or St. Paul's. IV. DISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. [BORN circa 1435. DIED 1506.] TT has been said, not without considerable show of truth, that -*- the man deserving most gratitude from the human race is he who shall have made two blades of grass grow where but one grew before. Of course, the adage seeks to inculcate the enormous benefit conferred upon his species by a judicious promoter of agricultural industry; and seeing that the cereals, the suppliers of the " staff of life," ^are, after all, themselves but grasses, it may be allowed that the statement is not an overstrained one. Carry out the proposition to its logical se- quence ; and if the man who increases the fertility of lands already known be worthy of praise, what may not be said of one who gives to his fellow-men new and luxuriant territories, where labor may put forth fresh energies in a new field, and the overstocked populations of older countries may find a profit- able sphere for the employment of those forces which at home would become useless, if not positively harmful, for want of a fitting scope? So far as the great mass of mankind is' con- cerned, it may well be doubted whether any men have more greatly conduced to the temporal good of society at large than those great explorers who, by their discoveries in past years, have wellnigh doubled the area of the known world, and knit together lands already known to their predecessors, but sepa- rated by the difficulties of travel almost as widely as though they had not existed for one another. Such names arise to the mind as those of Sebastian Cabot ; Prince Henry the navigator, to whom the world first owed its knowledge of the West Afri- can coast; Nunez de Balboa, unhappy discoverer of the South 481 482 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. Sea ; Bartolomeo Diaz, who changed the terrible Cape of Storms into the Cape of Good Hope, and so opened up Oriental com- merce; but first and readiest of all comes that of the great Genoese, Christopher Columbus, to whose undaunted resolve the world owes the final possession, in any practical sense, of the great continent of North America, now one of the main grana- ries of the earth, so that, after all, the praise awarded to him may in a sense be referred to the saying with a mention of which we started. Christopher Columbus, or Colon, the more generally ac- cepted name being only a Latinized form of his patronymic, after a common fashion of that day, was of humble, if not of low origin, and was born in or about the year 1435. Like other great men, divers towns have contended for the honor of having given him birth, among which, perhaps, the best claim was put forward by Cuccaro in Montferrat ; it is, however, now pretty firmly established that Genoa has the true right. Simi- larly, the occupation of his father has been under dispute ; whether he was a weaver, as some say, or only a bargeman, as others think, it is certain that he contrived to give the boy what was, for his station, an unusually liberal education, including Latin, geometry, and astronomy. His seafaring life, which began about his fourteenth year, was at first confined to coast- ing trips in the Mediterranean ; but as his age increased his voyages extended to the North Seas, where the Icelandic trade was then in a flourishing condition. To this succeeded a more adventurous kind of service under a noted corsair of his own family, who ravaged the neighboring seas, making impartial war alike upon Venetians and Mahometans. This was brought to a summary close by the destruction of his ship, which caught fire in an engagement; and the young Columbus saved his own life by swimming. We next find him settled in Lisbon, where his brother Bar- tholomew was already living as a maker of charts ; and shortly after he was married to the daughter of Palestrello, one of the sea-captains who had been employed by Prince Henry of Por- tugal, called " the navigator," to whom reference has already CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 483 been made, and the results of whose discoveries now opened a field for the employment of Columbus's energies during several following years, when he was chiefly occupied in trading with Madeira, the Canaries, and adjacent settlements. Owing to his matrimonial connections, great opportunities had been afforded him of studying such maps and other records of African dis- covery as had been made in connection with former Portuguese exploration ; and the result, coupled with his own observations during his trading voyages, was a settled conviction, not only of the existence of hitherto unknown lands in the far West, but of the possibility of reaching the East Indies, then the great end of Portuguese commerce, by other than the circuitous route round the Cape of Good Hope. Having formulated his ideas, the next step was to find a power able and willing to assist him in carrying them out. The Republic of Genoa, to whom, actuated by patriotic motives, he first proposed the scheme, declined it, influenced both by parsimony and a lack of enterprise. His next application was made to the then reigning King of Portugal, Don John II., who received him gra- ciously, and referred the plan to a committee. The individuals of whom this consisted, actuated by base motives, contrived surreptitiously to fit out a small expedition, which secretly started, furnished with copies of Columbus's own charts, upon the course proposed by the navigator himself, with the in- tention of forestalling him. The attempt, however, proved abortive, and the vessel returned to Lisbon. So incensed was the great navigator, on hearing of this treachery, that he at once transferred his offers to the Court of Spain, whither he pro- ceeded, despatching his brother at the same time to England to make overtures to Henry VII. similar to those which he him- self was making to Ferdinand and Isabella. The latter were for some time held in abeyance, and ultimately rejected, owing chiefly to the engrossing nature of public affairs, Spain being embroiled in the war with the Moors ; consequently Columbus prepared to start for England, where Bartholomew, after a lengthened captivity among pirates, had at last received favor- able entertainment. But a new mediator interposed in the 484 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. person of a Franciscan dignitary, Juan Perez de Marchena, who, taking up the cause from feelings of friendship no less than from national pride, worked so hard for the advancement of the scheme that Queen Isabella herself undertook its advocacy. Partly owing to the over-caution of Ferdinand and partly to the parsimony of his advisers, rejection once more ensued, and the project of application to England was resumed. At this critical juncture the fall of Granada put an end to Spanish embarrass- ments, and, some wealthy patrons of Columbus having at the same time come forward in his behalf, a treaty was finally signed in April, 1492. By this he was appointed High-Admiral of Spain in all seas he might discover, as well as Viceroy in all new islands or. continents. A tenth part of all accruing profits was settled upon him and his heirs in perpetuity, and, in con- sideration of the advance of one eighth of the necessary ex- penses of the expedition, he was also to receive an equitable share in all commercial advantages to be gained. On the 3d of August, 1492, Columbus at length set sail from the port of Palos, in Andalusia ; the tiny fleet which was to accomplish so great a revolution in the world's history consist- ing of no more than three caravels, manned by one hundred and twenty men. After a run to the Canaries, where a delay was made for the purpose of refitting, he once more started, steering due west, on the 6th of September. Scarcely had they lost sight of land when the crew became uneasy, both at the novel variation of the compass and at the unaccustomed aspect of the unknown sea into which, driven by trade-winds, they were careering. For three weeks the spirit and indomitable cheerfulness of their commander kept them under partial control ; but at the end of that time there broke out an open mutiny, which it required all the diplomacy of Columbus to quiet for a time ; indeed, threats were made against his life should he persist in the voyage. Shortly after this, insurrection made new head, and became so formidable that the commander was forced in self- defence to promise a return home should land not be dis- covered within three days' time. It was on the night of October 1 1 that Columbus, gazing anxiously towards the CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 485 west, perceived a moving light, and almost immediately a cry of " Land ! " was raised. A complete revulsion of feeling followed on the part of the crew, and their commander was now hailed as little short of a divine leader. This first-discovered land proved to be an island, one of the present Bahama group. It was taken formal possession of for the crown of Castile and Leon, under the name of San Salvador. Among other dis- coveries made during this first voyage were the large islands of Cuba and Hispaniola, on the latter of which now known as San Domingo Columbus established a garrison, and, taking with him a few of the natives, together with samples of the indigenous produce, started for Spain. On the way the little fleet, already weakened by the loss of one vessel, was nearly cast away in a tempest, but finally sought shelter at the Azores, and, after touching at Lisbon, reached the port of departure exactly seven months and eleven days from the time when it had set out. The rejoicings in Spain, as may be imagined, were great. At a court held at Barcelona all the stipulations origi- nally made by Columbus were ratified, his family was ennobled, and he himself was appointed to the conduct of a new expedi- tion on a vastly la*rger scale. This, which left Cadiz on the 25th of September, 1493, comprised seventeen vessels, on board of which were fifteen hundred souls, numbering among them certain men of family, who proposed to push their fortunes in the new country. A more southerly course than on the for- mer occasion led to the discovery of the Leeward Islands, then inhabited by the fierce race of the Caribs ; but on reaching Hispaniola it was found that the natives, irritated by the mis- conduct of the Spanish garrison, had risen and massacred them. Columbus declined to undertake retaliatory measures, but established a stronger settlement, to which he gave the name of Isabella, in honor of his patroness ; and, having reduced matters to greater order, once more departed, leaving his brother Diego as governor of the island. The discovery of Jamaica followed, and on his return the high-admiral met with his brother Bartholomew, who arrived with reinforcements and supplies from Spain. The Indian war -which succeeded 486 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. resulted in an almost total subjugation of the native tribes, many of whom were reduced to servitude, while from all heavy tribute was exacted. During.this period the enemies of Columbus had not been idle, and the accusations against him had become so serious that he resolved to plead his cause in person. Therefore, leaving Bartholomew as his adelantado, or lieutenant-governor, he set out for Spain, where he arrived, after severe hardships, in 1496. After many delays he con- trived to reassert his influence with the sovereign, his native prudence and calmness being greatly aided by his presents of gold and other treasure ; so that he once more took his depart- ure in high favor, in May, 1498, with a squadron of six ships. This third journey, however important in its results, was less satisfactory at the time. Trinidad was discovered, as well as some portions of the South American coast; but mutiny and discontent at San Domingo occasioned the admiral fresh anxie- ties, and his life was once more imbittered by the intrigues of his enemies, who at length contrived to influence even Isabella against her former favorite. First of all, his assured rights were interfered with by a new grant of exploration to his rivals, Alfonso d'Ojeda and Amerigo Vespucci. This was fol- lowed by a revocation of his commission as viceroy. Fran- cesco de Bovadilla, who was sent out in his room, had the arrogance to send both Columbus and his brothers home in irons. But the act proved his own ruin. He was disgraced, while his victims were liberated and rewarded. Still the former honors were not restored, which so worked on the feel- ings of Columbus that he ever after preserved his fetters as a memento of injustice. It seemed as though his star was on the wane. His last voyage began in May, 1502; and the first incident was a terrible hurricane, occurring soon after his ar- rival at San Domingo, in which a treasure fleet starting for home, and the departure of which he had vainly attempted to delay, was almost entirely lost. True, his own fortune was saved, while Bovadilla and other of his bitterest enemies per- ished ; but even this event was made the cause of charges of sorcery against him. Then came his disappointment in not CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 487 finding the strait which he had hoped existed near Panama, and shipwreck on the island of Jamaica, whence he was only rescued, after a period of the greatest misery, by a fleet from Hispaniola. At length, reaching Spain with one solitary vessel, he found, on landing at San Lucar in December, 1504, that Queen Isabella was dead ; and from her surviving consort, Ferdinand, he could obtain no redress, and had even to undergo the insult of being offered a pension in exchange for his former dignities. So, broken down with disappointment and illness, Columbus breathed his last at Valladolid, on May 20, 1506, his death being distinguished by the same piety and calm faith which had marked his life. King Ferdinand, actuated possibly by remorse, honored his body with solemn obsequies, and con- firmed, though tardily, the rights of his family. His remains, originally deposited at San Domingo, were transported in the year 1795 to the cathedral of Havana, in the island of Cuba, where they now repose. " America," says M. Henri Martin, " ought to bear no other name than that of Columbus. Posterity has been equally unjust towards Columbus with the crown of Spain : the latter refused him the just recompense of his labors ; the former has denied him the honor of naming the world that he found. The Florentine, Amerigo Vespucci, has robbed the great Genoese of his glory by the most gigantic fraud that history records. Amerigo having made, in 1499, a voyage to the coast of the new continent, seen the previous year by Colum- bus, pretended to have anticipated Columbus by a year, whom he had in fact only followed. His letters, addressed to such illustrious personages as Lorenzo di Medici and the Due de Lorraine, had a vast publicity ; that to the Duke was printed at St. Die in 1 507, and the Lorraine editor thereupon proposed to give the name ' America ' to the fourth part of the globe, which he believed Vespucci had discovered. This proposal, made by an unknown person in an obscure corner of Lor- raine, has been universally adopted, to the end that nothing should be wanting that might make the unhappy destiny of Columbus complete." 488 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. WALTER RALEIGH. [BORN 1552. BEHEADED OCT. 29, 1618.] T TISTORY, clothed as with cloth of gold in the "spacious *- *- times of great Elizabeth," turns ruefully to grope among the shameful chronicles that make up the reign of her successor. Few meaner figures have disgraced the throne of England than that crowned buffoon. Even James I., -however, has his uses. The weakness and folly of the effeminate pedant serve to bring into bolder relief the heroic qualities of the manlike queen. As we read of fleets and armies disgraced abroad and despised at home, we turn with a prouder attachment to the days when the lion-voice of Elizabeth defied the whole might of Catholic Eu- rope; when English soldiers triumphed in the Netherlands and English sailors humbled the pride of Spain on every sea ; when Drake with a few small vessels circumnavigated the world, and Raleigh sailed boldly forth to discover unknown lands. The last great name is imperishably associated with the glory of Elizabeth and the shame of the mock Solomon-who succeeded her. Ever puzzled how to deal with heroes, James could make no better use of the discoverer of Virginia than to murder him. Towards the end of 1616 Walter Raleigh had been for twelve years a prisoner in the Tower. An English Damocles, his living death had compelled him to behold the axe of the exe- cutioner continually suspended above him by that frail thread, a king's caprice. One ray of sunshine, in the shape of his de- voted wife, alone lightened his captivity and brightened his lot. A mournful household must it have been at best. Great was her love who could endure to look, morning after morn- ing, into the eyes of her husband, and dread lest before another sun rose the blow of the headsman should have sealed them forever to this world, and her affection there. At the WALTER RALEIGH. WALTER RALEIGH. 491 date, however, when our fancy transports itself to Raleigh's prison, the expectation of deliverance had come, like a guest from heaven, to the hearts of its two inhabitants. Money, poured forth like water, had purchased the intercession of the King's new favorite, the contemptible Villiers, and a pardon was already promised. His thirst for adventure reawakened, the veteran explorer hoped in a few months to set sail with a squadron for Guiana, in search of the gold-mines which he had persuaded himself and the court existed there. Just while he is most occupied with the project, a new prisoner enters the Tower; and Raleigh, looking one day from his grated window, sees led into the gloomy fortress the ever-infamous Carr, Earl of Somerset, now under sentence of death for the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury. Sir Walter turned to those who stood gazing with him on the scene, and expressed the sentiments it inspired in him. " The whole history of the world hath not the like precedent," said he, " but in the case of Haman. and Mor- decai. A king's prisoner to purchase freedom, and his bosom favorite to have the halter ! " Some parrot of the Tower, in the shape of an obsequious courtier, hastened with the words to the King's ear. James listened, and smiled maliciously. " Raleigh may die in that deceit," said he. Before two years were over Carr, a wretch many crimes worse than Haman, had escaped, by favor of the King, the gibbet he richly deserved, and Raleigh, the English Mordecai, had been foully put to death. Britannia may well turn with shame and loathing from the record of this great man's fate. One of the most gallant spirits of his age, he had a patriotism that was as sagacious as ardent. Chiefly to Raleigh do we owe it that the Spanish Armada was met while still at sea. He urged that ships could be moved from point to point more swiftly than soldiers. The whole land-forces of England would not, if assembled for the defence of her coasts, prevent a daring and skilful invader from landing in whatever quarter of the realm he pleased. to select. The best defences of the island were its fleets. With the Channel for an arena and its havens to cover them, English seamen might demolish piecemeal the mightiest armament that even Spain 49 2 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. could place upon the ocean. The wise counsels of the Devon- shire hero prevailed. A goodly array of vessels was provided. The elements fought on the side of English valor ; and a few months later there remained nothing of the Armada so haughtily misnamed Invincible, save the triumphant deliverance of the realm it had menaced, and the deep disgrace that blackened the renown of Spain. In the year 1588 was laid the foundation of England's naval supremacy ; and Walter Raleigh was among the greatest of the laborers who gave their souls to the work. He looks out on us from the past, an early example of the spirit of conquest that flamed forth in its crowning splendor when, two centuries later, the harbors of France and Spain could hardly contain the fleets that huddled there in inglorious safety, and the name of Nelson had replaced that of Neptune as ruler of the deep. The incidents of Raleigh's life glide before us, changeful and vivid. While still a youth, he served his apprenticeship to arms in the Huguenot wars of France, and was saved, history knows not how, from the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Deeds done in Ireland and the Low Countries, and a voyage in the company of his relative, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, acquired for him a celebrity that landed him in due time at court. The cloak said to have served as his introduction to Queen Eliza- beth has been rendered, by historians and novelists, famous as any garment tailor ever fashioned. Whether the story of his flinging it as a foot-cloth on the puddle that her Majesty hesi- tated to pass be false or true, it is certain that Raleigh's gallant bearing and thousand graces of mind and person speedily won him favor. Such a spirit, however, could not abandon itself wholly to the butterfly existence of the courtier. The prime of his life was as useful as splendid. To-day deep in chemical experiments or Rabbinical literature, the morrow perhaps saw him weighing anchor for that New World by which he was fas- cinated as by a magician's spell. Discoverer of Virginia, and planter of our first American colony, he labored with sagacious earnestness to render his country the rival of Spain in searching for and civilizing unknown lands. Some street of Richmond, CAPTAIN JAMES COOK- CAPTAIN JAMES COOK. 495 t Melbourne, or Sydney would be no inappropriate site for a statue of Sir Walter Raleigh. Elizabeth dead, the golden fortunes of the great admiral turned to dross. Wealth, lands, the jewels that made each dress he wore worth a fortune, the places and dignities that a word from him disposed of, were exchanged for a false charge of treason and a narrow cell in the Tower. After twelve years passed under sentence of death came the unsuccessful voyage to Guiana. On Raleigh's return the old condemnation was revived, and, a scaffold being prepared in Palace Yard at West- minster, two blows from the executioner's axe ended, on Octo- ber 29, 161 8, the sorrows of this gallant spirit. No man ever died with more heroic dignity. On the scaffold he asked for the weapon that was to sever the thread of his life, and exam- ined its edge. " This is a sharp medicine," said he composedly, " but it is a cure for all diseases." In his Bible he had left some lines, composed the night before his execution. They constitute the solemn farewell of a hero : " Even such is Time, that takes on trust Our youth, our joys, our all we have ; And pays us but with age and dust, Who, in the dark and silent grave, When we have wandered all our ways, Shuts up the story of our days ; But from this earth, this grave, this dust, The Lord shall raise me up, I trust." CAPTAIN JAMES COOK. [BORN OCT. 27, 1728. KILLED FEB. 14, I779-] THE isles of Greece have been sung in burning words, but the poet is yet to arise who shall do justice to the isles of the Pacific. These long-hidden paradises, the creation of coral worms and the submarine infernos we name volcanoes, suggest 32 496 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. to Europeans who visit them thoughts of Eden in the days that followed the Fall. Visions of tree and flower, resembling more nearly than any other of the scenes that make earth beautiful, the garden Adam sighed to leave, rise in tropical luxuriance before eyes that day after day have been wearied by the sight of monotonous leagues of water ; and delighted voy- agers, as they behold for the first time Fiji or Otaheite, lying lovely in the arms of Ocean, are prone to cry confidently that man must needs be innocent where all that surrounds him is so fair. A few days' experience of the supposed heaven on earth and the illusion is dispelled. The native races rank low even in the scale of heathenism. Drunkenness and those other curses that Europeans take with them to the savage tribes they visit are now rapidly sweeping them away. When a future Milton shall describe that Otaheitan Eden, to regain which the crew of the " Bounty " rose in mutwiy, he must needs select Captain Cook or some other white man for his hero. In the Otaheitan himself the epic poet would find nothing remarkable except his vices. James Cook, cabin-boy and post-captain, who, born in a clay- built hovel, of parents that never called a foot of the land they tilled their own, added by right of discovery so many square leagues of territory to the British Empire, would be no mean subject to exercise the pen of a modern Virgil. The hero who fled from burning Troy may have rivalled the hero who fell at Owhyhee in hair-breadth escapes ; but so far as extent of travel and variety of adventure are concerned Cook asserts an immeasurable superiority. Only in the cradle and the grave did he ever know much of rest ; and even his childhood gave promise of the activity by which his maturer years were marked. The spectacled dame who, with her birch beside her, taught him the alphabet and little beyond, the hard-working father and mother who placed him in charge of that dame, and a few years later apprenticed him to a haberdasher as the best means by which they could render his social condition a trifle superior to their own, found him, so far as we can learn, a troublesome lad to deal with. When little James, weary of the counter and fretted into restlessness by the neighborhood of CAPTAIN JAMES COOK. 497 the ever-restless ocean, insisted on being released from the haberdashery business and reapprenticed to two Quaker broth- 'ers, the owners of a few small collier vessels, Mrs. Cook, it is probable, wept as mothers who fear a watery grave for their darlings are accustomed to weep. Those good peasant par- ents, poor, ignorant, and loving, who had fondly and proudly hoped that their boy would one day sell stockings and yards of tape behind a counter of his own, are henceforth unheard >f in connection with their famous son. Did they die while the ungracious slowness with which the world recognizes merit was still deferring the hopes and making sick the heart of the future discoverer? Did they live to see him a post-captain and Fellow of the Royal Society, and the nine days' idol of the London world? Biography, so far as the writer has examined it, is silent on the subject. At twenty-seven Cook had so far risen in the world as to be mate of a collier brig, and saw small prospect of rising higher. While the vessel lay in the Thames there broke out that war with France which ended in the conquest of Canada. Cook, ill pleased with his condition, and conscious that it would be difficult to escape the clutches of the press-gang, avoided a forced enlistment by volunteering. By ability, energy, and sobriety he attracted the notice of Captain, afterwards Admiral Palliser, who thought him fitted for better things than a life before the mast. A master's warrant was procured, and in the Canadian expedition that bore with it the fortunes of Quebec and General Wolfe the eminent skill and daring of the pro- moted seaman were brought thoroughly to light. , Ten years later the " Endeavor," a small vessel belonging to the English navy, carried to the South Seas a party of astrono- mers and naturalists. Cook, whose talents had at length won some slender recognition, was charged with the conduct of the expedition and the care of the men of science. His difficul- ties were as great as ever seaman triumphed over. The un- known portions of the Pacific were the deserts in which the great navigator wandered. At sea his pathway was strewed with hidden rocks; if he landed, tribes of hostile savages 49 8 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. instantly beset him. At one time disturbing New Zealanders in their cannibal repast, at another witnessing the hills of Aus- tralia enveloped in a conflagration his landing had induced the* natives to kindle, Cook finally turned the prow of his vessel homewards, and fled, veritably chased by Death. The scurvy had broken out on board ; and in a few weeks the " Endeavor" was converted into a floating hospital, from which corpses were almost daily cast into the waves. His second voyage saw the now famous discoverer profit by the experience so terribly gained. To preserve the health of his crew was the task he felt incumbent upon him; and by outstripping all the other seamen of his time in sanitary science he succeeded in his desire. Cook was now in Antarctic waters. English geogra- phers of a century back fancied that a vast continent lay some- where in the neighborhood of the South Pole, a continent that it would be to the glory of their nation to discover. Charged with this impossible mission, James Cook struggled gallantly south. Through storm and darkness, ice islands ever around them, the furious wind from time to time _ driving one frozen monster against another, and causing them to split in pieces with the noise as of thunder, he and his one colleague forced forward their vessels, the " Resolution" and " Adventure." At length the "Adventure " lost her consort, and retreated north- wards. Cook, though, more than once beaten back to more hospitable regions, would hear of no final retreat till his errand had been fulfilled; and the " Resolution," faithful to her name, sought England only when the dream of a vast southern con- tinent had been utterly dispelled. Land, said Cook, might indeed lie locked in that Antarctic darkness, but it was land on which the foot of man would never tread. A third voyage was rendered mournfully memorable by the tragedy of his death. Returning from an attempt to pene- trate, by way of Behring Strait, the regions where, sixty years later, Sir John Franklin and his companions perished, Cook discovered, on November 30, 1778, the fatal island of Owhyhee. By February of the following year the dissimulation of the natives had so effectually won upon him that he trusted himself V.'" ' SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 5Or almost defenceless in their hands. His slaughter speedily fol- lowed. Assailed on the beach by a crowd of treacherous savages, he was beaten down when but a few paces from his boat, and not even his remains ever reached England. If he has not a grave in his native land, his memory still lives there. To few better beacons can English seamen look than to a man whose career was ever upward and onward, and whose devotion to duty ended only with his life. SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. [BORN 1786. DIED 1847.] T^ROM time to time the doors of Arctic prison-houses unlock before the influences of an unusually genial season, and there drift down into warmer latitudes grim relics of tragedies wrought amidst the ice. Sometimes the battered fragments of a wreck that ice-floes have caught and crushed pass from these dismal regions into the open sea. Sometimes an entire vessel is loosed from its frozen anchorage, and returns towards the land it quitted long years before, bearing with it, perhaps, a load of corpses, to testify that its crew have voyaged onwards into eternity. No mildness of the Arctic summer dawned to release the imprisoned ships that carried to their doom the crews of Franklin and Crozier. The ice, having closed upon them, held them fast; and the unhappy voyagers, conscious of their peril, but undaunted by it, could but turn away into the wilderness, to mark each stage of their journey with a grave, . and to find in those dim and untrodden wastes where the darkness of Arctic winter is broken only by the weird glitter of the northern lights, that bourn whence no traveller returns. Only the mournful letters of the dead, and yet more mournful relics of their sufferings and fate, have from time to time been discovered and brought back, in order to keep forever fresh in the 502 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. hearts of all Christian people a sorrowful remembrance of heroes who died we know not so much as how or where. As brave a heart as ever triumphed over danger beat in the breast of Franklin. When McClure, after wintering for three years among the ice, discovering a Northwest Passage, and pushing forward his ship into regions that no vessel had before entered, was forced to return, leaving the problem of the fate of Franklin still unsolved, Sir Edward Parry, himself among the most famous and persevering of Arctic navigators, thus spoke of his lost rival in Polar research: "Those who knew Franklin knew this, that he would push on year after year so long as his provisions lasted. Nothing could stop him. He was not 'the man to look back if he believed the thing was still possible. He may have got beyond the reach of our searching-parties." The last words were prophetic, though not in the sense that Parry spoke them. Franklin had indeed got far beyond the reach of any searching-party his country could send forth, and the mortal remains of a hero whose tomb would have honored Westminster had long years before been laid by the companions of his sufferings in an icy grave. He was among the most ardent of the seamen who have cherished the ambition of discovering the Northwest Passage, or battling onwards to the Pole, and who, like Sir Martin Fro- bisher, have considered such achievements the only things on earth " left yet undone whereby a notable mind might be made famous and fortunate." Twice by land and as many times by sea did he attempt the enterprise in pursuit of which he at last laid down his life. From his first voyage he and his colleague, Captain Buchan, returned with vessels that the ice had crushed till it seemed a miracle that they could float. The second of the entrances of Franklin into Arctic solitudes was effected by land. The sufferings of the travellers were intense. After feed- ing on singed hides and lichens gathered from the rocks, they were reduced at length to collect bones that the wolves had picked clean and make the wretched refuse into soup. A mor- sel of flesh, however putrid, was esteemed a luxury; and when by rare good fortune a bird had been shot, the starving wander- SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. 503 ers were but too happy to eat it raw. Leaving several of the party in the wilderness, slain by starvation and frost, the feeble skeletons that were left succeeded finally in reaching an en- campment of friendly Indians, and for the first time in months were supplied with something deserving the name of food. Even their shoes and the covers of their guns had been de- voured in their extreme want. The living death he had endured daunted Franklin not a whit. In 1825, he and the remnant of his fellow-sufferers, with one or two new companions in danger, once more struck northward from the Hudson's Bay Territory towards the Polar Sea. When the expedition left England the wife of Captain Franklin lay at the point of death. The magnets of both duty and inclination drew him northwards; affection conjured him to remain. Not only did she to whom the conflict in his mind was owing refrain from bidding him stay, but she entreated him, " as he valued her peace and his own glory," to quit England on the day appointed, nor to delay an instant on her account. She gave him, as her parting gift, a silk flag, saying that it was to be hoisted only when he reached the Polar Sea. When it was reared on the shores of Garry Island, and the cold winds of the Arctic regions first shook it out from the staff, a deeper coldness had long since numbed the hands that fashioned it. Knighted in 1829 f r his eminent services as an explorer, Franklin had married again the previous year, and was a sec- ond time happy in his wedded life. In May, 1845, he sailed from Sheerness on his last and fatal voyage. The expedition consisted of two ships, the " Erebus " and " Terror." Men and officers were in high spirits, regarding the success of the voy- age as all but certain, and their commander as the man of all men likeliest to achieve it. The vessels passed northward, were met by a whaler at the entrance to the Arctic seas, and then disappeared forever. When two years were gone by with- out any tidings of Sir John, the Government began to fit out expeditions in search of the lost adventurers. Some by way of the dangerous seas that lie between America and Greenland, some by way of Behring Strait, parties of explorers toiled for- OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. ward in quest of their endangered countrymen. The " Erebus " and " Terror," however, seemed to have vanished utterly. When McClure, from whose bold dash into unexplored regions much had been expected, returned unsuccessful, hope began to die away. A year or two afterwards Dr. Rae brought back from his overland search news that made the fate of the missing Englishmen too plain. He had met Esquimaux in whose pos- session were relics of the expedition. From their narrative it appeared that the ships had been abandoned, that many of the party were dead, and that the survivors, reduced to the last hor- rible expedient by which hunger seeks to prolong life, had wan- dered on through the Arctic desert, perishing one by one. While upon this subject, it would be unjust not to mention the efforts made by noble men of other countries to rescue the intrepid explorer. They illustrate that wondrous touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. In 1849 Henry Grin- nell, a noble and philanthropic merchant of New York, fitted out at his own expense the two vessels, the " Advance " and the " Rescue," which under the command of Lieutenant De Haven, U. S. N., sailed in the following May for the Arctic Ocean. Upon the return of this expedition from a fifteen months' un- successful search, a second was immediately organized to con- tinue it; and Dr. E. K. Kane, who had accompanied De Haven as surgeon, was selected for the command. This expedition sailed in May, 1853. It also failed to recover any traces of the lost Sir John ; but the record of heroic endurances and of the sufferings that Kane's party were forced to undergo while imprisoned in the ice excited the world's admiration and sym- pathy, useless though the sacrifice of the lives of some and the health of others proved to be. The British Government had declined to fit out further expedi- tions. The noble devotion of Lady Franklin, however, was still unsatisfied. Through her means a small vessel, the " Fox," went forth in 1857 under the command of McClintock. The voyage was destined to a mournful success. On the northwest shore of King William Land were found the grave of Franklin, and records showing that after his death the officers and men who SIR JOHN FRANKLIN. $O$ yet remained had sought to gain the American continent by way of the Great Fish River. The only shore they were des- tined to reach was that which lies beyond the last river man can pass. Franklin, as the documentary reljcs of the expedition proved, lived long enough to discover that of which he went in search. He, first of all men, lighted on a Northwest Passage. It was too ice-choked to be available, a barren discovery, of which commerce could make no use. Not so barren are the lessons of his life, that record of steady heroism, of privations unflinch- ingly endured, of devotion to duty, faithful even in prospect of an icy grave. The following anonymous poetical gem is deemed a fitting pendant to our sketch : " ' Away ! away !.' cried the stout Sir John, ' While the blossoms are on the trees ; For the summer is short, and the time speeds on, As we sail for the Northern Seas. Ho, gallant Crozier, and brave Fitzjames ! We will startle the world, I trow, When we find a way through the Northern seas, That never was found till now ! For a good stout ship is the " Erebus," As ever unfurled a sail ; And the " Terror " will match with as brave a one As ever outrode a gale.' " So they bade farewell to their happy homes, To the hills and valleys green ; With three hearty cheers for their native isle, And three for the English Queen. " They sped them away, beyond cape and bay, Where the day and night are one ; Where the hissing light in the heavens grew bright, And flamed like a midnight sun. There was nought below, save the fields of snow That stretched to the icy Pole ; And the Esquimau, in his strange canoe, Was the only living soul. 506 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. " Along the coast, like a giant host, The glittering icebergs formed ; They met on the main, like a battle plain, And crashed with a fearful sound. The seal and the bear, with a curious stare, Looked down from their frozen heights ; And the stars in the skies, with their great wild eyes, Peered out from the Northern lights. " The gallant Crozier, and the brave Fitzjames, And even the stout Sir John, Felt a doubt, like a chill, through their warm heart thrill, As they urged the good ship on. "They sped them away, beyond cape and bay, Where even the tear-drops freeze ; But no way was found, by strait or sound, To sail through the Northern seas. They sped them away, beyond cape and bay ; They sought, but they sought in vain ; For no way was found, through the ice around, To returti to their homes again ! " Then the wild waves rose, and the waters froze, Till they closed like a prison wall ; And the icebergs stood in the sullen flood Like their jailers, grim and tall. " O God ! O God ! it was hard to die In that prison house of ice ; For what was fame, or a mighty name, When life was the fearful price ! The gallant Crozier, and brave Fitzjames, And even the stout Sir John, Had a secret dread, and their hopes all fled, As the weeks and months passed on. "Then the Ice King came, with his eyes of flame, And gazed on the fated crew ; With chilling breath, as cold as death, He pierced their warm hearts through. A heavy sleep, that was dark and deep, Came over their weary eyes ; And they dreamed strange dreams, of the hills and streams, And the blue of their native skies. DANIEL BOONE. DANIEL BOONE. 509 "The Christmas chimes of the good old times Were heard in each dying ear ; With the dancing feet, and the voices sweet, Of" their wives and their children dear. But they faded away, away, away, Like the sound on some distant shore ; While deeper and deeper grew the sleep, Till they slept to wake no more. "Oh ! the sailor's wife and the sailor's child, They will weep and watch and pray ; And the Lady Jane, she will weep in vain, As the long years pass away. But the gallant Crozier, and brave Fitzjames, And the good Sir John have found An open way to a quiet bay, And a Port where we all are bound. " Let the wild waves roar on the frozen shore That circles the icy Pole ; For there is no sleep, no grave so deep, That can hold a human soul ! " DANIEL BOONE. [BORN 1735. DIED 1820.] 'T^HIS greatest of American pioneers, who with his rifle, his *- axe, and his native strength of character and purpose, reclaimed so vast a portion of the national domain to civiliza- tion, was a native of Pennsylvania. When he was only eighteen his parents removed into North Carolina, where young Boone readily fell in with the wild and free life, half savage, half civi- lized, of a hunter, explorer, and scout, a character and a career peculiar to American civilization and distinguishing it by a unique type. All the country west of the Alleghanies was then an untamed wilderness, the French alone having a few scattered trading- 510 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. posts along the course of the Ohio. Boone's thoughts, as well as his ambitions, were presently turned in this direction ; for already the impulse to separate himself from a crowding population was too strong to be resisted. He had married in North Carolina Rebecca Bryan, who proved the worthy consort of such a husband. In 1769 he with four companions set out upon a prospecting tour into the heart of this remote wilder- ness, whose great natural beauty and fertility he knew only through report. He was thirty-four when he shouldered his rifle for this long, difficult, and dangerous march. His party crossed the mountains, entered Kentucky at the southeast cor- ner, and reached Red River in June. Here from a rocky height they looked down upon an enchanting scene of far- stretching vale and noble stream, and here they resolved to pitch their first camp. The Indians having discovered the presence of the white men, Boone and one of his companions named Stuart were surprised while they were absent on a hunt- ing expedition, whereupon the others, breaking up their camp in haste, made their way back to Carolina. Boone and Stuart having fortunately eluded the vigilance of their captors, these two intrepid spirits, undismayed by the flight of their comrades, determined to hold their ground, notwithstanding all the dan- gers that surrounded them. It was now^the depth of winter. They had invaded the hunting-grounds of the fierce tribes inhabiting the country north of the Ohio, from whom no quar- ter could be expected, and their ammunition began to fail. Stuart was soon killed and scalped by the Indians; but Boone being unexpectedly joined by his brother, who had followed him from Carolina, these two Crusoes passed the winter in the Kentucky wilderness unmolested. When spring came, Daniel's brother undertook alone the long and dangerous journey back to the white settlements, while the pioneer himself, a stranger to fear, awaited his brother's return with no other companions than the bears and panthers that prowled around his solitary cabin. At this time Boone possessed a will of iron. To hold what he had come so far to seek was with him a point of honor ; yet such a resolve provokes a smile when we think of DANIEL BOONE. 5 1 ! it. Its very dangers seem to have charmed this bold spirit. To him the woods were a far more congenial dwelling-place than the haunts of men, the chase and its dangers more allur- ing than all the pursuits of civilized life. To such a man the dark and savage country he was in was an Eden, and he had decided thenceforth to make it his home in spite of the impla- cable hostility of its savage owners. It was' two years before Boone returned to his family, in order to carry out his cherished design of bringing them to the paradise he had found. In 1773, being joined by several other families, he again set out for Kentucky; but after passing the mountains his party was at- tacked in a mountain defile, dispersed, and driven back by the Indians with the loss of six men. In the combat Boone's eldest son had fallen. But Boone was not the man to be daunted by reverses. From this time until 1775 he was ac- tively furthering plans for the settlement of Kentucky. At one time he was leading a party of surveyors as far as the falls of the Ohio (Louisville) ; at another time he was helping to negotiate a treaty with the powerful and warlike Cherokees, or again assisting to mark out a road from the Holston to the Kentucky River in order to facilitate the passage of emigrants. So determined were the Indians living north of the Ohio to resist this invasion of their hunting-grounds, that after a bloody combat with them, foreseeing that the settlers must fight for every inch of ground, Boone built a block-house into which he subsequently removed his family. This was the first white habitation in Kentucky, and Boone's wife and daughters were the first white women who had stood on the banks of the Ken- tucky River. This primitive block-house was erected on the present site of Boonesborough. Soon other forts or stations, as they were called were built at different points, convenient to each other, maugurating a warfare of the most desperate and sanguinary nature with the savages, a warfare which gave to the region its significant title of the " Dark and Bloody Ground." The settlers fought with determined obstinacy and valor. On both sides blood flowed like water. Repeated con- flicts at length taught these savages the superiority of the 33 512 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. dreaded " Long-Knives." The record of these early days in the history of Kentucky is filled with deeds of daring, in which Boone always bore a conspicuous part. As was natural, the Indians put forth every effort to destroy so formidable an adversary ; but Boone's skill, courage, and good fortune, his knowledge of all the artifices of his enemies, always extricated him from perils that would have staggered any man but him- self. Unceasing vigilance was necessary to guard against sur- prise. Sometimes the Indians would assault all the garrisons simultaneously, and hold their defenders closely besieged for weeks together. Sometimes they would prowl unseen around the stations, watching their opportunity to take prisoners. During one of these affairs Boone's daughter was taken and carried off in sight of the garrison. Hastily collecting eighteen men, the father put himself at their head. In two days he overtook the marauders, suddenly fell upon them, put them to rout, and rescued his own child, together with other prisoners, who had also fallen into the hands of this particular band. On one occasion the wary backwoodsman was himself taken, while making salt at the Blue Licks for the use of the garrison. His captors first carried him in triumph to Detroit, and then back to their own chief town of Chillicothe, where they formally adopted him into the tribe as one of themselves. He was, nevertheless, closely watched. While submitting to this mark of distinction with apparent cheerfulness, Boone was constantly meditating an escape. He saved a little powder, and by split- ting in two the bullets that were given him to hunt with, but always counted when he returned from the chase, he secured the means of subsisting in the woods. And when, at length, he learned that the Indians were again getting ready to invade Kentucky, and to strike his own settlement at Boonesborough first of all, in more formidable force than they had ever before assembled, he fled. In four days he reached the fort, having travelled one hundred and sixty miles without taking rest or tasting food but once on the way. This remarkable exploit proved Boone to be possessed of more than an Indian's forti- tude and powers of endurance. He announced their danger DANIEL BOONE. 513 to the settlers. The garrison was hurriedly put in the best state of defence possible, every man, woman, and child doing his or her utmost to this end. Early in August, 1778, the enemy appeared before the station, with four hundred and fifty warriors led by French officers. Boone had only fifty fight- ing men. He was summoned to surrender. His answer was characteristic. He would fight as long as one man was alive to defend the fort. The enemy then opened fire. For twelve days the little garrison resisted every assault. The intrepid Ken- tucky women loaded the rifles, run bullets, and nursed the wounded. Boone's daughter was wounded by her father's side. At the end of this time the besiegers retreated, with the loss of thirty-seven killed to the garrison's two. In his account of the siege Boone says, with grim humor: "We picked up one hun- dred and twenty-five pounds of bullets, besides what stuck in the logs of our fort, which is certainly a great proof of the enemy's industry." Boone took part in the memorable battle with the savages at the Blue Licks, where the Kentuckians met with the most disastrous defeat that they had ever sustained, losing sixty of the very flower of their little army. Boone's second son was among the slain, and the pioneer himself narrowly escaped death. Nothing but the heroism of a few men like Boone saved Kentucky at this time. The pioneer afterwards accom- panied General Clarke in his expedition into the heart of the enemy's country, at which time the principal Indian strong- holds in Ohio, from which the savage hordes had periodically poured down into Kentucky, were laid waste. When at last peace with Great Britain had brought this sanguinary struggle to a close, Boone led an uneventful life until 1794, when, in consequence of some defect in his title, he was dispossessed of all the lands he had acquired in Kentucky, it might be said by right of conquest. Cut to the quick at receiving such treatment, Boone shouldered his rifle, and, turn- ing his back upon Kentucky, he, like another Belisarius, took his solitary way still farther toward the setting sun. He crossed the Ohio and the Mississippi, or " Great Water," into the unexplored region watered by the Missouri, Even here 514 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. Boone's fame had preceded him. The Spanish governor of the province allotted him ten thousand acres on the Missouri, and created him Syndic of the District of St. Charles. This grant he also lost, upon the acquisition of Louisiana by the United States, because of his neglect to comply with the forms requisite to complete his title. In his old age Boone was now compelled to appeal to the justice of the people of Kentucky, in order, as he most pathetically said, to secure a resting-place wherein to lay his bones ; for he could not now claim the own- ership of a single acre. The response to the venerable pioneer's appeal was, however, as prompt as it was generous. Boone's claims being brought before Congress by the State of Kentucky secured from that body the confirmation of a thousand arpents of land in the District of St. Charles, where Boone had settled when he first went to the Missouri Valley. An eventful life was nearing its close. In 1813 Mrs. Boone died. For more than half a century, throughout all the extraor- dinary vicissitudes of her husband's career, she had been the faithful and heroic wife and mother. Boone buried her on a bluff that overlooks the turbid Missouri. He himself died in 1820 in his eighty- sixth year. His memory is perpetuated in the names of towns and counties throughout the section in which his active life was passed. All honor, then, to the name of Daniel Boone ! Though not in any sense great, he was one of those men who seem appointed by nature to do a cer- tain work which is great in its results. As regards Kentucky he might have used the celebrated saying of Louis XIV., " I am the State," since the early history of Kentucky is his own biography. His log cabin was the foundation, not only of that Commonwealth, but, through the subjugation of the Indians, of the English settlements in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri also. Boone was a pioneer, not a statesman. His nature was too simple and upright for the struggles and rivalries of what we call " the world." Nevertheless, there is a moral grandeur in a character like this, whose stern virtues stand forth undimmed by the record of a single base action. To this character we continue to pay homage. DAVID LIVINGSTONE. DAVID LIVINGSTONE. $17 DAVID LIVINGSTONE. [BORN 1815. DIED MAY i, 1873.] l^UNERAL anthems sometimes bear an exulting resemblance to songs of triumph ; and never was the likeness more marked than when, on April 18, 1874, Westminster Abbey received the dust of Livingstone. The glory of the dead hero was pure. His scutcheon could be held up fearlessly in the face of the world ; the most malignant scrutiny would fail to discover a blot on that stainless surface. He had fought no battles but those of religion and civilization, had spilt no blood, and had dried tears in place of causing them. His was not one of the lurid spirits that, laden with inward fire, lower on us like human thunderclouds, and from time to time startle the world as with lightning flashes. The career of Livingstone shines with a steady, splendid light. " Jesus, my King, my life, my all," wrote the great explorer as, a few days after his parting with Stanley, he, on the last birthday save one that earth had to offer him, renewed the vow of his youth : " I again dedicate my whole self to Thee." Well did his life bear out the spirit of the pledge, so well that, were there space for generous emo- tions in the grave, the most princely coffin resting beneath the pavement of the Abbey would have been proud to welcome that of the Scottish traveller to a place beside it The dead might be silent, but not so the voice of England. She honored Livingstone gone from her, as she would have welcomed him in life. Never again would the strong Scottish face, resolution and sagacity written legibly in all its lines, show on any London street those features burnt brown by the sun of Africa. The keen eye had looked its last on negro hut or Scot- tish homestead. But the fame of the traveller remained, and the works of the missionary lived after him. He had cast the light of Christianity on the darkest places of the earth. 5l8 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. The almost feminine tenderness inseparable from all courage that truly deserves the epithet " lion-like " was peculiarly marked in Livingstone. That tenderness never found vent in misplaced sentimentality or effusive pathos. The feeling was too strong for it to lead the hero whom it influenced into any weakness. David Livingstone, believing in hearty effort, disdained ineffec- tive words. His great heart might be set on fire by the wrongs of Africa ; but he was not one to wring his hands helplessly in prospect of those wrongs, or, seizing on pen and ink, to wail forth page after page of useless lamentation. It did not con- tent him to drop tears on the fetters of the negro ; his desire was to break them. Noble actions, not splendid sentiments, were the contributions he made to progress. By tireless self- sacrifice, by a justice that mercy effectually tempered, by a patience whose very calmness bespoke its depth, and a perse- verance none the less strong that it was gentle, did the famous explorer prove how truly in his nature the lion had lain down with the lamb. " I like you," was Cazembe's greeting to the Doctor, when the savage potentate in question had scanned for a moment the features of the white visitor to his dominions. " I like you," few women and children can have failed to think that ever looked on the face of David Livingstone. How well we all seem to know him ! How beloved is his memory in his native Scotland, that country whose pride in her great sons is surely equalled by no other nation on-earth ! A wanderer, both from disposition and circumstances, the Scot yet seems, when he sets out on his wanderings, to leave his heart in the land of his nativity. Is there in any autobiography ever written a passage more affecting than that which occurs in Liv- ingstone's diary of June 25, 1868? The explorer had not seen an English face for years. He was worn with illness and pri- vation, sick at heart from witnessing the sufferings of slaves, deprived of everything but his courage and his faith in God. All at once Death thrusts on him a token of his presence, and stirs up a thought that breaks like a sob from that noble heart. "We came," he writes, " to a grave in the forest. It was a little rounded mound, as if the occupant sat in it in the usual native DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 519 way. . . . This is the sort of grave I should prefer ; to lie in the still, still forest, and no hand ever disturb my bones. The graves at home always seemed to me miserable, especially those in -the cold, damp clay. . . . But I have nothing to do but wait till He who is over all decides where I have to lay me down and die. Poor Mary lies on Shupanga brae,' and ' beeks foment the sun.' " In that kindly Lowland dialect, the dearer for its very ruggedness to the rugged Scottish heart, the simplest, tenderest tongue that ever told of love and sorrow, does the indomitable, worn man, gray now with a thousand labors and sorrows, write down his thought of his dead wife. " On Shu- panga brae." So dear is everything connected with Scotland to this son a hemisphere distant from her, that the " brae," with its memories of yellow gorse and rivers like Tweed and Yarrow, becomes a term to express the African wilderness where 4 under the shade of a banyan-tree, was dug the grave of that beloved helpmeet. What tears must have blistered his eyes as he wrote of her ! How vividly must her lost face have been present to his memory as he stood by that grave of the unknown negro in the " still forest " ! He had loved her so truly. The only time grief ever broke the great traveller down was when she died. At Ilala, five years later, Livingstone lay down in a hastily built hut, knowing that it was to die. Did the deep murmur of the neighboring forest recall to the suffering missionary in those last hours of agony sounds long unheard, but familiar to his boyhood, the rushing of Clyde to the sea, the hum and whir of the factory where, at ten years of age, his early ardor for study led him to place an open book on some part of the machinery before him, that he might read even as he worked? He was dying now; and not on the banks of the Clyde, nor even near the Nile, that more famous river on whose exploration his heart had so long been set, but amidst jungle and noisome swamp, where scarcely so much as a drop of pure water could be obtained to wet his fevered lips. And pres- ently there came a second and invisible guest to the thatched hut in the shadow of the trees. In the early morning of May I, 520 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. 1873, the faithful native servants of the explorer entered the rude structure where, as they supposed, he was lying sick. They saw their master kneeling in an attitude of prayer by his bedside," and instinctively drew back. Livingstone did not move. Presently one of them advanced softly to him, and touched his cheek. It had a deathly coldness; the flush of the fever burned there no longer. The hero was dead. And so he died praying ! Wrestling with God for Africa ; beseeching that in the harvest-field where he had so earnestly labored other workers might not lack. There has been given him, as the sole token by which, when his remains reached her, Britain could show that this was a man whom she delighted to honor, a grave in Westminster Abbey. It was not the sepul- chre he coveted. His body will rest there, however, as peace- fully as though the African forest shrouded his grave in leafy gloom ; and his name and his example will be forever bright in our remembrance. This was a man who gave so much fear to God that he had none left for earthly dangers. Not when snatched as by a miracle from the jaws of the lion whose spring had borne him to the ground with a shattered arm, not when, sick and almost starving, he tottered into Ujiji, to be found there by the gallant Stanley and relieved from his pressing wants, did the indomitable spirit for a moment blench. Strong in his courage, inflexible in his Sense of duty, lofty and earnest in his -aims, the character of Livingstone shines on us with an almost ideal light. He gave his life to silence, so far as might be in the power of a single man, the awful Miserere that from the interior of the dark continent goes up ceaselessly to heaven. Africa is the legacy he has left us ; the single homage his memory demands is that we shall render the negro civilized and free. It would require a long chapter to do more than indicate in the most general terms what were the services that Livingstone rendered to his country, to the cause of religion and humanity, and to the extension of geographical knowledge. An entire reconstruction of the map of Africa was the result. Born at an obscure village of Lanarkshire, Scotland, and of humble DAVID LIVINGSTONE. 521 parentage, the future explorer first went to work in a cotton mill. At twenty-three he had, by the most strenuous exertions, laid by enough to undertake a college course. In 1838 he went up to London, presented himself, and was accepted by the Missionary Society as a candidate. For two years longer he applied himself to the study of theology and to taking his medical degree. At the end of these two years, namely, in 1840, Livingstone sailed for Africa, the future scene of his labors. Livingstone's first endeavor was to make himself acquainted with the country by pushing out into it in various directions. Already, no doubt, were his clear eyes fixed upon the vast extent of unknown territory represented on the map of Africa by a blank, and inhabited by an unknown people. A two years' examination of the ground satisfied Livingstone that the proper work for white missionaries was that of opening up new territory and of pushing forward new stations, leaving the native missionaries to work the field in detail. The whole of his subsequent career was a development of this idea. Living- stone was absent sixteen years, during which time he. had pene- trated first to Lake Ngami, which had never before been seen by a white man, and subsequently to the great falls of the Zambesi. A second journey of exploration, known as the Zambesi Expedition, and fitted out under the patronage of the Government, Livingstone being named its commander, dis- covered and explored Lake Nyassa on the east coast; but from various causes the expedition failed to accomplish as much as Livingstone had hoped for. Livingstone's last expedition, in 1866, was a determined effort to penetrate to the farthest sources of the Nile, the " fountains of Herodotus." How he persevered in the face of determined opposition from the slave-dealers, of sickness which reduced his iron frame to a "ruckle o' bones," of hardship to which other experiences seemed mere holiday excursions, are things freshly remem- bered. All tidings of him having been lost, the explorer was believed to have perished among the African jungles; but he was at length found by the rescuing party of Stanley at Ujiji 522 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. in a deplorable condition. The arrival of the intrepid Ameri- can explorer on the scene was the one bright episode of this brave but futile attempt to carry the light of 'civilization into the very heart of equatorial Africa. After the departure of Stanley, Livingstone once more set about the work to which he had dedicated his life. His life was to be the forfeit. V. SCIENCE AND INVENTION, THE BLOOD GULIELMUS HARY^US I V-I LJ !_/ 1. !__< I < 1 T L V_/ k-' i Jj[ VI. \ *. 1 J__< V-< k' ^ 1* ANGLUS NATUs,GALLi>t, !TALI/E,GEF\MANI>E HOSPES, 1657 UBIQUEAMOR, ET LDESIDER.IUM, QUEM OMNIS TEF^F^A EXPETISSET ClVEM. PR WILLIAM HARVEY. DR. WILLIAM HARVEY. [BORN 1578. DIED 1657.] r I ^HE life of William Harvey is full of interest to every -* student of anatomy, physiology, and medicine. It closely concerns us all ; for before his time little was known of the human frame, and his discoveries have a practical bearing on the treatment of even the simplest complaint. Born at Folke- stone in 1578, Harvey had the inestimable advantage of good scholastic training. From the grammar-school at Canterbury he went to Caius College, Cambridge, in 1593, and, after studying logic and natural philosophy there six years, he subsequently resided in Padua, then a celebrated school of medicine, and at- tended lectures on anatomy, pharmacy, and surgery, delivered respectively by Fabricius al Aquapendente, Minadons, and Cas- serius. The common language of learned men at that time was Latin, in which Harvey himself composed his works. He wrote it, indeed, correctly and with elegance. In Padua he was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Medicine, and at the age of twenty-four he returned to England. It was in August, 1615, that he was chosen by the College of Physicians to deliver his Lumleian lectures on anatomy and surgery; and he is supposed to have taken the earliest opportunity of bringing forward his views on the circulation of the blood, which he afterwards de- veloped more fully and published in 1628. The fact is that while studying at Padua a new world of observation had opened itself to Harvey's inquiring mind. His master, Fabricius, had called his attention to certain curious valves inside the veins, made by the folds of their lining. Why did they lie open when the blood was flowing towards the heart, and close up and bar 34 527 528 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. the way the moment it was not flowing in that direction? Fa- bricius said it was only to prevent the blood rushing too fast into the branches of the veins; but Harvey was not satisfied with this reason. By experiments which he made he found that the arteries carried blood from the heart, and the veins brought it back again ; hence the throbbing of the arteries charged with blood pumped fresh out of the heart and sent through the body. But this was far from being the whole of Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood. It was but half of it. After the blood has gone its first round, the blood in the lower artery being returned to the heart by the lower vein, and the blood in the upper artery by the upper vein, it starts upon a new circuit. Descending through some valves from the upper chamber, or auricle, of the heart to the lower, it takes its flow through the lungs and comes back by the pulmonary or lung- vein into the upper heart-chamber, from which the entire round begins afresh. The first journey is called the general circula- tion, and the second the pulmonary circulation, in which the change that the blood undergoes is of the most important kind. The blood which is carried becomes exposed to the action of the air by means of the capillary vessels; it loses carbonic-acid gas, which is poisonous, and absorbs oxygen, which is life- giving. This fact, it is true, was not known to Harvey ; but he prepared the way for its discovery by the substantial proofs he exhibited of the double circulation. Harvey, however, was not hasty in arriving at his conclusions. It was nineteen years before he traced the blood through all the channels of the body, and he felt quite certain that he had grasped truth without admixture of error. Yet he experienced the fate of all who are in advance of their fellows. The older physicians would not 'believe that he was in possession of truths which they had never taught or learnt ; and Harvey told a friend he had lost many patients through his new discovery. But the unfortunate sovereign, Charles I., whose physician Harvey was, cannot be numbered among those prejudiced persons who op- posed him. The King, on the contrary, allowed him many opportunities of making physiological experiments by the help DR. WILLIAM HARVEY. 5 2 9 of deer in the royal parks, took great interest in his scientific researches, and made him, for a time, head of Merton College, Oxford. But he was of a retiring disposition, and so averse to controversy that he could hardly be persuaded to publish his later investigations when he had become aware of the disputes and ill-will occasioned by his discovery of the circulation of the blood. With the exception of Gilbert's discovery of terrestrial mag- netism at the close of Elizabeth's reign, Harvey's was the only one of any real value proceeding from English research before the Restoration. But he did not fail to make his mark during his lifetime ; and having spoken of him in connection with Mer- ton College, Oxford, we may add that a knot of scientific men used to meet in that university about the year 1648, among whom the discoveries of Harvey used to form frequently the subject of conversation. They were Dr. Wallis, Dr. Wilkins the warden of Wadham, Dr. Ward the eminent mathema- tician, and the first of English economists Sir William Petty. " Our business," Wallis says, " was (precluding matters of theol- ogy and State affairs) to discourse and consider of philosophical inquiries and such as related thereunto, as Physick, Anatomy, Geometry, Astronomy, Navigation, Statics, Magneticks, Chy- micks, Mechanicks, and Natural Experiments; with the state of these studies as then cultivated at home and abroad. We then discoursed of the circulation of the blood, the valves in the vena lactece, the lymphatic vessels, the Copernican hypothe- sis, the nature of comets and new stars, the satellites of Jupiter, the oval shape of Saturn, the spots on the sun and its turning on its own axis, the inequalities and selenography of the moon, the several phases of Venus and Mercury, the improvement of telescopes, the grinding of glasses for that purpose, the weight of air, the possibility or impossibility of vacuities and nature's abhorrence thereof, the Torricellian experiment in quicksilver, the descent of heavy bodies and the degree of acceleration therein, and divers other things of like nature." Harvey's inquiries into the subject of incubation, carried on, as they were, by means of a long and patient series of experi- 530 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. ments, were of considerable value, though not to be compared in importance with those relating to the heart and lungs. It was this last which gave him his name among posterity, and which, by its novelty and boldness, aroused so lively an opposi- tion among his contemporaries. It is not surprising that he should speak of the things he had put forward as " so new and unheard of that I not only fear evil to myself from the ill-will of some, but I am afraid of having all men for my enemies, so much are persons influenced and led by habit, by doctrine once imbibed and rooted^ in them deeply like a second nature, and by a reverential regard for antiquity." Hence he was violently opposed by Primerosius, Parisanus, Pliolanus, and others. The last of these was the only adversary to whom he replied. Not a single physician over forty years of age admitted his dis- covery; but Plempius, a Professor of Louvain, one of his early opponents, declared himself a convert, and, through his exam- ple, many more laid down their arms. Dr. George Ent, a Fellow of the College of Physicians, supported him, and replied to Parisanus. It was in 1623 that Harvey was appointed physician extraor- dinary to James I. ; and when he afterwards became physician to his son, Charles L, he was in the habit of exhibiting to his Majesty and to the most observant persons of his Court the motions of the heart and other phenomena on which his teach- ing was founded. During the civil war he moved about with the King from place to place; and it was while staying for a short time in Oxford that the King made him master of Merton, and, by an admission ad eundem, he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine. The mastership, however, was a very transient honor. In a few months the Puritan party regained the ascendancy and replaced Brent, whom the King had dis- placed. Soon after he suffered still more from the violent par- tisanship of the time. His house was burned and plundered, several unpublished works of his being unfortunately destroyed. This must have been a severe trial, and similar in its character to a distressing loss experienced by Sir Isaac Newton at a later period. The latter years of his life were spent at his country LINNAEUS. LINN^US. 533 house at Lambeth, or with his brother, not far from Richmond. In 1654 he was elected President of the College of Physicians, but declined the office in consequence of his age and infirmi- ties. He presented, however, his library to the College, and also during his lifetime a farm which he had inherited from his father. He died at the venerable age of eighty in 1657; and a monument to his memory may be seen at Hampstead, in Essex, where he was buried. In 1766 the College of Physicians pub- lished his works in Latin, in a quarto volume ; and two manu- script works of his are preserved in the library of the British Museum. An admirable life of him has recently been published. LINN^US. [BORN 1707. DIED 1778.] Tx^ARL LINNE, or, as he is usually called, Linnaeus, was 'V born on the 23d of May, 1707, at Rashalt, in Sweden. His father belonged to a race of peasants, but, having by his personal efforts raised himself to the position of pastor of the village or hamlet in which he lived, he followed an old Swedish custom common in such cases of adopting a surname, and called himself Nils Linne. Nils is the familiar Swedish for Nicholas, and Linne the name of the linden-tree. According to immemorial usage among the peasantry, the son of Nils would be Nilsson, and if he were Olaf, he would be called Olaf Nilsson, and so on. But with Nils the clergyman it was a dif- ferent matter. A favorite linden-tree in the village furnished the required surname, and henceforth himself and his chil- dren became Lindens. For a similar reason 'the good pastor's brother-in-law became Tiliander, or Lindenman. The choice was not made at random. Both Nicholas and his wife's brother were men of taste and culture, and both were tolerably proficient botanists. It so happened that the village manse was 534 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. situated on the banks of a lovely lake in the midst of picturesque scenery. The clergyman cultivated fields and gardens, and probably found equal profit and pleasure in the occupation. Thus it was that the children grew up in the midst of every- thing that could awaken in them the love of nature or allure them towards its study. Such surroundings naturally fostered young Karl's fondness for plants or flowers, and, by displacing all other boyish tastes and ordinary studies, entirely upset the cherished parental design of making him a clergyman. The result, however, while it certainly disappointed, did not alto- gether displease, the elder Linne. He could not ignore his own tastes, nor the many fascinations to which the very homestead rendered the boy susceptible. Wisely judging remonstrance useless, he resolved to give him a fair opportunity for the cultivation of his special gifts. A corner of the spacious gar- den was marked off and assigned to Karl's separate use. He was to do with it as he pleased. And in a very short time he so crowded it with specimens gathered from wood and field that the indulgent gardener employed by his father could not possibly stand the invasion which threatened the rest of the property. Weeds of no possible economic, or so far as any one knew of any scientific, value were promoted to a dignity and permitted a space which daily encroached upon the pa- ternal allotment. The unfamiliar richness of the soil raised some of the merest vagabonds of the forest into a condition of luxuriant overgrowth. Useless or intrusive as they seemed to be, nevertheless they were material for the youthful botanist. He was the while making rapid progress in the acquirement of that practical knowledge which was essential as the groundwork of his future studies. He attempted a systematic arrangement; but, either owing to his own desultory mode of working or the defective way in which many species had hitherto been noticed, the attempt failed. Many persons who have only heard of Linnaeus as the father of botany are still under the impression that no systematic knowledge of the subject existed before his time ; but this is a great/mistake. Perhaps no study is of greater antiquity, or has attracted more devoted followers in all ages of LINNAEUS. 535 the world's history. We all know that natural history was one of the important realms of science which made up the learning of Solomon. He knew every plant and tree, from the hyssop of the garden wall to the venerable cedar which crowned the summits of Lebanon. Among the Greeks, Romans, and Ara- bians botany was ever a favorite pursuit. The names of Aris- totle, Dioscorides, Pliny, Al Razi, and Avicenna attest the importance of the study in ancient and mediaeval times. Yet it must be admitted that no very great progress was made by any of the older naturalists. It is calculated that all the spe- cies ever discovered or described by all the Greek, Roman, or Arabian botanists put together did not exceed fourteen hundred. The first herbarium on a methodical plan was pub- lished in 1530 by Otho Brunfels, of Mentz. The first botanic garden in Europe was opened in 1536 on the banks of the Po in Italy. The work of Brunfels was the earliest modern work which was founded mainly on observation. Herbals, it is true, compiled from Latin or Arabic sources, had existed in mediaeval times. One of the first printed books was a treatise on domestic medicines, thus early put to the press because of its popularity; but nothing of a really scientific character had appeared since the time of Pliny. In 1551 came out the Herbal of Jerome Bock, in which natural resemblances were made the basis of classification. Conrad Gessner, of Zurich, introduced the im- portant distinctions known as " genera " in a great work written as early as 1565, but not published for nearly two hundred years. Caesalpinus, of Arezzo, printed at Florence in 1583 a mass of suggestions and observations in botany which remained nearly a century before they were noticed as of scientific value. In fact, one writer after another adopted this or that method of his predecessors, and fitted it to his own peculiar theory. Charles de 1'Ecluse, or Clusius, first taught that conciseness of description which has since threatened to become almost algebraical in its strictness and severity. Clusius, by the way, tells us some rather curious facts, which are still not generally known. Among the rest he asserts that potatoes were well known and in common use in Italy in the sixteenth century. 536 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. The popular opinion is that Sir Walter Raleigh brought them with tobacco from Virginia, and that the English were the first Europeans to appreciate their value, Just previous to Linne's own time had appeared the great works of Ray, Tournefort, and Vaillant. Jussieu was his contemporary ; so was Boerhaave ; so was Reaumur. It will be seen, then, that botany was not without scientific advocates. But it was not very early in life Linne's good fortune to meet with any of the latest writers. His boyish guides were one or two old folios, of whose de- ficiencies he bitterly complained. Had he met earlier with Tournefort's " Elements of Botany," his own acquirements would have been more easily obtained, but they would probably never have been so solid and so profound. Tournefort's book is a perfect treasury of botanical lore. In fact, it has been said that with its aid alone the student might become a bot- anist, so correctly is the work illustrated, and so fully are its different headings dealt with. Yet, in view of a perfectly scientific classification, not only Tournefort. but every other writer, except perhaps Jussieu, is essentially deficient. To be at once scientific and not to some extent artificial is, without almost unbounded knowledge, practically impossible. It is therefore a question more or less of expediency; and on this ground are the respective merits of the various botanical systems fairly comparable. It was when studying as a boy of eleven at the school of Wexio that Karl Linne's unfitness for the Church was finally admitted. The schoolmaster pronounced him a dunce, and recommended his being apprenticed to some handicraft, where- upon the simple-minded father actually contemplated making him a shoemaker. A Dr. Rothmann, who was professor of medicine to the Wexio College, had noticed the peculiar genius of the misplaced student, and offered to take him into his own house. Here he first met with " Tournefort's Elements," which increased his ardor while it enlarged his views. But even yet he could not arrange his collections. Three years a student at Wexio, he was no nearer a learned profession at the end of his term than he had been at the commencement. And now LINNAEUS. 537 began a period of hardship such as only occasionally falls to the lot of youths of his position in life. Following the advice of Dr. Rothmann, he visited Upsal, with the view of pursuing his studies in the university; but he soon found that his slen- der means he had taken with him 8 were wofully insuf- ficient even for the most modest computation of student life in a university city. As for employment in tuition or otherwise, every day rendered that less and less possible, as his wardrobe grew daily less presentable. Though he gained a scholarship, it was too small to be of essential service, and he felt most keenly the necessity to which he was reduced of accepting from his fellow-students a cast-off garment or a proffered dinner. Even the old shoes they gave him had to be patched by his own hands with pieces of pasteboard. Private pupils to this dilapidated stranger were out of all question, and he sank 'lower and lower in poverty. His father could not support him, and he knew of no one to whom he dared apply even for food or shelter. Imagine the sufferings of the susceptible and ardent youth during those weary days, which good old Dr. Rothmann had pictured as likely to be full of happy student life and gilded with successful tutorships. All this dreadful time, however, he still hoped for a bright future ; for he resolved to become great in his seemingly most unprofitable subject, and his strong relig- ious principles kept him from giving up the struggle. In the autumn of 1729 Linne was one day very intently examining certain plants in the garden of the academy when he was ac- costed by a venerable clergyman, who asked him a variety of questions about botany, if he knew anything of it, and how long he had studied the science. He replied to every question with such intelligence that the questioner became deeply interested. Linne told him that he possessed a cabinet containing above six hundred indigenous plants. The clergyman, now quite delighted, invited him to his house, and on learning his condi- tion supplied him with every necessary, and asked his assist- ance on a work on which he was engaged. Thus began a lasting friendship between Linne and the celebrated Dr. Olaus Celsius. Other advantages soon followed; with an improved OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. outfit prosperity at once dawned. The son of the professor of botany in the university, Dr. Rudbeck, and other young men, became his pupils. Fresh books became accessible, and new ideas crowded upon him. From a treatise of Vaillant on the structure of flowers he first caught the idea of the sexes of plants, on which he afterwards founded his own botanical sys- tem. Shortly afterwards, attracting the notice of Rudbeck, he was appointed deputy lecturer and demonstrator of practical botany in the Public Garden. A pleasant manner and an ani- mated style of lecturing soon made him a great favorite with the students, but his rapid success was the cause of envy in others. He possessed those two invaluable qualifications of success, great powers of mind united with great physical endur- ance. Hence, when the Arctic Survey was suggested as a means of improving the natural history of Sweden, the Upsal Royal Academy of Sciences selected Linne, or as he began to be called, according to Swedish learned practice, Linnaeus, as a proper person to be intrusted with the undertaking. Thus came about his journey to Lapland, his own account of which, from its intensely personal character and its fulness of incident, may claim a parallel with the celebrated " Personal Narrative of Alexander von Humboldt." Both accounts are interesting in the extreme, not merely from the eminence of the writers, but from their combination of personal adventure with scientific investigation. Among other valuable results of this extraor- dinary journey, undertaken on a vote of less than 8 "sterling, and embracing a route of no fewer than three thousand eight hundred English miles, was a knowledge of assaying metals, a subject quite new to the students of Upsal University. In the following year he gave private lectures upon it. On his return from Lapland he had been elected a member of the Academy; but, not having taken his degree, he was legally disqualified from lecturing, and for once in his life Lin- naeus, though usually a most amiable man, was in great dan- ger of expulsion from the university, through his resentment towards a rival tutor who envied his success, and took advan- tage of the statutes to prohibit his taking pupils. Linnaeus in LINN^US. 539 consequence was again thrown upon a prospect of poverty, for these pupils were his sole means of support. Learning his cir- cumstances, several of them delicately proposed an excursion to the mines of Fahlun, in Dalecarlia. This was in 1733, when he was in his twenty-sixth year. After another journey with the sons of the governor of the province he returned to Fahlun and spent some time lecturing on mineralogy. At this time he made the acquaintance of a physician, and, what was of more consequence to himself, fell deeply in love with the physician's daughter. But he was still without a degree ; and as this was a sine qua non towards practising as a physician, the profession to which he now turned his attention, he had no prospect of being able to marry. He was, however, accepted by the lady, whose rank and beauty had, he at first thought, placed her utterly beyond his reach. Her father recommended him to abandon botany as a useless and unprofitable pursuit, and keep to med- icine, or he would never be able to maintain a wife. But he could not afford to take his degree at Upsal ; and although his betrothed sent him a hundred dollars saved out of her own private pocket-money, he was obliged to seek a cheaper university. The following year (1735) he graduated as M.D. at Harder- wyck, in Holland, and began a tour through the principal cities, making many new friends and writing several fresh treatises. Among the friendships he formed at Leyden were those of Gronovius and Boerhaave. By the advice and help of the for- mer he published his " Systema Naturae," and by the recom- mendation of the latter was introduced to Mr. Cliffort, the burgomaster of Amsterdam, in whose service, as keeper of the museums and gardens, he found the most congenial occupation he had ever known. At Cliffort's request Boerhaave gave his young protege a letter of introduction to Sir Hans Sloane, in London, and accordingly Linnaeus visited the famous old physi- cian and collector. His reception was by no means cordial ; but before he left England he had gained the friendship of those who at first treated him with coldness and suspicion. By and by came a journey to Paris, with an introductory letter 540 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. to Antoine de Jussieu. The meeting was rather curious. On his arrival in Paris he proceeded at once to the Jardin des Plantes, where Bernard de Jussieu, a skilful botanist, was de- scribing some exotics. Fortunately for Linnaeus, who knew no French, the description was in Latin. One of the plants seemed rather to puzzle the lecturer. Linnaeus, who to this moment had looked on in silence, noticing the embarrassment of the professor, exclaimed also in Latin, " It looks like an American plant." Jussieu, surprised, turned quickly round and said, "You are Linnaeus," and in presence of all the students gave him a cordial welcome. In French circles, as in England, his claims were at first met with sneers, and he was spoken of as " a young enthusiast whose only merit consisted in having reduced botany to a state of anarchy." But he was respected before he left. On his return to Sweden he hastened to Fahlun, and thence to Stock- holm ; but the homage he had received abroad had somewhat turned his head. He thought himself slighted, and had it not been for the physician's daughter at Fahlun, he would have quitted his native land. A mere trifle helped to keep him at home. During the prevalence of an influenza he visited the lady of an Aulic councillor, and prescribed for her a portable and facile remedy. This lady being one day in the presence of the Queen, Ulrica Eleonora, the latter observed her quietly putting something into her mouth. Her Majesty's inquiries led to information about the young doctor, and he was sent for to prescribe for a cough under which she herself was suffering. He succeeded in removing the cough, and suddenly found himself a fashionable physician. Prosperity now set in for good and all. On June 26, 1739, he married the daughter of Dr. Moraeus, at Fahlun, and shortly afterwards received the professorship of medicine at the Upsal University. His old enemy, Rosen, at the same time became professor of botany. By this time, however, a reconciliation had taken place, and an arrangement was made by which Rosen undertook anatomy and physiology, and Linnaeus bot- any, materia medica, and natural history. Next came his LINN^IUS. 541 appointment to the Botanic Garden, founded by the elder Rudbeck, and a command from the King to arrange and de- scribe the royal collections. With the Queen he became a special favorite ; for his knowledge was inexhaustible, and she was devotedly fond of natural history. In 1757, after an offer from the King of Spain of a most flat- tering character, he was raised to the rank of a nobleman; and took the title of Von Linne. The year afterwards he bought a country mansion and property, an event to which he had always looked forward as the summit of his ambition. In this place, surrounded by lovely gardens, he spent the last years of his laborious life. In 1776, after enjoying a long period of im- munity from every ailment except gout, and this he relieved by eating wild strawberries, he had an attack of apoplexy. The next year he had another, and after it a long illness which terminated in his death on the loth of January, 1778. In speaking of Linnaeus as a benefactor, the following words of Professor Whewell will place his claims on a better footing than any title based merely upon his services to natural history as a special branch of study: "By the good fortune of having had a teacher with so much delicacy of taste as Linnaeus, in a situation of so much influence, botany possesses a descriptive language ivliich 2vi// long stand as a model for all other subjects" The nomenclature, or naming of species, was a work of im- mense toil, and was the result of explorations of th,e most varied kind. Not only his own travels, but the friends he had all over the world, furnished him with the specimens necessary for his investigations, so that his knowledge of the mere facts of the science and of kindred branches of natural history was immense. The services he rendered the sciences of zoology and medicine were by no means trifling, but they are dwarfed when placed beside the enormously greater services he rendered to all future scientists by the wonderful completeness of his method. 1 1 It may be worth noticing that the catalogue of the British Museum contains no fewer than four hundred and twenty-four separate notices of works relating to Linnaeus. 542 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. BARON HUMBOLDT. [BORN 1769. DIED 1859.] A GREAT traveller, like a great poet, must be born, not made. Yet it is not given to every one who has the in- born taste for travel to gratify his wish. As the old-world adage expressed it, Non cuivis hornini contingit adire CorintJium. To one are given ample means and favorable opportunities, but they are made no use of. The proprietor lacks enterprise ; he has no desire to leave his native shores; the wonders of far-off lands for him possess no charms. Another is devoured with a passionate and insatiable yearning, but it is accompa- nied by no hopeful dawn of opportunity. A rare few, by the exercise of an indomitable perseverance, may indeed create a way; but it is not the way which, had they been free to choose, they would deliberately have selected. Happy, then, is he to whom Nature has given the will and for whom Fortune has provided the way. Such a man was Frederick Henry Alexander von Humboldt. He was the second son of Major Alexander von Humboldt, a gentleman of considerable prop- erty, and was born at Berlin on the I4th of September, 1769. The year of his birth gave also to the world Napoleon, Wel- lington, Cuvier, and Chateaubriand. His childhood was spent at the chateau of Tegel, about three leagues from Berlin, in the midst of romantic scenery and on the shores of a beautiful lake. He began his education with his brother William, after- wards celebrated as a statesman and philologist, under the famous Joachim Henry Campe, critic, philologist, and translator of " Robinson Crusoe." Campe's method seems to have been such as would be appreciated at the present day. He looked upon physical development as of equal importance with mental, BARON HUMBOLDT. BARON HUMBOLDT. 545 and believed that the study of science was as essential as the study of classics or philosophy. But the one thing which en- deared him to the sons of Major von Humboldt was his translation of " Robinson Crusoe." Its perusal filled Alexander's already excited fancy with an eager longing for a life of explo- ration and adventure. At the end of one year Campe left them, and another tutor was found, who carefully continued the work so favorably begun. From Tegel they proceeded to the Uni- versity of Gottingen, then noted for the exceptional learning of its professors. Among these were Blumenbach, who occupied the chair of physiology and comparative anatomy ; Heyne, who taught classics and philology; and Eichborn, the biblical scholar and orientalist. At Gottingen Alexander made the acquaintance of an actual explorer. George Forster, Heyne's son-in-law, as a youth of eighteen, had sailed with Captain Cook round the world, and had seen with his own eyes the very things read about in " Crusoe." The companionship of Forster, therefore, decided Alexander von Humboldt's course of life. He resolved to become a traveller. After a brief con- tinuance of scientific study, the two friends made a tour of the Rhine valley and through Holland, carefully examining the mineralogy of the localities traversed by the great historic stream of the Fatherland. From Holland they passed over into England. On his return Humboldt published a brochure entitled " Observations on the Basalts of the Rhine," written in support of the Wernerian or aqueous theory of rock- formation. His next departure was for Freiburg, in order to learn from the lips of Werner himself as much as possible of the new science of geology. After two years' close application, as- sisted by frequent explorations of the mineralogy and botany of the neighborhood, he produced his second book, " Specimen Florae Friborgensis Subterraneae." This work obtained for him an appointment as Inspector of the Mines of Bayreuth-Anspach, in Franconia, and a seat at the Board of the Mining Council of Berlin. During the tenure of his inspectorship he founded the Public School at Streben. His duties included perpetual 54 6 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. descents and examinations of the workings, enabling him to add largely to his practical knowledge. But the field was too narrow for his grasping intellect. In 1795 he resigned his appointments, and set out on a journey through Switzerland and Italy. To Italy he was drawn by the extraordinary dis- coveries of Galvani, at that time the talk of the scientific world. He visited the Italian savant, and repeated his experiments to the extent of submitting personally to painful and even dan- gerous operations in order to test for himself the truth of Galvani's conclusions. About this time the death of his widowed mother led to the division of the large patrimony between the brothers. William, already married, resided in Paris. Alexander obtained his share only to dispose of it in order to increase his means for travel. After publishing the results of his studies in galvanism in a little book annotated by Professor Blumenbach, he is next found deep in the study of exotic botany at Vienna. Then comes a journey with the celebrated Leopold von Buch through Salzburg, Styria, and the Tyrol; but he was prevented from revisiting Italy by the war. In 1797, in company with a Mr. Fischer, he visited his brother in Paris, in which city he was destined to form an acquaintance which influenced many years of his life. Being already well known to scientific men, he was at once introduced to the most distinguished circles of the polite and learned capital. In these gatherings he first met Aime Bonpland, a modest but highly gifted French botanist. The two students soon discovered that they possessed many qualities in common. Both were ardent, enthusiastic, and more than ordinarily versed in physical science ; both possessed a special fondness for botany, and both were born travellers. But there was one serious difference, Bonpland was poor. Happily Humboldt was rich, and he proposed a scheme of visiting the remoter continents. What should hinder their travelling together? Bonpland at first declined, being reluctant to become a burden on his generous friend. But Humboldt insisted. Accordingly they went as far as Marseilles to await the arrival of a vessel to take them across the Atlantic. After BARON HUMBOLDT. 547 remaining for two months the expected frigate was found to have been so injured by a storm as to be unable to proceed. Humboldt therefore went forward to Madrid, his companion preferring to return to Paris until a more favorable occasion. In Madrid the fame of Humboldt's acquirements procured for him a most flattering reception. He was presented at Court, and in an interview with the King obtained free permission to visit and explore all the Spanish dominions in America. With this presage of success, Humboldt immediately wrote to Bon- pland, who lost no time in joining the proposed expedition. Well furnished with the necessary scientific instruments, the two friends proceeded to Corunna, whence, on the 5th of June, 1799, they set sail in a Spanish corvette named the " Pizarro." They made a stay of several days at Teneriffe for the purpose of ascending the celebrated Peak, and making observations on the condition of the volcano and the natural history of the island. After a most successful exploration they resumed the voyage, noting both by day and night the ever-changing phe- nomena of sea and sky. By the i6th of July they reached Cumana, on the northeast coast of South America. Their first excursion was to the peninsula of Araya, and thence to the missionary stations in the mountains, where they were hos- pitably entertained. In these places it was the rule to consider every German a miner, and every Frenchman a doctor. This gave each of them plenty of occupation wherever they went, specimens of ore and of ailments being extremely plentiful. After some little time spent in examining the botany of Caraccas, they pursued their journey to the Llanos, or Great Plains, penetrating to the mission stations on the Orinoco. They next ascended that mighty river as far as the Rio Negro, and returned by way of Angostura to Cumana. Among places afterwards visited were Cuba, Carthagena, and the Maddalena, Santa Fe* de Bogota, Popayan, and Quito. From the latter city, the highest in the world, they proceeded to the Cordilleras, and ascended the great equatorial volcano of Chimborazo. In this famous attempt they reached the highest point hitherto attained by man, recording a barometrical reading equivalent to 19,798 54$ OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. English feet. A deep chasm in the snow sixty feet across prevented their gaining the summit; but they saw it through the breaking mist, and ascertained by observation that it rose a further height of 1,429 feet. It has since been estimated as somewhat higher. Though the loftiest peak in Ecuador, it is surpassed by three others in the whole range, Sahama and Gualatieri, in Bolivia, and Aconcagua, in Chili. The last rises to the enormous altitude of 23,910 feet, and is still 6,000 feet lower than the highest point of the Himalayas. From Quito they went southward to Truxillo, and along the coast of that rainless land until they reached Lima. At Callao they made a successful observation of the transit of Mercury. Leaving Lima, they explored the coast to Guayaquil, and thence across by sea-route to Acapulco and Mexico. Mexico they traversed from side to side, inspecting antiquities, listening to traditions, and writing down folk-lore. After a rest of two months on their return to Havana, we find them again voyaging to the United States, and shortly afterwards busy inquiring into the commercial and political relations of the different cities of the Union, particularly Philadelphia and Washington. In 1804 they returned to Europe. Such is a rapid sketch of the most famous journey of explo- ration perhaps ever recorded. It is certainly by far the richest in reliable information. Six thousand different species of plants were among the spoils of the expedition. But the great value of the five years' journey was the vast body of scientific inves- tigations, the innumerable physical facts, the voluminous records of observations, made by the cultivated and enthusiastic trav- ellers. Under the influence o.f Humboldt's poetic genius the dry records of scientific phenomena become transformed into brilliant pictures. His descriptions glow with the fervor of a genuine artistic imagination. The " Personal Narrative " of the journey was published on the return of the travellers to Paris, and was shortly afterwards translated into English by Mrs. Williams. The " Edinburgh Review " was warm in its praises, and profuse in congratulations on the good fortune of the age in possessing a " traveller armed BARON HUMBOLDT. 549 at all points, and completely accomplished for the purpose of physical, moral, and political information, . . * an astronomer, physiologist, botanist, one versed in statistics and political economies, a metaphysician, antiquary, and a learned philologist, possessing at the same time the enlarged views, the spirit, and the tone of true philosophy." ] Profoundly interesting, even to an unscientific reader, the "Personal Narrative" abounds with passages which arrest the most casual glance and fix the attention, till the reader becomes absorbed in the intense and sustained current of ideas. The literature of every nation is drawn into the fascinating story; and while the fancy is still charmed with some wondrous fact of nature, there flashes upon the page some brilliant and beau- tiful quotation from a favorite poet. The sight of the Southern Cross reminds the traveller of a splendid passage in Dante, " lo mi volsi a man destra e posi mente All' altro polo e vidi quattro stelle," 2 and so on. The expression of the guides, " 'T is past midnight, the Cross bends," has been often quoted ; and this again brings to mind an incident in " Paul and Virginia." If one allusion misses the reader, another is sure to attract him. The widest and most varied reading alone can hope to keep adequate pace with the far-glancing mind of this master of description. For twenty years after his return he lived quietly in Berlin, with occasional visits to Paris, but with scarcely any sign of literary activity. Being urgently requested by the Czar, he undertook at sixty years of age an expedition to Siberia and the shores of the Caspian. It was to some extent a fulfilment of a project formed many years before, when King Frederick William III., partly for this purpose, partly in recognition of his distinguished services, had granted him a pension of 12,000 thalers and an appointment in the palace. In 1842 he came in the royal train to England, and was present at the christening 1 Edinburgh Review, vol. xxiv. p. 134; vol. xxv. p. 88. 2 " I turned me to the right-hand, and fixed my mind on the other pole, and saw four stars." OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. of the Prince of Wales. On his return he began to shape his great work, the* " Kosmos," the final proofs of which he was still correcting in 1858. In person he was rather below the middle height, but robust and massive in build, with a clear blue eye, square brow, and a profusion of chestnut hair, not thinned with advancing age, but changed to a mass of snowy whiteness. He died on the 6th of May, 1859, and was buried beside his parents and brother at Tegel. A public ceremony in Berlin enabled the many who honored his character to pay their last tribute of respect to his memory. His life was indeed one of the most useful that man could hope to spend ; yet in one of his last letters he writes, " I live joyless because of all I have striven for from my youth I have accomplished so little." JOHN SMEATON. [BORN 1724. DIED 1792.] ON some rocks named the Eddystones (probably so called from the whirl or eddy which is occasioned by the waters striking against them), about fourteen miles from Ply- mouth, stands the world-renowned lighthouse built by the great engineer Smeaton. Before proceeding to the subject of the illustration, a few re- marks on the lighthouses that were previously erected on these fatal rocks may be interesting. The Eddystone rocks are never very much above the sea, and at high water are entirely covered by it. For centuries they were the most dangerous obstacle in the navigation of the Channel. As may be imagined, the erection of a light on such a position was a work of very great difficulty. Every year showed, by the number of wrecks, the absolute need of a mar- iners' warning; but nothing was done until about 1696. At last a Mr. Henry Winstanley, of Littlebury, in Essex, a retired mer- JOHN SMEATON JOHN SMEATON. 553 cer and man of private means, but who had never received any education as an engineer or architect, undertook the task which eventually cost him his life. He was a man who had a natural genius for mechanical pursuits, but he was essentially an ama- teur. It has almost become a proverb that " amateur work is always bad work," and it certainly proved so in his case. He began building the first Eddystone Lighthouse in 1696, and, in spite of very great difficulties, it was finished in four years. The design seems to have been the wildest idea that ever en- tered the mind of man. It was about one hundred 'feet high, polygonal (or many-cornered), built of wood, richly orna- mented, and it had vanes, cranes, etc., presenting more the ap- pearance of a Chinese pagoda than anything else. It was, though in the midst of a desolate sea, painted with mottoes of various kinds, such as " Post Tenebras Lux," " Glory be to God," " Pax in Bello." Perhaps he thought the last motto was suggestive of the intense strength of the building, standing amidst the wild war of the waters. It had a kitchen, rooms for the keepers, a chamber of state finely decorated, and a bed- room to match. There is a very scarce print in existence in which is a representation of this whimsical man absolutely fish- ing from the state-room window. He was warned over and over again by them " that go down to the sea in ships," tljat he had offered too much surface for the angry waves to beat upon; but he was so wrapped up in his hobby that he declared his willingness (in fact, his desire) to be in the lighthouse during the greatest storm that ever visited the Channel. He had his wish. He was in the lighthouse superintending some repairs, when a storm arose which swept the fantastic building away, and with it six unfortunate souls, including, of course, the archi- tect. ' There was nothing left of the building itself the next morning; beams, iron bars, etc., were all carried away. The only item remaining was a piece of iron cable. This had got wedged into a crevice of the rock, and there it remained until it was cut out by Smeaton's workmen more than fifty years after- wards. The said piece of chain is still in existence in a private collection. 554 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. Apropos of this fearful storm, Addison, in writing a poem on the victory of Blenheim, used it as a simile in a very powerful manner. He compares the Duke of Marlborough, directing the current of the great action, to the Spirit of the Storm : " So when an angel by divine command With rising tempests shakes a guilty land, Such as of late o'er pale Britannia past, Calm and serene he drives the furious blast ; And pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform, Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." This so pleased one of the ministry, that Addison received his first public appointment, the Commissionership of Appeals. The rocks remained desolate ; no one came forward to erect another signal light after such a catastrophe. About two years' later a homeward-bound ship from Virginia, the " Winchelsea," struck on the Eddystones, and every soul perished. In 1706 a Captain Lovett (or Lovell) petitioned Parliament for an act to grant him a lease of the rocks for ninety-nine years. Strange to say, the builder he selected had not been brought up to that calling. Captain Lovett (or Lovell) selected a Mr. John Rud- yerd, a silk-mercer ; this time, of Ludgate Hill. There is no evidence as to the talent Rudyerd had displayed that he should have been selected for this task. The building he proposed was very different from its predecessor: it was not so high, being but ninety feet, and it was perfectly round ; it was also built of wood. Strange as it may appear, though it encountered some partic- ularly severe storms, one on the 26th of September, 1744, es- pecially, it stood till December, 1755. Early in the morning of the 2d of December of that date, one of the keepers (the other two being asleep) went up to snuff the candles ; on open- ing the light chamber he found it full of smoke, and the draught rushing in through the open doorway fanned the smouldering soot into flames. He called loudly for his companions, but they could not hear him. He tried his utmost to extinguish the fire by throwing water from a large tub which always stood on the floor of the room, but the fire was four feet above him. When his companions did join him they could do but little, as JOHN SMEATON. 555 they had to go down and ascend a height of seventy feet before they could get the water to throw up to the flames. But the man who first discovered the fire remained at his post. His name was Henry Hall, aged ninety-four, but full of health and vigor. As he stood at his post, the lead from the roof became melted, and poured down in a torrent over his head and shoul- ders. Driven by this from the spot, he and his companions fled down the staircase and took refuge in a cave or hole in one of the rocks. Luckily it was low water, or they would have been lost. Some fishermen having seen the fire gave the alarm on shore, and crowds of boats were sent to their assistance. About eleven o'clock they arrived, but it was most difficult to get the refugees off the rock where they had taken shelter ; by throw- ing a rope and dragging them through the water, they were rescued. One of the three disappeared as soon as he landed, and was never heard of afterwards. By this time the proprietors of the rock and of its rights had greatly increased in numbers ; they therefore felt it to their in- terest to erect another lighthouse immediately. A Mr. Weston, one of their number, applied to Lord Macclesfield, the President of the Royal Society, to nominate an engineer. His lordship strongly recommended Smeaton, and after the usual opposition which is sure to crop up when great talent has a chance to come to the front, he was selected to erect the third and present building. Smeaton had been apprenticed to a mathematical- instrument maker, but left that calling to become a civil engi- neer. He was to a great extent a self-educated man. When he received the appointment to undertake the great work he was in Northumberland ; but he arrived in London in February, 1756. He started for Plymouth on the 22d of March following; but the roads being bad he did not arrive at his destination until the 27th. He remained in Plymouth nearly two months, constantly visiting the rocks. Having got the con- sent of his employers, he decided that the lighthouse should be of stone. He set about hiring workyards and workmen, en- tered into contracts for the different materials, and settled all other necessary arrangements. 556 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. By the 5th of August everything was in readiness. The men were landed on the rock, and they immediately began cutting it for the foundation of the building. They could do no more than this the first season ; but the peril to the workmen was very great. The usual amount of hostile criticism was, of course, liberally showered on the great architect and engineer, and equally, of course, with the usual effect. Kind friends in crowds declared that no lighthouse, stone or otherwise, could ever stand on the Eddystone rocks. The first stone of the lighthouse was laid on the I2th of June, 1757. The whole work was completed by August, 1759, and on the Qth of October following the building was finished. On the i6th of the same month the saving but warning light gleamed across the waters. Smeaton says in his own book : " Thus was the work completed in three years without the loss of life or limb to any one concerned in it, or accident by which the work could be said to be materially retarded. The work- men had only 421 days, comprising 2,674 hours, during which it was possible for them to remain on the rocks ; and the whole time which they had been at work there was only 1 1 1 days 10 hours, or scarcely 16 weeks." Smeaton declares that he took the idea of the shape from an oak. It is a round building, gradually decreasing in circumfer- ence from the base and slightly increasing at the top. In Smea- ton's work are diagrams showing the horizontal sections, which are most interesting. The ingenuity and knowledge shown in the dovetailing of courses of stone is simply wonderful. Among other storms it has withstood is the celebrated one at the begin- ning of 1762. It was declared by one of the "good-natured friends " that we all possess, " that he was really obliged to con- fess that, as it had stood that storm, it would stand until Dooms- day." Smeaton's triumph was complete, and he stands in the history of all civilized nations as one of the greatest benefactors of our race. His lighthouse unlike Winstanley's, swept from its founda- tion; unlike Rudyerd's, burnt to its foundation stands firm SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. . 559 to this day, as strong as an oak ; and the reason it is about to be removed is the strangest part of its history, the very rock it- self, the foundation on which Smeaton erected this noble work, is decaying, being in fact washed away by the waves. Many a man has been ennobled for his doughty deeds as a soldier, many for their acumen in the law; but what reward is sufficiently great for a Smeaton or such as he, who by their genius give us the means of saving most precious lives and render the great highway of the deep safer to the imperilled mariner? SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. [BORN 1732. DIED 1792.] A S the founder of the now enormous cotton-factory system ** of the world, Arkwright confessedly takes rank among the most active and foremost of the benefactors of his country and of his race. The bringing to perfection of his spinning- jenny alone has rendered his name lasting; while his other improvements in machinery and modes of manufacture add to the lustre of his name and to the veneration with which his progress in manufacturing improvement is regarded. Born at Preston, in Lancashire, in 1732, Richard Arkwright was the youngest of a family of no less than thirteen children. His parents were so poor that he was never at school a single day, and grew up as best he might without help. As soon as old enough he was put to learn the trade of a barber, and in 1760 commenced business for himself in an underground shop or cellar at Bolton, over the door of which, it is recorded, he put up a board bearing the words, " Come to the Subterra- neous Barber. He Shaves for a Penny," and by his low price got away much of the trade from the other shops in the town. To obviate this the others reduced their prices to a penny, when and this was proof of the energy that characterized 3G 560 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. him in later life he immediately reduced his terms to half price, and announced the fact on his boards with the expressive words, " A Clean Shave for a Halfpenny ! " Afterwards Ark- wright became, it is said, a barber at Wirksworth, in Derbyshire (near to which place he afterwards founded his cotton mills), and then took to travelling about the country buying and selling hair. Attending " statute fairs," he bought their long tresses from the country girls who there offered themselves for hire as servants, and he also went to villages and towns for the same purpose, buying up and cutting off the hair and selling it to the wig and peruke makers. From this and the sale of a hair-dye he is said to have made money, and to have done a profitable trade. Like many other men of his time, Arkwright caught the con- tagion of attempting the discovery of a " perpetual motion; " and this led him to contriving other machines to the neglect of his business and the loss of his money, a neglect that his impoverished wife not unnaturally resented, and in a fit of des- peration broke up his models as the only way she could devise of bringing back his attention to home and business. Provoked and wrathful beyond measure, Arkwright, whose character must have been harsh and vindictive in the extreme, and who had not learned the Christian principle of " forgive and forget," separated from her and never forgave the act. Having become acquainted with a clockmaker at Warrington, named Kay, and got him to assist in his " perpetual motion machine," Arkwright received from him some hints and par- ticulars regarding an invention of his own for spinning by rollers. " The idea at once took firm possession of his mind, and he proceeded to devise the process by which it was to be accomplished." To this he entirely devoted himself, and he and Kay constructed a machine which they set up in a room at Preston ; but, fearing its destruction by a mob, he first took it to Nottingham, where he obtained pecuniary aid from Messrs. Wright, the bankers, and afterwards, at their suggestion, to Jedediah Strutt, the inventor of the " Derby Ribbed Stocking Machine," and his partner Mr. Need. Mr. Strutt himself, SIR RICHARD ARKWRIGHT. 561 through his inventions, a no small benefactor of mankind, and the founder of the house ennobled in the person of one of his grandsons, Edward Strutt, by the title of Baron Belper at once entered into a partnership with Arkwright, a patent was secured, and cotton mills erected which ultimately made the fortunes of both the Arkwrights and the Strutts. From that time forward the machinery was constantly receiving improve- ments and becoming perfected ; but the opposition he met, not only from the working people but from other manufacturers, nerved Arkwright to still greater efforts. Like George Ste- phenson and other great men, he " persevered," and success abundantly crowned his efforts. He became Sir Richard Ark- wright, and died, it is said, a millionnaire. The mills at Crom- ford, in Derbyshire, built by him and his partners, became at the expiration of the partnership his own property. He built for himself, near at hand to them, a noble seat, Willersley Castle, and became the owner of large and valuable estates. " It is not every inventor, however skilled," says Mr. Smiles, " who is a veritable leader of industry like Arkwright. He was a tremendous worker, and a man of marvellous energy, ardor, and application to business. At one period of his life he was usually engaged in the severe and continuous labors involved by the organization and conduct of his numerous manufactories from four in the morning until nine at night. At fifty years of age he set to work to learn English grammar and improve him- self in writing and orthography. When he travelled, to save time, he went at great speed, drawn by four horses. Be it for good or evil, Arkwright was the founder in England of the modern factory system, a branch of industry which has un- questionably proved a source of immense wealth to individuals and to the nation." A blot on his fair fame was his unforgiving disposition towards his poor wife. Probably but he could not see it her destruc- tion of his first models was to him a true " blessing in disguise; " for it served as an incentive to further and renewed and improved action, and resulted in his achieving a mechanical success that would never have been attained but for that " cross " which, in 562 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. her poverty and out of love for him, she had " laid upon him." Who, therefore, can blame the' young wife? Rather to her, probably, though she knew it not, and did not live to see her unforgiving husband's ultimate greatness, is, from that very cir- cumstance, to some extent owing the success he achieved and the right to which he attained of being classed among benefactors of mankind. ELI WHITNEY. [BORN 1765. DIED 1825.] ROBERT FULTON declared that Arkwright, Watt, and Whitney were the three men who had done the most for mankind of any of their contemporaries. Cotton manufacture in the United States goes only a little way back of the present century ; and it became a possibility only through the discovery of a cheap, simple, and expeditious method of separating the fibre of the plant from the seeds that adhere to it. Without the invention of the cotton-gin, says a veteran American cotton-spinner, " it would have been impos- sible for this country to have supplied the raw material for the increasing wants of the manufacturer." " What Peter the Great did to make Russia dominant," says Lord Macaulay, " Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin has more than equalled in its relation to the progress and power of the United States." It is furthermore a matter of record in the decision of Mr. Jus- tice Johnson, of the United States Court for the District of Georgia, that it paid the debts of the South, and more than trebled the value of its lands. So late as the close of the Revolutionary War, scarcely any cotton was produced in the Southern States. The great staples of that section were rice, indigo, and corn. England was then supplying America with cotton fabrics made from raw material grown in India, China, and Brazil; and through the inventive ELI WHITNEY. ELI WHITNEY. 565 genius of Arkwright, 1 she had secured for her manufactures a monopoly of the markets of the world. No cotton at all was grown in South Carolina or Georgia before the year 1789, and very little in Maryland and Virginia; but the impoverished planters of those States had then begun to turn their attention to its cultivation, as promising better returns than their regular crops. They knew that Great Britain was consuming six or seven million pounds annually. They had slave labor and a productive soil. It is true that a cotton factory the first in the United States had been built in Beverly, Massachusetts, as early as 1787, and was certainly in operation two years later; but all the cotton used there had to be imported from the West Indies, where the labor of picking cost next to nothing. Pay- ment was made for the staple in dried fish, that being the chief article of negro diet in those islands. In the course of a few years' trial, the soil of the Southern Atlantic States had been found excellently adapted to the growth of cotton, and a considerable breadth had consequently been planted ; still, so long as it took a negro a whole day to clean a single pound of raw cotton by hand labor, it was plain that the crop could not be made a profitable one. On the other hand, could some less costly method of getting rid of the seed be devised, the planters knew that their cotton would find a ready market both at home and abroad. The subject was in this stage when, in 1792, a young New Englander, named Eli Whitney, went to Georgia in the hope of bettering his prospects. He was the son of a Massachusetts farmer, and had just graduated from Yale. He expected to teach for a living. Disappointed in his first purpose of keeping a private school, he began the study of law at Savannah ; and, while pursuing his studies, he formed the acquaintance of the widow of General Nathaniel Greene, who was then living upon the plantation presented to her distinguished husband by the State of Georgia. This excellent lady took the poor law- student into her own house ; and it was there, under her roof, that he first heard discussed the problem of how cotton might 1 See the preceding article. 566 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. be made profitable to the Georgia planter. Whitney had shown much native ingenuity, as well as taste, for mechanical contriv- ance; and, one day, when the vexed question came up at Mrs. Greene's house, his benefactress warmly urged the young Northerner to try what he could do to solve it. The appeal ' and the occasion put him upon his mettle. Up to this moment Whitney had never seen either raw cotton or cotton-seed ; but, inspired by the confidence of his benefactress, no less than by the greatness of the opportunity, he shut himself up in a room that Mrs. Greene provided for the purpose, and toiled with unremitting perseverance until he had produced an imperfect model of his since famous machine. This rude machine was first exhibited to Mrs. Greene and a select company of invited guests, chiefly planters, all of whom witnessed its successful operation with wonder, but with delight too ; for with this con- trivance it was seen that more cotton could be separated from the seed by the labor of a single hand in one day than could be done in the usual way in months. The report of Whitney's wonderful machine soon spread abroad, causing great excitement among the planters and equal annoyance to the inventor, who naturally did not wish the public to see his work until he had thoroughly perfected it for practical use. He therefore refused to exhibit it in its in- complete state, which refusal so excited the ire of some law- less or unprincipled persons that they broke open -the place where the machine was kept and carried it off. Although the fruits of his toil were thus wickedly wrested from him, the inventor could obtain no redress ; for the planters selfishly banded themselves together to resist any effort to bring the perpetrators of the outrage to justice. This is an accurate, though by no means flattering, view of the morals of the time. So, although he had thus fully met the demand made upon his genius, Whitney was not permitted to reap the reward of his labors. In Georgia he was at the mercy of the mob. He therefore returned to Connecticut in the spring of 1793, con- structed a new model, and applied for a patent. His applica- tion encountered the determined opposition of those who either ELI WHITNEY. 567 t had profited by the outrage in Georgia or who expected to do so in the future. In the meantime duplicates of the original cotton-gin had been made from the stolen model, as if it were public property, and were in use on many of the plantations before the inventor's rights could be protected by the patent laws. Against all these obstacles Whitney, however, struggled manfully ; and having at length secured his patent-right, he began the manufacture of his machines at New Haven. He now began to receive some pecuniary benefit. South Carolina purchased for $50,000 the right to use the gin in that State. North Carolina also agreed to pay the inventor a royalty for every cotton-gin put in operation within her borders. Some of the other Southern States promised the like encouragement, but did nothing. In view of the fact that Whitney's discovery had already doubled the wealth of the cotton-growing States, these results seem ridiculously small; but when it is known that every dollar that Whitney had thus received was either spent in lawsuits brought to secure the payment of these sums, or to stop the infringements made upon his gin, they appear still more so. Convinced at last that for him, at least, justice did not exist in the South, Whitney abandoned in despair the effort to obtain it. He had now to look elsewhere for the means of support. But such a mechanical genius as his could not long fail of appreciation. By the advice and assist- ance of his friend, Oliver Wolcott, Whitney now turned his at- tention to the manufacture of fire-arms for the Government. The arsenals were either empty or encumbered with old and un- serviceable arms. The hopes and energies of the unfortunate inventor were newly aroused, though in an entirely differ- ent direction. Whitney's workshops at New Haven were in successful operation in 1808-9, turning out fire-arms of im- proved pattern and workmanship. He was the first person to make a musket so that each part could be fitted to any other musket. Thanks to the patronage of Governor Wolcott, who was then Secretary of the Treasury, Whitney ultimately amassed a fortune in the manufacture of arms, having introduced many novel features in the machinery he used, as well as the finished 568 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. weapons he turned out. All his efforts to procure a renewal of the patent-right to his cotton-gin were, however, defeated by the Southern delegation in Congress; and so this gifted in- ventor and benefactor had the hard fortune to see his invention everywhere in successful use, and its merits fully acknowledged, while he stood begging for justice at the doors of those whom his genius had enriched. Mr. Whitney's death, in 1825, elicited the warmest encomiums to his personal worth as a man; but his experience as the inventor of the cotton-gin is a signal instance of the inherent selfishness of human nature that we can have no pleasure in putting upon record. JAMES WATT. [BORN 1736. DIED 1819.] 'T^HOSE who knew James Watt as a boy must have been -L very undiscerning if they did not read in him the promise of greatness. Frail and sickly, he was, nevertheless, brimful of intellectual life. Ardently loving fiction, making and telling striking tales, wandering alone at night to watch the stars, scrutinizing every instrument and machine that fell in his way to master the rationale of its uses, engrossed with the " Elements of Natural Philosophy," performing chemical experiments and contriving an electrical machine, dissecting, botanizing, break- ing the rocks for mineralogic specimens, working in metal, making miniature cranes, pulleys, capstans, and pumps, enter- ing the cottages and gathering the local traditions of the peas- ants, such was the wonderful boy of fifteen who afterwards said, " I have never yet read a book or conversed with a com- panion without gaining information, instruction, or amusement. ' At nineteen the adventurous youth tried his fortune in London ; and, after many a struggle and trial, returned to Scotland, and at one-and-twenty was installed in the quadrangle of Glasgow JAMES WATT. JAMES WATT. 571 College as " Mathematical Instrument Maker to the University." Here he carried on a trade in quadrants and musical instruments of his own making. He built an organ, and it was the admira- tion of musicians. Students and professors frequented his shop. Robison, afterwards professor of natural philosophy, expected to find in him a workman, and was surprised to find a philoso- pher. Other proficients besides Robison frankly acknowledged their inferiority to Watt; and they did so the more readily because they could not help loving the naive simplicity and candor of his character. To Robison he owed one invaluable suggestion, the application of steam to the moving of wheel- carriages. It is a mistake to suppose that there was no steam-engine before James Watt. There was that of Newcomen, on which he had to improve. But the problem of adequate improvement was dark till, in a lonely walk one Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1765, the solution of it flashed upon his mind. But many long and laborious years were needed before he could bring to perfection the engine which was completed in thought. Black- smiths and tinners were the workmen available for his purpose in Glasgow; no capitalists there were likely to take up the steam-engine. Several thousand pounds would be required to give a fair trial to his apparatus; and if Dr. Roebuck had not become his associate he might never have been able to bring his grand invention before mankind. At length, in 1768, the model was finished; but a model is to a mechanic only what a manuscript unpublished is to an author. The patent was obtained in 1769, but much still remained to be done. Limited means depressed his spirits, and the almost insuperable difficul- ties caused by bad mechanical workmanship proved dreadfully disheartening. " Of all things in life," he said in moments of despondency, " there is nothing more foolish than inventing." And again' he wrote: "To-day [Jan. 31, 1770] I enter into the thirty-fifth year of my life, and I think I have hardly done thirty-five pence' worth of good in the world." It was in the midst of the most trying calamities calamities such as generally befall those who are to benefit their kind 572 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. largely that Watt entered into partnership with Boulton, him- self a great designer, contriver, and organizer. It was he who said to Boswell in 1776, in reference to his manufacture of steam- engines in Soho, " I sell here, sir, what all the world desires to have, POWER." Seven hundred men were at that time work- ing in his factory. But the capital invested by him in the undertaking amounted to ,47,000 before any profits began to be derived from their sale. Even with the extension of the patent, it was not till after 1783 that Watt and Boulton had the satisfaction of finding that there was really a balance to their profit. At length their long toil, perseverance, and patience were rewarded in a pecuniary point of view ; but they would have enjoyed the higher satisfaction of having benefited man- kind even if they had died beggars. Their first experiments were made in Cornwall, where the size, swiftness, and horrible noise of the engine greatly astonished the natives. " The strug- gles," Watt wrote to Dr. Black, " which we have had with natu- ral difficulties, and with the ignorance, prejudices, and villanies of mankind, have been very great, but I hope are now nearly come to an end." Yet they continued unabated ; and so also did his headaches and despondency. " Solomon," he wrote bitterly to Mr. Boulton, " said that in the increase of knowledge there is increase of sorrow; if he had substituted business for knowledge, it would have been perfectly true." Attempts to pirate his inventions sharpened his distresses. Ordinary mech- anicians made their fortunes by these despicable means. It had been so during life: his drawing-machine, his microscope, his crank, had been appropriated and purloined, and now the same fate threatened the condensing-engine on which he had bestowed twenty years' toil. The Cornish miners, with the most selfish dishonesty, sought to evade the payments which they had stipu- lated to Boulton and Watt. Thousands of pounds had to be spent to vindicate the rights of the patentees; and though invariably successful, the anxiety these legal processes caused to Watt's too sensitive mind were such as can be imagined only by those who have been drawn against their will within the whirlpool of law courts. Invention to Watt was martyrdom; JAMES WATT. 573 yet so strongly did the inventive instinct work within him that his physicians strove in vain to dissuade him from further inven- tions. New contrivances continued to be the pastime of his leisure hours ; and thus to his irrepressible genius for mecha- nism were due the machine for copying letters, the instrument for measuring the specific gravity of fluids, his regulator lamp, his machine for drying linen, and his plan of heating buildings by steam. Notwithstanding all his troubles and trials Watt lived to old age, and enjoyed a remarkable exemption from the infirmities usually incident to it. Until eighty-three years old he went daily into his workshop after answering letters, and was often seen in the company of the men of the day most illustrious in liter- ature and science. Walter Scott, Jeffrey, and Mrs. Schimmel- Penninck have all left us most interesting records of his amiability and extensive knowledge. Scarcely a subject could be started in which he was not at home, and wherever he went he proved a centre of attraction. Even little children thronged around him. We stand amazed at the enormous results of the activity of a single mind, when we cast our eye over a railway map and think of the impetus his invention has given to the life of the civilized world. Nor have these results reached their goal. To remote posterity they will appear only to have just begun; for it is impossible for us even to conjecture to what ends, and to how many, the use of steam locomotion may in future be applied. There is an interaction among discoveries which makes their value increase in geometrical proportion as they succeed one another ; but we may be sure that, however great and numerous may be the improvements in steam machinery, posterity will never forget the name of James Watt nor disown their obligations to his genius. The pen of Brougham has not exaggerated his merits in the epitaph on the statue of James Watt in Westminster Abbey executed by the chisel of Chantrey. The great lawyer was well employed when he wrote it ; and so was the great sculptor when he preserved in marble the memory of so great a man. 574 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. ROBERT FULTON. [BORN 1765. DIED 1815.] WE who are accustomed to travel in the floating palaces of our day at a speed of from fifteen to twenty miles an hour, look back with wonder upon the first feeble attempts that were made to propel vessels by steam. The wonder increases that the discovery came so late as it did ; for we are hardly able now to realize by what slow stages steam locomotion ad- vanced to assured success. Now that steam itself is hardly swift enough to satisfy the demands of our hurrying age, the idea of travelling four or five miles an hour may well cause a smile ; but to seriously consider that it is only three quarters of a century since even this slow rate of progress was considered one of the grandest achievements of modern times almost passes our ability. Successful application of steam to navigation is unquestion- ably due to the persevering efforts of Robert Fulton ; because, while Fitch and others had the same idea that he had, and were pursuing it in their own way, he outstripped them in the race by superior genius. Many had already tried and failed where Fulton at last succeeded, so that the world gives no more than its just reward to his patient and unremitting labors when it places Robert Fulton's name upon the roll of benefactors, " not for an age, but for all time." Yet how simple the problem seems to us in the light of present knowledge ! To so apply the power of the steam-engine to a shaft as to drive a water-wheel, this was all. And how to do it was puzzling the inventors of Watt's and Fulton's day, inventors who had already settled it in their own minds that the thing was entirely feasible. So indeed it seemed ; for the steam-engines of Watt and Boulton were already doing wonders 37 ROBERT FULTON. ROBERT FULTON. 577 in the way of mechanical labor, and were slowly opening the eyes of inventors to the greater possibilities that lay in the future of steam power. Robert Fulton was one of those rare minds whose intellectual activities must of necessity lead to some brilliant result. In the popular phrase, he was born great. His early career and that of his countryman, Morse, are, up to a certain point, almost identical ; for he, like Morse, had chosen the profession of a painter, and he too had been a pupil of West. It was while he was in England, working over his easel, that Fulton's mind began definitely to take the direction of mechanical science, a study in which he ultimately became absorbed to the exclu- sion of everything else. He realized that it was his true voca- tion. Yet his earlier projects, valuable as they were, seem only to have been so many steps towards higher achievement. For several years he applied himself closely to the study of civil- engineering, arid especially to the improvement of canal navi- gation. In 1797 Fulton went to Paris, where the friendship of Joel Barlow procured for him an entrance into the brilliant coterie of savans which the sagacity of the First Consul had attracted to his fortunes. War was then the business of Eu- rope, and warlike inventions superseded for the moment every other in importance. During Fulton's residence in Paris he had the good fortune to meet Chancellor Livingstone, the American minister, who thenceforth became the inventor's fast friend, generous patron, and active coworker; for Livingstone himself had been seriously occupied with the question of steam navigation, and in Fulton he had at last found the man who was capable of bringing this grand scheme to a fortunate con- clusion. On the other hand, in Livingstone Fulton found a patron possessed of large and varied attainments, of command- ing influence and position, and of ample wealth, who had, moreover, the success of the project to which his own life was devoted quite as much at heart as himself; so that the alliance promised only the best results. Exactly what Livingstone and his associates had accom- plished before Fulton joined them, is not clearly perceived. 5/8 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. Some experiments had been made ; and when it is known that these experiments had advanced so far that, with characteristic foresight, Livingstone, in 1798, had secured from the State of New York an exclusive privilege to navigate with steam-vessels the waters of that State, we are prepared to believe either that certain results were looked for, or that Livingstone desired a monopoly that would enable him to carry on his experiments at leisure. This was three years before he met Fulton in Paris. His. application had been treated with derision by the legisla- ture, but it had been successful ; and so a way for making the invention profitable, when it should come, was prepared. After experimenting two years, Fulton produced, in 1803, a boat that made under steam a successful trial-trip on the Seine. The grand schemes of Napoleon had also set the American inventor's brain at work upon a series of experiments that resulted in the perfection of his submarine torpedo, which is certainly one of the most original as well as one of the most destructive engines of modern warfare. The steamboat was, however, his fixed idea. In 1806 Fulton returned to the United States, and from this moment he applied all the resources of his mind to the subject of steam navigation. He immediately set about building a boat one hundred and thirty feet long, eighteen wide, and seven deep. An engine was ordered from Watt and Boulton. All the machinery was uncovered, and its working exposed to view. Fulton's principle was the familiar one of working paddles by a shaft extending outside the hull. These paddle-wheels were only fifteen feet in diameter, with a dip of two feet. When the " Clermont" was completed, for she was so named from the Livingstone manor on the Hudson, - and it was announced that on the 4th of August, 1807, the boat would start on a voyage of one hundred and fifty miles, to Albany, under steam alone, public expectation was raised to fever heat. Underneath this there was, however, a general feeling of incre- dulity in the success of the scheme, and of pity for the vision- ary Fulton and his misapplied talents. But when the hour fixed for the trial actually came, when the " Clermont " was unmoored, her rude engine started, and, steaming slowly out ROBERT FULTON. 579 upon the broad river, she began her eventful voyage in the midst of an ominous silence on the part of the multitude of spectators, then came a moment of supreme suspense for the anxious inventor, which it will be best to allow him to describe in his own way. " The boat moved on a short distance, and then stopped and became immovable. To the silence of the preceding moment now succeeded murmurs of discontent, whispers, and shrugs. I could hear distinctly repeated by those around me : ' I told you so ; it is a foolish scheme. I wish we were well out of it.' I stepped up to where I could be heard, and spoke to them. I stated that I knew not what was the matter ; but if they would be quiet and indulge me for half an hour I would either go on or abandon the voyage for that time. This short respite was con- ceded without objection. I went below, and examined the machinery, and discovered that the cause was a slight maladjustment of some of the work. In a short time it was remedied. The boat was again put in motion. She continued to move on. All were incredulous; none seemed willing to trust to the evidence of their own -senses." The passage of the " Clermont " up the Hudson was a tri- umphal progress. Multitudes flocked to the shores to see this strange craft moving steadily on without the help of wind or sails. In thirty-six hours she had steamed the one hundred and fifty miles to Albany without meeting with the least accident. With modest triumph Fulton records that the " Clermont " had overtaken the various sailing craft, and had passed them as if they had been at anchor. The following letter gives too con- cisely his own account of the voyage. We append it as a literary curiosity : NEW YORK, Aug. 20. To THE EDITOR OF THE "AMERICAN CITIZEN:" * SIR, I arrived this afternoon at 4 o'clock, in the steam Boat from Albany. As the success of my experiment gives me great hope that such boats may be rendered of much importance to my country, to prevent erroneous opinions and give some satisfaction to the friends of useful improvements, you will have the goodness to publish the following state- 1 Then the other name of the " Commercial Advertiser." 580 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. ment of facts : I left New York on Monday, i o'clock, and arrived at Clermont, the seat of Chancellor Livingston, at i o'clock on Tuesday, time 24 hours, distance no miles. On Wednesday I departed from the Chancellor's at 9 in the morning, and arrived at Albany at 5 in the after- noon, distance 40 miles, time 8 hours ; the sum of this is 150 miles in 32 hours, equal to near 5 miles an hour. On Thursday, at 9 o'clock in the morning, I left Albany, and arrived at the Chancellor's at 6 in the evening ; I started from there at 7, and arrived at New York on Friday at 4 in the afternoon, time 30 hours, space run through 150 miles equal to 5 miles in an hour. Throughout the whole way, my going and returning, the wind was ahead ; no advantage could be drawn from my sails the whole has, therefore, been performed by the power of the steam-engine. I am, Sir, Your most obedient ROBERT FULTON. GEORGE STEPHENSON. [BORN 1781. DIED 1848.] * I "'HE inventor of the locomotive steam-engine was born in -*- a village of Northumberland in 1781. His earliest recollec- tions were of the colliery of which his father was fireman, and Dewley Burn, where he herded cows and in his leisure modelled clay engines and constructed a miniature windmill. Promoted, when a boy, from being fireman of an engine to be plugman, he would sometimes take the machine to pieces and put it to- gether again in order to understand it the better. At eighteen, when earning but twelve shillings a week, he attended a night school, and from learning to read and write his name got on to learn arithmetic at fourpence a week. At twenty he was brakesman ; big, raw-boned, temperate, industrious, athletic, and, though not combative, ready to defend himself if " put upon." With the new century he married Fannie Henderson ; and the ballast brought by the collier ships to Newcastle looked to him to be lifted out of the hold. He lived at Ballast Hills, GEORGE STEPHENSON. GEORGE STEPHENSON. 583 gave much time to mechanical experiments, labored in vain to procure perpetual motion, and became clock cleaner and mender to the whole neighborhood. This was better than cobbling and shoemaking, which he had practised at Newburn to earn pence for the schoolmaster. In 1803 his first and only child was born, his wife died, and the next year he superin- tended the working of one of Boulton and Watt's engines at Montrose. Provisions were at war prices ; but he saved 28 in a year, and returned to Killingworth to help his father, who was in deep distress. He rose only by slow degrees, and from engineman at Killingworth colliery he became engineer with ;ioo a year. He was now over thirty years of age, and the most impor- tant epoch of his life was at hand. He had seen many attempts to construct a locomotive steam-engine, and had come to the conclusion that he could surpass them all. Hitherto every success had been also a failure, for none had combined econ- omy and efficiency. Lord Ravensworth was one of his em- ployers, and to him he communicated his design. He obtained a patient hearing, and was commissioned to make a trial. His plan at first was to make one for the colliery tramways only ; but he foresaw, even at this stage of his labors, that " there was no limit to the speed of such an engine, if the works could be made to stand it." But how great were his difficulties ! An engine built in the workshops at West Moor, the tools themselves to be made, the colliery blacksmith the chief workman, and everything resting on the designer ! How- ever, in ten months it was finished ; and he placed it on the railway, July 25, 1814. It was successful, though cumbrous and capable of great improvement. It drew eight loaded car- riages, weighing thirty tons, at the rate of four miles an hour. But it cost about as much as horse-power; the waste steam escaped freely into the air, and it went hissing away with a tremendous noise, while the lookers-on laughed and called it " My Lord." True genius is not to be baffled with difficulties; rather they are its life. Stephenson saw a remedy for the waste steam. He invented the steam-blast, that is, made the 584 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. waste steam promote the combustion of the fuel, and by that means doubled the engine's power without any increase of its weight. This however, did not satisfy him. Next year he made another engine, which must be regarded as the type of the present locomotive engine, though it has been consider- ably modified in minor details. During the nine years that elapsed from 1816 to 1825, Ste- phenson was constantly advancing from one step to another of improved locomotive machinery. He found that the tramroads were carelessly kept, and that a firm bed and a regular level were essential requisites. He took out a patent for an improved form of rail and chair ; and he placed the locomotive engine on springs, and applied his latest invention to the conveyance of goods. The railway which he constructed for the owners of Hetton colliery was opened for traffic in 1822; and he found a wider field for his talents in the construction of the Stock- ton and Darlington line, of which he was appointed engineer. He worked at it with a will ; started every morning with his dinner in his pocket, and got it cooked wherever he happened to pass about noon. The eyes of Parliament and of the nation were now upon him, though many jeered at his enthusiasm. At last the line was opened by an engine which he drove himself. It drew a load of ninety tons at the rate of over eight miles. It was highly remunerative, and served for goods and passenger traffic. This one railway has done much for society. The town and port of Middlesborough-on-Tees, with eight or nine thousand inhabitants, has taken the place of a solitary farm ; and where a few heads of cattle strayed and pastured there are now reading-rooms and a national school, an observatory, manufactures of rope and sail-cloth, iron-works, yards for shipbuilding, commodious docks, and extensive exports of coal. All this has come of Mr. Pease's Darlington line, with Stephenson for its engineer, and the old stage-coach mounted on a truck used as a passenger carriage, and called " The Experiment." His great trial of strength was yet to come. It was pro- posed to run a railway with a train of a hundred tons weight GEORGE STEPHENSON. 585 across the spongy and impassable Chat Moss between Man- chester and LiverpQol. Stephenson said he could do it; but though every obstacle was thrown in his way, he fought his battle single-handed, and he won it. He obtained his bill and constructed his railway. The best part of the line is that which crosses Chat Moss; and thajt part cost no more than ^"28,000. He placed on this line his latest improvement, the " Rocket," which had won the prize of ^500 offered by the directors, and he drove it himself thirty miles an hour. The object of his life was now achieved, and in it he acquired the reward of his labors. Wealth of course filled his coffers, at least, all the wealth he desired, and more than he needed. As to titles and honors, he would not put out his hand to take them. He would die, he said, with the name he was christened by, and would have " no flourishes to it, either before or after." George Stephenson was assisted in his labors by his son Robert, who afterwards became almost as distinguished as his father. Occupation of a most remunerative kind poured in upon them; and the father was incessantly engaged till 1840, when he resigned most of his engagements, settled at Tapton, in Derbyshire, and found in the Clay Cross collieries a fresh pursuit. Often he visited the Mechanics' Institutes in his neighborhood, and encouraged them by relating the circum- stances of his own career. His interest in railway extension continued undiminished ; and he took part, as engineer, share- holder, or chairman, in the Maryport and Whitehaven, the Norwich and Yarmouth, and the Edinburgh and Newcastle East Coast line, with which is connected the stupendous high- level bridge at Newcastle, designed by his son. Of this last work he was one of the committee of management, but his life was not prolonged to see its completion. He travelled also in Belgium and Spain in connection with some railway projects; but on returning from the latter country, in 1845, he bid a more complete adieu to railway matters, and de- voted his time almost entirely to his lime-works and collieries, his farm and garden, and revived his early taste for keeping 586 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. birds and animals. Though he was invariably kind and atten- tive to the numerous applications he received for advice and assistance, he kept himself as free as he could from projectors and inventors of all kinds, and thus passed the decline of his life in peace and ease, witnessing the diligence and success of his son, who was destined to perpetuate his father's name and his reputation. He died on August 12, 1848, one of the heroes of social science, and one of the illustrious " men who have made themselves." " As evidence of the singularly ' matter-of-fact mind ' of George Stephenson," says S. C. Hall, " I have to state this. When the bill for the formation of the Chester and Birken- head Railway was passing through Parliament, I met Stephen- son at dinner with a small party of railway directors. Hope was giving scope to joy; the bill had gone through the Com- mons. When the toast, ' Success to railways ' was given, I turned down my glass and refused to drink it, on the ground that the promoters were enemies to the common-weal of Great Britain. A poor pun; but Stephenson began to argue with me as to the fact that for every common wheel put out of use, a wheel of infinitely greater value would be adopted. The dinner took place at a tavern, now gone, close to old Westminster Bridge and commanding a full view of the arches. Their bill had reached the House of Lords. I perpetrated another poor pun. ' Ah ! ' I said, ' I see why you patron- ize this house ; it is that you may cultivate acquaintance with the Piers ; ' upon which Stephenson earnestly explained to me that, ' the bill being sanctioned by the Commons, it was impossible that it could be rejected by the Peers' A play upon a word would have been as unintelligible to the marvellous old man as a treatise on algebra to a native of Newfoundland. In calling to memory George Stephenson, I picture a remarkable mingling of the snaviter in modo with the fortiter in re. A ponderous head that seemed overladen, a body that it appeared not easy to move from one chair to another, burdened with a weight of thought. But his was a countenance most expressive of a kindly nature ; it was THE GREATHEAD LIFEBOAT AT SEA HENRY GREATHEAD. HENRY GREATHEAD. 589 handsomely manly, with much of loving-kindness, requiring but a prompter to the exertion of sympathy and ready help. I could fancy him striving to stop. a steam-engine in full career, that a sparrow might get out of the way. I knew little of him and nothing of his domestic relations ; but I am greatly mistaken in my estimate of the man, if he was other than ten- der, loving, and affectionate, as well as generous and just. It was my privilege to meet Robert, the son of George, fre- quently at the hospitable board of the sculptor Lough ; like the great engineer, Lough was a " self-made man," and not ashamed of so honorable a distinction. Sir Robert Stephenson was, as far as ' externals ' went, a great improvement on the father : a remarkably handsome man he was in form and fea- tures ; of no great conversational powers, at all events, after dinner. It was not 'natural' that he should have left earth so early as he did ; his work was but half done. Have these two great men bequeathed to any ' son succeeding, the cloak the one inherited from the other ' ? These are but weak rec- ollections of two great men. If I had known more of them, as I might have done, I should have told more ; but surely the smallest scrap of information concerning such true heroes of labor, whose long pedigree is that of toil, is of some value." HENRY GREATHEAD. [BORN 1757. DIED 1813.] IT is the Briton's national boast that Britannia rules the waves. Whether or not Henry Greathead was that particular Briton who invented the life-boat has been a matter of some discussion, since this credit is claimed on behalf of two others, by name Lionel Lukin and William Wouldhave. The first of these two was a native of Dunmow, an inland town in the county of Essex. He afterwards removed to London, established himself 59 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. as a coach-builder in Long Acre, and then conceived the idea of constructing a boat partially of wood and partially of cork. He enjoyed the patronage of the then Prince of Wales, after- wards George IV. ; and in 1784 a boat built by him, and termed " unimergible," passed a successful trial on the Thames. He obtained a grant of letters patent in 1785 ; but his scheme does not appear to have made any progress beyond that the Rev. Dr. Shairp, of Bamborough, hearing of his invention, sent him an ordinary coble to be made " unimergible.' This was done. The boat was stationed at Bamborough ; and it is said to have been instrumental in saving several lives, but whether or not in seas in which no ordinary boat could have lived is unknown. The subject then dropped until 1789, when a ship, by name the " Adventurer," of Newcastle, stranded on the Herd Sands at the entrance of the Tyne. A fierce gale was raging, the sea was running mountains high ; thousands of spectators were present, and, though but three hundred yards from the ill-fated ship, were unable to afford the slightest succor. One by one the crew dropped off from the rigging; mothers saw their sons, wives their husbands, drowned before their eyes and within the very sight of home. This tragic event caused such an impres- sion that a committee was formed in South Shields, and a pre- mium was offered for the best design of a life-boat. A great number competed. .The final decision lay between William Wouldhave of South Shields, a painter, and Henry Greathead of the same town, a ship-builder ; and in the end it was given in favor of the latter; but the friends of Wouldhave claim that certain features of his design were adopted either by Greathead or the committee. There does not, however, seem to be much, if any, proof of this ; and probably the real facts are that the idea originated with Lukin, who, however, was unable to master the practical details, as it is said that the sides of his boat were liable to be staved in, and that the boat itself, though buoyant, lacked balance ; that Wouldhave improved upon the idea and might have been proclaimed the inventor, had Greathead never competed ; and that the latter alone was sufficiently master of the theory and practice of ship-building to produce anything HENRY GREATHEAD. 591 likely to prove of permanent benefit; and therefore to him must the honor be awarded, not as a privilege, but as a right. Those, however, who may feel inclined to inquire further into the merits of the case will find every information in the book entitled "The History of the Life-boat," by Mr. Richard Lewis, Secretary to the Royal National Life-boat Institution ; and it must sufffce to add that Wouldhave afterwards became clerk to St. Hilda's Church, South Shields, and died in 1821, at the age of seventy years. A tombstone erected to his memory bears the following inscription : " Sacred to the Memory of' WILLIAM WOULDHAVE, Who died September 28th, 1821, Aged 70 years, Clerk of this Church, And inventor of that national blessing to mankind the life-boat." Below is the following epitaph : " Heaven genius scientifick gave Surpassing vulgar boast, yet he from soil So rich no golden harvest reaped, no wreathe Nor that ingrate a Palm ; unfading this Till shipwrecks cease and lifeboats cease to save." A model of his invention can at the present time be seen suspended from the chandelier of the church. Lionel Lukin retired from business to Hythe, and died in 1834; and fhe inscription on his tombstone also claims for him the honor of having invented the life-boat. Henry Greathead was the son of John Greathead, supervisor and comptroller of the salt duties in South Shields and the ad- joining neighborhood, who had married a daughter of Henry Raisden, a merchant formerly of York Buildings, London. There was a large family, and the subject of this memoir was the fifth, and was born at Richmond, in Yorkshire, on the 27th of January, 1757. He was the worthy son of a worthy father, as the latter, to quote the words of the " European Magazine," 38 592 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. in 1804, "was held in great esteem for his strict integrity and diligence during forty-six years that he continued in the situation." Henry, when a boy, it is said, indicated a mechanical turn, and accordingly was apprenticed to an eminent ship-builder in South Shields. This life, however, proved too monotonous for him. He went to sea at first in the merchant -service, but dur- ing the American War served in the Royal Navy, and after- wards, in the year 1788, was shipwrecked on the French coast while on a voyage to the West Indies. He then returned to South Shields, set up as a ship-builder, and in the following year, as before stated, gained the prize offered by the South Shields Committee. In 1791 the life-boat was for the first time called into active requisition. A Sunderland brig again stranded at the entrance of the Tyne ; but this time succor was at hand. The boat was launched, was manned by a brave and sturdy crew, reached the distressed ship, and succeeded in saving those on board. The success of this one boat, the first messenger of salvation con- structed by human skill, but intrusted to the mercy of a divine Providence, encouraged not only other towns but also other countries to follow the example of South Shields; for in 1803 Greathead had built no less than thirty-one life-boats, of which eighteen were for England, five for Scotland, and eight for foreign countries. A year before this he had applied to Parliament for a national reward, and a committee had been appointed to take evidence. The evidence adduced proved two things, it proved that the life-boat was a blessing, and that Greathead was not alone an inventor but also a man of the greatest nobility of character ; it proved that the life-boat had already been the means of sav- ing two hundred lives at the mouth of the Tyne alone, but it also proved that Greathead had taken no steps to protect his invention, and had never asked, much less obtained, more than an ordinary trade price for a single one of these boats. Upon the report of this committee it was proposed to grant him a sum of 2,000, and Wilberforce eloquently urged his HENRY GREATHEAD. 593 claims. The Government, however, thought that half this sum would be sufficient; but upon its being represented to them that the cost of his own and his witnesses' journey up to and stay in London had amounted to nearly ,200, they consented to 1,200, and this amount was unanimously voted. The Trinity House added one hundred guineas, Lloyd's subscribed the same amount, the Society of Arts awarded him its gold medal together with fifty guineas, and the Emperor of Russia presented him with a diamond ring. On the 23d of November, 1803, there occurred an episode which showed that Greathead possessed a large amount of phys- ical courage in addition to a high mental capacity ; for on that day the " Bee " of Shields put to'sea, but encountering rough weather the captain determined to re-enter the Tyne. In tak- ing the bar at the mouth the ship struck the ground, lost her rudder, became unmanageable, and finally drove on the rocks known by the name of the " Black Middins." A crowd assem- bled ; and the same tragedy which had been the primary cause of life-boats ever having been instituted seemed likely to be re- enacted, for all declared that it was too rough for the boat to put out. Suddenly Greathead stepped forward, and offered to go out himself to the rescue if a crew would volunteer. His words had an electric effect on those present; hundreds stepped forward, and the difficulty now was whom to choose without offending the others. A selection, however, was finally made, chiefly consisting of pilots ; the life-boat was launched, reached the ship in reality without any great difficulty, and rescued everybody on board without the loss of a single life. After 1804 Greathead's career becomes somewhat enveloped in mystery and wrapped in gloom. It would appear that he embarked in certain speculations, and lost all the money which had been granted him by Parliament; for in 1807 his name ap- pears in the " Gazette " among the list of bankrupts. At that period the Napoleonic wars were attracting the attention of the whole country, and amidst the bustle of war this benefactor would appear to have been forgotten. The very date of his death is uncertain, but is believed to have occurred in 1813; 594 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. and it is beyond a doubt that he was carried to his last resting- place, " Unwept, unhallowed, and unsung." This neglect has been continued ; for his name is barely men- tioned in some biographical dictionaries or encyclopaedias, which cheerfully devote whole columns to the career of a successful clown or noted eccentricity. If this date of his death be correct, he would have died at the age of fifty-six, eight years before the first life-boat ever built was lost. Some, however, built by him, are not only in existence, but even in use. Redcar has the oldest; it bears the date of 1802; and the sight of it some eight years ago in- spired Viscount de Redcliffe to write some lines. They were set to music by Claribel, and the song was published under the title of " The Life-boat." No statue, even in Shields, has been erected to Greathead's memory. Well, perhaps none is wanted. Of Sir Robert Peel it was said that every policeman was a statue to his memory; and so with equal truth it may be said that every life-boat is a monument to the memory of Henry Greathead. The good work begun in 1789, though it flagged for a time, has been carried on up to the present day. The British public is seldom stingy where " Jack " is concerned ; and the Royal National Life-boat Institution alone, which is supported by vol- untary contributions, and of which her most gracious Majesty is patroness, has no less than two hundred and sixty-nine sta- tions, and was the means of saving eight hundred and fifty-five precious lives in one year. It is true that the life-boat in use is somewhat different in con- struction from that designed by Henry Greathead. It now carries sail, and is technically known by the name of " self- righting; " but, nevertheless, Britain has every reason to be proud of that son of the Tyne whose invention it practically was, since it is blessed by the whole civilized world, and has been the means of preventing untold sorrow and incalculable misery. SIR HUMPHRY DAVY. SIR HUMPHRY DAVY. 597 SIR HUMPHRY DAVY. [BORN 1778. DIED 1829.] I OIR HUMPHRY DAVY was one of those natural philoso- &? phers who specially contributed to the formation of modern thought. Without attaining to the highest distinction, his facul- ties were so well balanced, and his discoveries so numerous and brilliant, that he may be regarded as a representative man of his time and a pioneer of experimental philosophy in its latest developments. He was born on the I7th of December, 1778, at Penzance, in Cornwall, being the eldest son of Robert Davy, a wood-carver. The childhood of Humphry was spent under the immediate care of his parents ; and even in his earliest years he gave evi- dence of the possession of singular abilities. The first striking characteristic which manifested itself, one which distinguished him throughout life, was that of quickness of apprehension. When a mere child he entered the grammar school at Pen- zance, and remained there until 1793. He was then removed to the care of a Truro clergyman; but unfortunately his oppor- tunities for advanced education were cut short by his father's death in the following year. Soon afterwards he became articled to Mr. Borlase, a surgeon of Penzance, under whose tuition, though acquiring next to nothing of surgery, he gained that decided taste for chemical pursuits which eventually placed him in the front rank of scientific investigators. The passion for experiment indeed soon became insatiable. Everything that could on any pretence or by any contrivance be converted into a piece of chemical apparatus was appropriated without scruple. An old French injecting-syringe served him for an air-pump ; and he used this when preparing his first scientific 59 8 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. paper, " On the Nature of Heat and Light," which was pub- lished in 1799. It was a happy day for Davy when he concentrated his attention on nitrous oxide gas. His own experiences under its influence were delightful, and it gave him a name among his countrymen. He found that by its means he could produce sleep, delicious dreams, and involuntary laughter; and it led him on to further discoveries in the gaseous department of chemistry. With the new century a new career opened for the aspiring chemist. An offer of Count Rumford, in connec- tion with the Royal Institution, enabled him to devote himself entirely to science. There he became famous for his lectures, made his observations on flame, and constructed his safety-lamp, which has saved so many lives. Here, also, he made, his first experiments in electro-chemistry, and achieved the superb tri- umph of decomposing substances by electricity. It was a grand thing to have discovered that by which you could literally take a substance to pieces and see the elements of which it consists. Having succeeded in decomposing water, he tried the effect of the electric current on potash and soda ; and his brother says, " His delight when he saw the minute shining globules, like mercury, burst through the crust of potash and take fire as they reached the air, was so great that he could not contain his joy, he actually bounded about the room in ecstatic delight." He had proved that potash was not a simple substance. He had discovered potassium and sodium. Thus the great princi- ple was ascertained that chemical affinity can be overcome by a stronger power ; and Davy prepared the way for Faraday, to whom we are most indebted for what we know respecting the intimate connection between electricity and chemical change. Agricultural chemistry likewise owes much to Sir Humphry Davy. While Baron Liebig, of Darmstadt, was laboring in the same field in Germany, Davy was the first in England to teach how the growth of plants depends upon the chemical condition of the soil wherein they are sown, how different crops ought to be planted in succession in order not to exhaust the soil in any particular field, and what manure will best restore to the SIR HUMPHRY DAVY. 599 ground the elements that the crops have taken out of it. To Sir Humphry Davy, also, may be attributed in great part the knowledge of photography; for in 1802 he and Dr. Thomas Wedgwood suggested that pictures might be taken by the rays of the sun acting chemically upon chloride of silver, and they even succeeded in making some pictures in this way. Daguerre came afterwards and completed their work, when, in 1839, he taught us how to fix the pictures so that they would remain. Another contribution of Sir Humphry Davy to the cause of science resulted from his taking two pieces of ice and making them melt by rubbing them together, without any warmth being brought near them. In order to be quite sure that the heat did not come out of the air, he made a second experiment by plac- ing a piece of ice under an air-pump. When he had drawn out all the air he set the machine to work, so that the ice, being rubbed, melted without any air being present. Hence he came to the conclusion that " heat is a peculiar motion, probably a vi- bration of the corpuscles of bodies, tending to separate them." To an unwearied industry and zeal in research, Sir Hum- phry Davy added accurate reasoning. He was bold, ardent and enthusiastic ; he commanded a wide horizon, and his keen vision pierced to its utmost boundary. He felt an intense admiration of the harmony, order, and beauty of the chemistry of nature ; and he expressed his feeling in language that could flow from none but a mind of high powers and fine sensibil- ities. His discoveries were fruitful in further inventions after he had passed away. His cylindrical oil lamp alone, covered with its cylinder of wire gauze and flat gauze top, has been an invaluable boon to society. It has been followed by many improvements of which it was the parent, by the " Geordie " of George Stephenson's safety-lamp, by that of Museler in Belgium, and by the ingenious contrivances of Bidder, Gallo- way, Benoit-Damus, Galibert, and Denayrouze. What are called the Bakerian Lectures were the field in which he brought forward many of his most brilliant discoveries. The lecture theatre of the Royal Institution in his day was as frequently crowded by eager and fashionable audiences, as in more re- 600 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. cent times they were during the demonstrations of his gifted successor and early helper, Faraday. In 1810 he was invited to Ireland, and received from Trinity College the honorary degree of LL.D. Two years afterwards, the Prince Regent at a levee at Carlton House conferred on him the honor of knighthood. Soon after this he gave up his lectureship at the Royal Institution and married. From this time he devoted himself to travel and literary composition. In 1820 he was elected President of the Royal Society; but though now at the head of science in England, he did not cease to act as a private soldier in her ranks. His Bakerian lecture of 1826, on the relations of electrical changes, obtained for him the society's royal medal. That year, however, his health began to fail, and he was obliged to go to Italy to recruit. He once more returned to England, but was again obliged to seek rest abroad. After spending some time in Austria he went to Rome, where he became seriously ill. He desired to be removed to Geneva, but he arrived too late. On May 29, 1829, he died amid the splendors of natural scen- ery by the lake ; and his mortal remains were laid in a cem- etery outside the walls of the city. The spot seemed very suitable as the resting-place of one who explored with enthu- siasm the mysteries of nature, but dwelt also with intense pleasure on the marvellous loveliness and phenomena of daily occurrence. MICHAEL FARADAY. [BORN 1791. DIED 1867.] OOME time during the year 1813, that is, about two years v ~* before the battle of Waterloo, a letter was received by Sir Humphry Davy, the celebrated Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution, from a young man, who spoke of himself as engaged in trade, which he detested, and anxious to pursue MICHAEL FARADAY \7 9 I 1867 MICHAEL FARADAY, MICHAEL FARADAY. 603 science, which he loved. Accompanying the letter were copi- ous notes of Sir Humphry's lectures, showing that the writer was really in earnest in wishing to engage in the pursuit of science. At that time the great chemist was in the habit of frequently calling, on his way to the London Institution, at the house of a Mr. Pepys, one of the founders of that excellent school of science and literature. On one of the accustomed visits the letter was shown to Mr. Pepys, with the information that it came from a young man of the name of Faraday. " He has been attending my lectures," added Davy, " and wants me to give him employment at the Royal Institution. What can I do?" "Do?" replied Pepys; "put him to wash bottles. If he is good- for anything, he will do it directly; if he refuses, he is good for nothing." " No, no," rejoined Davy ; " we must try him with something better than that" And the warm-hearted Cornishman, as generous as he was gifted, wrote at once to the young man, and shortly afterwards engaged him as assistant in the laboratory. In the books of the Institution, under date of the i8th March, 1813, is the following entry: "Resolved, That Michael Faraday be engaged to fill the situation lately occupied by Mr. Payne, on the same terms." The terms were 25-r. a week. Thus began the scientific career of the greatest experimental philosopher of modern times. He was the son of a journeyman blacksmith, and was born at Newington Butts on the 22d of September, 1791. At thirteen years of age he was apprenticed to a bookbinder in Blandford Street, Manchester Square, and spent eight years in what we must conclude was not altogether a cordial endeavor to become a binder of books. " I was for- merly a bookseller and binder," he says in a letter to a valued friend, " but am now turned philosopher, which happened thus: While an apprentice, I, for amusement, learnt a little chemis- try and other parts of philosophy, and felt an eager desire to proceed in that way further. After being a journeyman for six months under a disagreeable master, I gave up my business, and, through the interest of a Sir H. Davy, filled the situation of chemical assistant to the Royal Institution of Great Britain, in 604 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. which office I now remain, and where I am constantly employed in observing the works of Nature, and tracing the manner in which she directs the order and arrangement of the world." In another letter he speaks of having learnt from the books which came under his hands for binding the beginnings of his philosophy. Two that were especially helpful to him were the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " and Mrs. Marcet's " Conversations on Chemistry." Like all who possess the highest type of mind, he was espe- cially gifted with a poetic that is, a creative imagination. He could, he says, believe as easily in the " Arabian Nights " as in the " Encyclopaedia." But his habit of rigidly cross-examining facts saved him from being carried away by mere fancies. He began by subjecting the statements in Mrs. Marcet's book to the test of what he calls " little experiments." Finding them to be true to fact, so far as he was capable of testing their veracity, he was encouraged to go on, always in the same way, however, of experimenting in the simplest manner and with the most unpretentious instruments. Some of his apparatus, even when he had command of the most elaborate appliances, were abso- lutely astonishing in their simplicity. In fact, one of the dis- tinguishing traits of a successful experimentist is the art of contriving, and this art Faraday possessed to perfection. Once being anxious to carry home a flower without allowing it to fade, and having no bouquet-holder at hand, he asked for a cork, and, taking a piece of letter-paper, tied it round the cork in the form of a tube, put in water and the flower, and thus bore it safely away. On his returning from the continental journey which he took with Sir Humphry Davy, and at the age of twenty-four, Fara- day gave his first public lecture " On the Properties of Matter." For five years after this he went on quietly with his duties at the Institution. In 1820, being then in his thirtieth year, he published his first paper in the " Philosophical Transactions," consisting of researches into certain new compounds of carbon and chlorine, etc. To enable him, on his marriage in 1821, to continue his resi- MICHAEL FARADAY. 605 dence at the Royal Institution, the managers allowed him addi- tional rooms. And here Mr. and Mrs. Faraday lived for many years. Although without any children of his own, his fondness for children was shown particularly in those ever-memorable Christmas lectures at the Royal Institution. On those occa- sions the enthusiasm of the lecturer spread among the audience until the excitement of the happy throng was almost uncon- trollable. Those who were present will never forget their delight when he showed them for the first time the decom- position of water into its constituent gases. Nor will they forget either what he told them so clearly and so pleasantly about the philosophy of combustion in his memorable lectures on the chemistry of a candle. Nowadays, in the presence of the telephone and the phonograph, we are so accustomed to scientific marvels that we scarcely wonder at anything; but in those days it was different. Electricity was then, like the rest of us, in its childhood. Its developments proved it to be a giant, so to speak, among physical forces ; not only children, but grown-up people, were amazed at its performances. For a few years after his marriage Faraday was much em- ployed in chemical analysis. In 1825 he published a paper in the " Philosophical Trans- actions," in which he announced the discovery of " benzole " and other hydrocarbons. This oil, called also " benzine" by Mitscherlich, was obtained by Faraday from among the oils condensed from oil gas at a pressure of thirty atmospheres. It can also be obtained from the benzoic acid, which is in turn made from gum benzoin, a sort of resin which comes from Sumatra. The importance of benzole is that it led to the discovery of a series of allied substances, one of which is ani- line, the base of several beautiful coloring matters. The man- ufacture of aniline dyes is now quite a notable branch of industry. Faraday's readiness in contriving apparatus has been alluded to. Another quality, or rather combination of qualities, was the quick intuitive glance which recognized a truth before the proof is complete, side by side with the philosophic caution 606 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. which will only accept a fact after the demonstration has been fully worked out. He never built on the experiments of others until he had gone over them himself; and it frequently hap- pened that during this very process ideas flashed upon his mind which had not occurred to the former experimenter, and which led to combinations or developments of the most important kind. In the course of his chemical researches he had shown that the old-fashioned distinction of bodies into solids, liquids, and gases was merely a distinction of temperature and not an essential quality of the things themselves. So, in electri- city, he soon showed clearly that the old distinction between electricity and magnetism was rather in the modus operandi than in the forces themselves ; at any rate, that there was an intimate connection between them. Hence the modern devel- opment of electro-magnetism. While carrying on experiments on magnets with various metals, Faraday discovered a very remarkable property in the metal bismuth. It is well known that when steel, iron, platinum, and crown-glass are magne- tized or electrized, if nicely balanced they will place themselves in the line of the electric or magnetic current, pointing out its direction. Hence the use of the mariner's compass. But bismuth, was found to place itself across the current. Other substances, such as gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, sulphur, etc., which were known not to be affected in the same way as iron by the magnet, were found, like bismuth, to place themselves across the current. To this quality Faraday gave the name of dia-magnetism ; the other quality 'of lying along the current he called para-magnetism. He even succeeded in magnetizing oxygen ga"s, and, in his own opinion, was equally successful in magnetizing, or at least in deflecting, a ray of light. 1 It was his fondness for physics that led Faraday to abandon his lucrative employment as a public analyst. After ten years of married life, from the very beginning of which he had 1 The latter experiment has since been repeatedly exhibited. Professor Crookes showed it in a most satisfactory manner during the meeting of the British Associa- tion, at Sheffield. MICHAEL FARADAY. 607 openly professed the simple but earnest Christianity taught him by his parents, he began to ask himself what was to be the real purpose of his life. Was it to be money-making or was it to be philosophy? His very nature recoiled from the idea of the former. He would always be able to support himself honorably; why should he aim at wealth? He ac- cordingly gave it up, and devoted himself entirely to inde- pendent research. Thus his place is among the noblest of public benefactors, not in the sense of assisting in great philanthropic movements, but in his contributions to the sum of human knowledge. He lived to question Nature, to make her yield her secrets. He made her confess that the old-world distinctions of scientific phraseology were no distinctions at all. He overturned the old-fashioned jargons about the boundaries of science, about "fixed air" and "poles" and "caloric," and demonstrated that what had hitherto been called the forces of nature were in reality various modes of " force." In fact, he went very near showing that force was only another name for Nature herself. The correlation of the physical forces is now an established principle of scientific knowledge. Tyndall, Joule, Grove, Mayer, Crookes, and many others, are going forward in the van of the movement which is enlarging the " boundaries of science." Others had opened or battered down gates, but it was Faraday who overthrew the time-honored walls of the old fortress of ignorance formerly called Philosophy. In his early days scientific investigators seemed to dwell in various regions rigidly kept apart. Mechanics, physics, chemistry, were studied separately, as if the realms of Nature were a triarchy of distinct governments, each having its own peculiar code of laws, its language, and Its customs. Faraday abolished all this. He taught by experiment and proved by demonstrable facts that variety exists only in the outcome of natural events, that the soul, the inmost' moving force, is unity. Such was the lofty ideal which Faraday set up in place of the old idols. 39 6o8 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. We have in this rapid glance seen something of the charac- ter of the philosopher. We will conclude with a brief notice of the man. He belonged to a body of Christians among whom he officiated as an elder in the church, and took his turn among others in preaching. His sermons were of the plainest kind, entirely destitute of that bold speculative spirit which characterized his lectures on science ; for it was his be- lief that the heart is swayed by a power to which logic and science bear no relation. By degrees his wonderful memory faded, and his health broke down, though not suddenly or painfully. He never quite got over the illness he had in 1865. He then gave up work entirely and forever. With the passing of the silent hours his life quietly ebbed away on the 25th of August, 1867. Not the least useful lesson in the life of this upright, noble- minded, and lovable man was the perfect union of the sweet domestic virtues with the mighty faculties of a transcendent intellect. It gives honor to the claims of a homely life be- side the demands of what are called the higher faculties, and goes far to break down the jealous partitions which less per- fect natures have striven to put up between homeliness and intellect. Qther lessons of his life are perhaps equally striking, each to the individual reader. With his scientific and philosophical discoveries the world is mainly familiar. The benefits to man- kind which have arisen and shall still arise out of his researches are numberless. But his character as a man has not been without its weight. It has left its mark upon those who knew him, as they all testify. And notwithstanding some failures, so fully were the noblest qualities united in him, that Nature, into whose innermost heart he delved the deepest, " Nature might stand up, And say to all the world, 'This was a man.'" "DAVID BREWSTERJp SIR DAVID BREWSTER. SIR DAVID BREWSTER. 6ll SIR DAVID BREWSTER. IUOKN 1781. DIED 1868.] OIR DAVID BREWSTER'S claim to distinction rests chiefly **-^ on his course of original discover}' in the science of op- tics. This throws an interest over his whole life. As a child he enjoyed great advantages, his father being a teacher of high repute and rector of the grammar school at Jedburgh. In his boyhood the bias nature had given him for physical pursuits was fostered by his intimacy with a self-taught mathemati- cian, astronomer, and philosopher, James Veitch, of Inchbonny. This neighbor enjoyed much local fame, and was particularly skilful in making telescopes. His university career began at the early age of twelve, when he was sent to Edinburgh and destined for the clerical profession. He finished his theological course and was even licensed to preach ; but nervousness and a decided preference for scientific pursuits prevented him from entering on active service in the kirk. Brougham, his fellow-student, in- duced him to study the inflection of light, and this was the beginning of his optical researches. His name must be espe- cially honored by every class of the great public, because his labors had so immediate and important a bearing on social re- quirements. Honors poured in upon him rapidly from his own country and France in consequence of his inquiries respect- ing (i) The laws of polarization of light by reflection and refrac- tion ; (2) The discovery of the polarizing* structure induced by heat and pressure; (3) The discovery of crystals with two axes of double refraction ; (4) The laws of metallic reflection ; and (5) Experiments on the absorption of light. Those who were best qualified to estimate the value of his discoveries were not slow to acknowledge them ; and the principal were the discovery of the connection between the refractive index of the polarizing 6l2 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. angle, that of biaxal crystals, and of the production of double refraction by irregular heat. The non-scientific public highly appreciated his invention, in 1816, of the kaleidoscope, a toy equally elegant and philosophical, for which there was for some time so large a demand in England and America that the sup- ply could not keep pace with it. He did not actually invent the stereoscope, which is due to Wheatstone, but he so improved it by suggesting the use of lenses to unite the dissimilar pictures, that the lenticular stereoscope, now exclusively in use, may be said to have had him for its inventor. But the optical researches of Brewster had a far more impor- tant result in the vast improvement of lighthouse apparatus. Fresnel was laboring at the same time with himself for the like object in France, and was the first to put the improvements con- templated into operation. But it is certain that Brewster de- scribed the dioptric contrivance in 1812, and pressed its use on those in authority in 1820. It was finally introduced into Eng- lish lighthouses by his earnest efforts ; and his memory justly deserves the tribute paid to it by his successor as head of the University of Edinburgh, who said, " Every lighthouse that burns round the shore of the British Empire is a shining witness to the usefulness of Brewster's life." It was not, however, till 1827 that he published his " New System of Illumination for Lighthouses," and offered his services to the lighthouse boards of the United Kingdom. Then, in 1833, experiments made in Scotland from Gallon Hill to Gulan Hill, a distance of 12^/2 miles, proved that " one polyzonal lens, with an argand burner of four concentric circles, gave a light equal to nine parabolic reflectors, each car- rying a single argand burner." From that time the illumination of lighthouses has been steadily advancing. Colored lights are now often used, but they require more distinction. In the new Lizard lights the magneto-electric light is that of Faraday, the machine is designed by Professor Holmes, and they are worked by Ericson's caloric engines. Brewster displayed marvellous activity as a literary man, par- ticularly in scientific literature. At the age of twenty he became editor of the " Edinburgh Magazine," and in 1808 of the " Edin- SIR DAVID BREWSTER. 613 burgh Encyclopaedia." He contributed largely to the " Ency- clopaedia Britannica." He edited, with Jameson, the " Edinburgh Journal of Science," contributed seventy-five articles to the " North British Review," and wrote for the Transactions of va- rious learned societies between three and four hundred papers. His "Life of Newton" occupied him twenty years. His interest- ing " Letters on Natural Magic," addressed to Sir Walter Scott, and his " Martyrs of Science ; or, Lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler," were widely read and highly valued by the public. He, with Herschel and Babbage, was foremost in establishing the British Association for the Advancement of Science, of which the first meeting was held in York in 1831. He was elected President of the British Association in 1849, an ^ was chosen one of the eight foreign associates of the Institute of France in suc- cession to Berzelius. Sir David Brewster's speculations concerning the plurality of worlds are familiar to the reading public in consequence of his having supported and extended the already popular views of Dr. Chalmers on the same subject, and also through his hav- ing been opposed by Dr. Whewell, the late Master of Trinity College, and recently by Mr. Proctor. Sir David's work was entitled " More Worlds than One; or, The Creed of the Phi- losopher and the Hope of the Christian." In this volume he combated with great force and equal ardor the narrow and de- grading notion of Dr. Whewell, that the innumerable suns which we call stars, with their planetary systems, are all rude and chaotic masses, devoid of mental and moral life. He believed, rather, and maintained the high probability of each being a centre of humanity, or of life analogous with that of human life. To the Christian this idea will commend itself all the more because he is taught to believe that even the unseen world around him (and much more the visible universe) is teeming with intelligences of various orders. The arguments, it may be added, of Sir John Herschel in his " Outlines of Astronomy," and of Professor Mil- ler in his " Romance of Astronomy," corroborate those of Sir David Brewster, and lead to the conclusion that wherever there are worlds there is, has been, or will be, life varying in its forms 614 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. and manifestations according to the various circumstances in which it is engendered and sustained. The bent of his genius, according to the last edition of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica," was not specially mathematical. In this respect he differed from Sir Isaac Newton, on whose life and manuscripts he dwelt so long and lovingly. He took the greatest pains to observe accurately and to classify facts, but he was not much given to theorizing. Some of the laws which he established, and which have been already referred to, were of prime importance, but they were generally the result of repeated experiments. He did not contribute much towards the ultimate explanation of the phenomena which he passed under review ; and it may be mentioned that although he did not absolutely maintain the corpuscular theory to the end of his days, he did not, on the other hand, adopt explicitly the undulatory theory of light. But, in saying this, it is not meant to detract from his genius, but to point out one of its characteristics. " His scientific glory," said Professor Forbes (and few will be inclined to dis- sent from the verdict), " is different in kind from that of Young and Fresnel ; but the discoverer of the law of polarization, of biaxal crystals, of optical mineralogy, and of double refraction by compression, will always occupy a foremost rank in the intel- lectual history of the age." It was a small distinction for him to receive the honor of knighthood, as he did in 1831, and the decoration of the Guelphic order of Hanover. It was the talent he displayed in his discoveries and numerous scientific essays that really ennobled him. In 1838 his merits were recognized and rewarded in his appointment to be principal of the colleges of St. Salvator and St. Leonard, St. Andrews, and still more when, in 1859, he consented to be the head of the University of Edinburgh, and continued to discharge its duties diligently till within a few months of his death in 1868. SIR ROWLAND HILL SIR ROWLAND HILL. 617 SIR ROWLAND HILL. [BORN 1795. DIED 1879.] HPHERE is, perhaps, no department of social progress which -*- has made more rapid and decided headway than that which belongs to the art of travel and the conveyance of messages. The ease and luxury of a modern railway journey seem to have thrown back the formidable discomforts of the old stage-coach into remote antiquity. Yet it is less than a century since old travellers would make their wills before they journeyed from London to York, and nerved themselves to the undertaking as men who had to face a week of untold peril. Peril surrounded them from beginning to end, peril from coachmen too ready to accept the proffered glass, peril by stress of weather, storm, and snowdrift, and last, though by no means least, peril from highway robbers. At any moment of the still and ghostly night a glittering weapon might flash through the frail window, and the once famous formula, " Your money or your life," ring in the drowsy ears of the half-conscious traveller. In 1779 the Chester mail was robbed in the City Road. Now and then, in the darkness and confusion, a passenger would get tied neck and heels, and pitched into the basket in mistake for the robber. Of course robbery was comparatively easy when the average speed of travelling in England was under five miles an hour, and in the case of the letter post three miles and a half. A coach that left London for Bath in the afternoon was looked upon as a " highflyer " if it reached its destination by the follow- ing morning. Before 1784, when Mr. Palmer, of the Bristol Theatre, introduced the mail-coach system, the manner and means, and of course the pace, of locomotion were most in- credibly slow. Mediaeval illuminations represent Apollo of course in con- temporary costume leisurely climbing the celestial heights in 618 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. a good solidly built " plaustrum," drawn by a team of most deliberate heavy-heeled dobbins ; no doubt representing the mediaeval idea of a gentlemanlike pace. In downright seri- ousness it was the pace with which our forefathers were calmly content. And not only so, but some of them violently protested against its increase. So late as 1797, when Mr. Palmer proposed further improvements on his system with re- gard to the rate of travelling, a Mr. Hodgson, one of the post- office authorities, opposed the alteration as worthless because founded on an impossibility. The " impossibility " consisted in supposing that the Bath letters could be brought to Lon- don in sixteen or eighteen hours. Mr. Palmer's plan, however, was adopted ; and the result was that five hundred places ob- tained a daily delivery which before had only had one three times a week. For twenty years previously the revenue from the postal system had averaged ; 150,000 a year. In ten years it increased to .400,000. In ten years more it reached 700,000, and in twenty years more, .1,500,000. Whoever would like to consult the history of this movement will find it in the Parlia- mentary Papers for 1807-8 and 1813. In 1838 a plan calculated not only further to increase the utility of this branch of the pub- lic service, but to revolutionize the whole management, was pri- vately submitted to the Government and afterwards published as a pamphlet. This production an ingenious, profound, and convincing argument was the work of the truly world- wide benefactor, Rowland Hill, who was then forty-two years of age, and had been employed for almost the whole of his life, from a mere lad, in the business of a schoolmaster. He was born on December 3, 1795, at Kidderminster, " quite unexpectedly," says his biographer, his birth being prema- ture. He was the third son of Mr. Thomas Hill, afterwards a noted schoolmaster in Birmingham. From the extreme deli- cacy of his health as an infant, it was only by the devoted and constant attention of his mother that the child's life was pro- longed. Sir Isaac Newton was another instance of a life begun thus prematurely, yet extended beyond the usual length. Rowland Hill's earliest amusement was counting up figures SIR ROWLAND HILL. 619 aloud as he lay on his couch beside the fire, until he had reached a total of hundreds of thousands. Thus early did he show his natural aptitude for computation. As his strength increased he was able to attend his father's school,- where he made extraordinary progress, particularly in mathematics. At quite an early age he assisted in teaching these subjects both in his father's school and elsewhere. During the next ten years Hill gave occasional lectures at the Philosophical Institution in Birmingham, usually on subjects connected with science or mathematics. One of his discourses was on the " Advantage of Systematic Arrangement," and his own character was an illustration of the value of what he taught. He enforced the love of order and method upon all his pupils until the practice of these valuable qualities became a second nature. The school of the elder Hill at Hazlewood, in the Hagley Road, Birmingham, was famous throughout England ; and it fully deserved its reputation, for it was conducted on the noblest and soundest principles. One rule was never to use corporal punishment, a practice then common in schools of every class. In place of it a system of self-government, superin- tended by the masters, was found to be perfectly efficient and satisfactory. Father and sons worked together with the most perfect cordiality and unanimity, and the result in twenty years was an establishment consisting of more than two hundred persons. In 1827 Rowland removed to Bruce Castle, Tottenham, hav- ing in that year married the daughter of Mr. Pearson, of Grais- ley, near Wolverhampton. She was a lady whose tastes were precisely such as enabled her to be a most valuable assistant to her husband. Throughout his various wearisome investigations she steadily worked as his amanuensis, analyzing and compil- ing statistics, and writing early and late from his dictation. In 1833 he retired from the school on account of broken health, and passed some months on the Continent. The next year we find him in England as the secretary of the new Co- lonial Exploration Association. The power of organization 620 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. formerly shown in the successful management of a large school, now proved itself equal to the rapid development of the asso- ciation. In 1836 a colonial government was established, and in 1841 a policy inaugurated that laid the foundation of the future prosperity of the colony. We now arrive at that period in the life of this gigantic worker, this genius, if genius, as is said by some, means a tremendous capacity for hard work, when to do him justice we should require a volume, and not the few brief lines we have now at our disposal. The deficiencies of the old postal system have already been glanced at, but it would be sufficiently near the truth to say that the so-called system was simply a mass of anomaly and mismanagement. Delay in transmission of letters was one of its smallest inconveniences. The rates charged for postage were enormous. Double letters, that is, two sheets of paper, however thin or however weighty, were charged double postage. The charge from London to Birmingham was nine- pence. Stamps and envelopes were of course as yet unknown. The smallest note from a distant part of the country was charged is. 6d. and upwards, a packet from Edinburgh to London costing three times as much as would now be charged for a substantial letter to the Antipodes. One thing that added greatly to the burden of these charges was the usage of society. It was considered to be against good taste to prepay a letter, so that it was within the means of any one to victimize the person whom he selected as his corre- spondent. Many a poor cottager had to go without a meal to pay for a letter which he dare not refuse, lest it should contain news of vital importance to him. Many people avoided the pressure of the postage tax by availing themselves of what were called " franks." " Franks " were the signatures of mem- bers of Parliament, which being placed on the front of a letter made it post free. Of course this prerogative of Parliament rendered its exercise anything but a sinecure. Members were pestered for signatures. Nobody thought it mean to beg for franks, and it is even affirmed that certain members made money of their privilege by selling their autographs at so SIR ROWLAND HILL. 621 much a dozen. All that was necessary was to write the name on a sheet of paper in such a way that when folded for trans- mission it should appear beside the address. Before the cus- tom finally disappeared, however, the law insisted that the whole address should be in the franker's handwriting and the date sub- joined. But besides this mode of evading payment there were numerous others. The contraband trade was enormous. All kinds of means were made use of to evade the law. Parcels of letters were sent by coach. Drivers, guards, carriers, pedestrians, carried their pockets stuffed with them. In some places not more than one letter in fifty passed through the post-office. In short, public morality on the question of postages was thoroughly unsound. Such was the state of things when the pamphlet on " Post- Office Reform, its Importance and Practicability " made its ap- pearance. The main features of the plan were: (l) A great diminution in the rates of postage ; (2) Increased speed in the delivery of letters; and (3) More frequent opportunity for their despatch. Mr. Hill proposed that the rate of postage should be uni- form, and charged according to weight, and that payment should be made in advance. The means of doing so by stamps was not suggested in the first edition of the pamphlet, and Mr. Hill said the idea did not originate with him. In a later issue the matter is thus referred to : " Perhaps the difficulties might be obviated by using a bit of paper just large enough to bear the stamp, and covered at the back with a glutinous wash, which by applying a little moisture might be attached to the back of the letter." The justice and feasibility of a uniform rate rested on the fact which Mr. Hill made out from his inquiry, that the actual cost of conveying letters from London to Edinburgh, when divided among the letters carried, did not exceed one penny for thirty-six letters; that is, taking the average weight of a letter at a quarter of an ounce, the cost of its transmission was not more than the ninth part of a farthing. And the post- office charged is. 6d., and yet could not make it pay! 622 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. The scheme startled not merely the officials but the public generally. Yet the more it was looked into, the more practi- cable it became. Five petitions in its favor reached Parliament in the very year it was propounded. In 1838 more than three hundred found their way to the Legislature. In the following year two thousand petitions were presented to both Houses. The Duke of Richmond, ex-Postmaster-General, advised the adoption of the plan, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer provided a bill to enable the Treasury to put it into execution. In September, 1839, Mr. Hill was made superintendent to carry his system into effect. On the 5th of December, as a preparatory measure to accustom the department to the mode of charging by weight, the inland rates were reduced to a uni- form charge of <\d. per half-ounce, and a scale was based on the half-ounce, ascending to sixteen ounces. No long trial was necessary. The temporary measure only lasted about one month. On the loth of January, 1840, a uniform rate of id. per half-ounce was adopted, and the system with which the name of Rowland Hill is evermore associated became a matter of history. Penny postage is of course the great boon for which the name of benefactor is added to that of the inventor. But his beneficial services do not end with this great work. The pres- ent money-order system was also his suggestion ; and many minor improvements of both departments, adding greatly to the efficiency of the service, emanated from his fertile and crea- tive brain. In 1839 the whole amount of money-orders was only .313,000. In 1863 the amount was 16,493,793. The honor of knighthood, 33,360 in public gifts, a pension of 2,000 a year, and a statue in Birmingham were among the recognitions of the vast benefits which his great and self- denying labors had conferred upon the community. But his services were more than even national. The whole civilized world has benefited by his inventions and suggestions. His fame, therefore, rests with the world at large. "And though men," says the "Edinburgh Review," 1 "who have risked their 1 Vol. cxx. p. 93. SIR CHARLES LYELL. SIR CHARLES LYELL. 625 lives on fields of battle, or borne the whole burden of public affairs, may have claims to more stately rewards, we know of no man who has conferred a greater amount of practical benefit upon his fellow-creatures than the unassuming author of ' Post- age Reform.'" In 1863 Sir Rowland Hill was compelled through declining health to seek temporary repose. The fol- lowing year he resigned his office entirely; and so completely did he withdraw from public life that by many persons he was supposed to have died years ago. But he still quietly lived on in his home at Hampstead. The latest of the many personal honors that his grateful countrymen were only too anxious to press upon him was the freedom of the City of London. In August, 1879, his infirmity, which had long rendered him un- able to support an ordinary conversation, increased so rapidly as to convince himself and his family that his end was near. It came on the 27th. when he died quite peacefully, as it were weary and worn out with his long life of service. On Septem- ber 4, at noon, he was buried in Westminster Abbey. SIR CHARLES LYELL. [BORN 1797. DIED 1875.] /CHARLES LYELL was the eldest son of a botanist of ** more than a local reputation. His early education was received at Midhurst, in Sussex, from whence he passed to Exeter College, Oxford, taking his degree of B.A. in 1819, and that of M.A. in 1821. Here he had the opportunity of attending the lectures of Dr. Buckland, Professor of Geology, and thus acquired a taste for the science of which he after- wards became so conspicuous and distinguished a cultivator. He was, however, destined for the bar, and came to London to pursue the study of the law. He commenced practice as a barrister; but having an independent fortune he relinquished 626 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. that profession and devoted himself to the study of geology, thus maturing the inclination which had been previously awakened and fostered by the above learned professor in his early college days, depriving the legal profession of an advocate of whose ability it is impossible to speculate, and giving to the world of science one of its greatest geologists. In 1824 he travelled for scientific purposes in Switzerland, France, Germany, and Italy. His earliest geological papers were contributed in the following year to the " Transactions " of the newly founded Geological Society, of which he was one of the first members, and to the " Edinburgh Journal of Science ; " and from the commencement until a late period of his life, he enriched the " Transactions " with his valuable contributions. One of the earliest papers was published in the second volume of those " Transactions," and was entitled " On a Recent Formation of Fresh-Water Limestone in For- farshire, and on some Recent Deposits of Fresh-Water Marl; with a Comparison of Recent with Ancient Fresh- Water For- mations." Many similar works appeared in " Geological Transactions," and in this year he also wrote an article in the " Quarterly Review," on " Scrope's Geology of Central France." These papers all indicated powers of observation and comparison ot a high order, and prepared the geological world for the ap- pearance of the work on which, above all others, the reputation of Sir Charles Lyell mainly rests. How profound and fruitful his studies and speculations must have been during this period, when he gave to the world his " Principles of Geology," the first volume in 1830, the second in 1833 ! Such, however, was the impression produced by this work, that second edi- tions of the first and second volumes were required before the third volume appeared. A third edition of the whole work of four volumes appeared in May, 1834, a fourth edition in 1835, and a fifth in 1837. This book marks an epoch in the progress of the science. Lyell's aim was to establish principles, to lay a solid and phil- osophical basis for the science; and this by showing that a SIR CHARLES LYELL. 627 true and sufficient explanation of the phenomena of the past is furnished by the belief in the uniform action of forces now in operation. This view, which had been set forth by Hutton, has been called Uniformitarianism, and stands opposed to the then prevailing doctrine of Catastrophism. For some time it had to pass through the usual ordeal of theological alarm and denunciation, but has now long been accepted and taken its place as part of the general inheritance of knowledge. The work was in 1838 separated into two parts; the portion relating to the ancient history of the earth being published by itself, under the title of " Elements of Geology." This title was changed in 1851 into "Manual of Elementary Geology," but the original title was restored to the sixth edition published in 1865. Of the "Principles," eleven editions appeared during the author's lifetime, and a twelfth was in preparation when he died. Both works have been translated into several Euro- pean languages. The author's account in his ninth edition of the " Principles," to use his own language, " treats of such portions of the econ- omy of existing nature, animate and inanimate, as are illus- trative of geology, so as to comprise an investigation of the permanent effects of causes now in action, which may serve as records to after ages of the present condition of the globe and its inhabitants. Such effects are the enduring monuments of the ever-varying state of the physical geography of the globe, the lasting signs of its destruction and renovation, and the memorials of the equally fluctuating condition of the organic world. They may be regarded as a symbolical lan- guage in which' the earth's autobiography is written. In the manual of ' Elementary Geology,' on the other hand, I have treated briefly of the component materials of the earth's crust, their arrangement and relative position, and their organic contents, which, when deciphered by aid of the key supplied by the study of the modern changes above alluded to, reveal to us the annals of a grand succession of past events, a se- ries of revolutions which the solid exterior of the globe and its living inhabitants have experienced in times antecedent 628 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. to the creation of man." It was undoubtedly the " Principles " that called the attention of geologists to the necessity of re- garding the past changes of the earth's surface as resulting from causes now in operation. It met, however, with great opposition from those who imagined that it interfered with the authoritative declaration of Scripture. Sir Charles Lyell's own university was most decided in its opposition to the new views, although its able professor of geology was not so. His view is acknowledged as consistent with a philosophical pur- suit of geological science. From a very early period in the history of human intelli- gence a notion has been entertained that the various forms oi animals and plants which inhabit or have inhabited the surface of the earth are modifications of one common form, and that the more complicated have grown out of or been developed from the simpler forms of animal and vegetable life. Sir Charles Lyell opposed this view, and denied that in the his- tory of the strata there is any evidence that the lowest forms of animals were created first. The only fact he admits favor- ing the hypothesis of development is the late appearance of man on the surface of the earth. Regarding negative evidence as no support to any theory of progress, he sees no reasonable objection to the anticipation that the highest forms of mamma- lia, except man, should be found in the lowest Silurian rocks. This is still occupying the minds of the most distinguished palaeontologists of the present day. Sir Charles Lyell twice visited the United States, and deliv- ered courses of lectures before the scientific institutions of this country. His chief aim, however, was to examine the geology of the New World. His papers on this 'subject are very numerous and important, and were published in the " Pro- ceedings and Transactions of the Geological Society." In addition to these papers, Sir Charles published two works giving an account of his travels in America. The first ap- peared in 1841, and was entitled "Travels in North America," with geological observations on the United States, Canada, and Nova Scotia, two volumes, octavo, with a geological map. SIR CHARLES LYELL. 629 These volumes contain an account of personal incident as well as popular descriptions of geological districts visited.- In this volume he describes the educational institutions of America, and strongly insists on their superiority to our own similar institutions, on account of the extensive cultivation of the nat- ural sciences. In his second journey he visited the Southern States, and records in his work his personal adventures, to- gether with an account of the geology of the districts through which he passed. This work is entitled " A Second Visit to the United States," published in 1845. Mr. Darwin's famous book on " The Origin of Species " having appeared in 1859, Sir Charles Lyell, then past sixty, gave a searching investigation to the new views of the very early existence of man upon the earth, and in his important work entitled "The Antiquity of Man" (1863), announced his full adhesion to them. They were also embodied in the next (tenth) edition of his " Principles." Besides these great works he contributed many scientific memoirs to the " Proceedings and Transactions of the Geological Society," the " Reports of the British Association," of which he was an active mem- ber and office-holder, and " Silliman's Journal of American Science." The world gave him honors in abundance in recognition of his services to science. He received from her Majesty the honor of knighthood in 1848, and in 1853 had the gratification of having conferred on him the honorary degree of D.C.L. by his own university of Oxford. He was raised, in 1864, on the recommendation of the then Premier, Lord Palmerston, to a baronetcy, which became extinct by his decease. He was a deputy-lieutenant for his native county of Forfarshire. He was president of the British Association at the meeting at Bath in 1864, when he delivered an elaborate address on the antiquity of man. Sir Charles married, in 1832, the eldest daughter of Mr. Leonard Horner. She died in 1873, leaving no children. Sir Charles died in London, February 22, 1875. In compliance with a memorial signed by fellows of the 630 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. Royal Geological and Linnaean Societies, his remains were interred in Westminster Abbey. The funeral took place on the 2 /th, and was attended by the leading men of science and many persons of distinction. HUGH MILLER. [BORN 1802. DIED 1856.] TTUGH MILLER was emphatically a man of purpose. In -*- * his earliest boyhood he gave signs of that indomitable will which in later years was to lead him to success. His father, best known to us through Hugh's sketch of him in " Schools and Schoolmasters," was a sailor. Descended from a long line of seafaring men, the elder Hugh Miller was a man of the ut- most regularity of temperament, opposing a serene front to misfortune, and enjoying in an equable iashion such pleasures as fell to his share. Steadfast in resolution and aim, fearless in the interest of others, utterly forgetful of self in all the relations of life, he could not but bequeath a noble heritage to his son. From his mother's side Hugh Miller was to receive the passionate, imagi- native, and emotional characteristics of the Highland Scots. Mrs. Miller was a firm believer in second sight ; and when, after the death of her husband at sea, she devoted herself to the task of supporting her three children by her needle, her fancy found rich field for its exercise. Her chief occupation was the making of shrouds ; and when Hugh was between five and six years old she would draw his attention to the raps on her work-table, or the winding-sheet in her candle, as signs of another death to come in the neighbor- hood. Agitated and upset by her weird narratives, little Hugh would creep to his bed and hide his head under the clothes to f/SHES Of THE OLD RED SANDSTONE HUGH MILLER. HUGH MILLER. 633 escape the monotonous click, click, of his mother's needle, or the recurrence of the ghostly visitants expected by her. The eldest of the little family, Hugh was born at Cromarty, in the North of Scotland, upon the loth of October, 1802. He was five years of age when his father died during a storm at sea; and in after life he constantly recurred to a vision which he deemed supernatural, and which appeared to him upon the eve of his father's loss. After his father's death he owed his education to his mother's brothers, who are known to us in his book as Uncle James and Uncle Sandy. Both must have been superior men. Living close at hand, they took charge of the two little girls, and pro- posed to devote their best consideration to Hugh's prospects. In accordance with their advice he was sent, at the age of six, to a dame school ; and when he had discovered, to use his own words, that " the art of reading is the art of finding stories in books,'' his life became a joy to him. He spent all his spare time in devouring such books as came in his way, his prime favorites being the " Pilgrim's Progress " and Pope's' " Homer." A year later, Hugh was launched into the parish school, and found himself a unit among one hundred and twenty others. His school career reflects no credit upon him. He was set down by the masters as a dunce, not because he could not, but because he would not, learn in a regular way. His reading meanwhile bore fruit; he charmed his fellow-learners with tales drawn from history or imagination, and while his unlearned tasks elicited from his masters that he was a dullard, the lads who were his contemporaries recognized him to be far superior to them in imagination and intellect. In this estimate his uncles joined, and in spite of the master's denunciations held fast to their idea that he would one day prove himself worthy of their faith in him. His Uncle Sandy particularly, observing his interest in natural history, did all in his power to form his taste. When he was twelve years old, an adventure to which he re- fers in more than one of his works befell him. Going with one of his schoolfellows, a lad younger than himself, to explore a cave on the shore, they were overtaken by the tide, and only 634 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. after an interval of terrible anxiety were rescued by some fisher- men. Somewhat later, a visit to his relations in the Highlands of Scotland increased his interest in nature, and he amused him- self during his leisure hours in a somewhat original way. Draw- ing maps of the country in the sand, he arranged colored shells in the different compartments to represent inhabitants, and, as king of his imaginary realm, designed roads, canals, and harbors, proceeding to govern in accordance with the views he had gathered from books. Returning to Cromarty to finish his school career, his favorite game consisted in heading a party of his schoolfellows and spending a day in exploring the caverns below the precipices of Cromarty. His school record continued disastrous. Apply himself he would not, and for weeks together he played truant. His little sisters died suddenly, and he overheard his mother regretting that it had not rather pleased God to take her boy. For a moment he was moved, but the impression soon faded away. He himself relates that at this time he was an atheist; and when after a final contest with the " dominie " he left school, it was with a reputation far from enviable. In 1819 Mrs. Miller married again, and Hugh awoke to the perception that he must choose a career. From early boyhood he had indulged in writing, and a manuscript magazine named the " Village Observer " was carried on by him up to the Febru- ary of the year following this event. In March, 1820, he was apprenticed to a stone-mason in the village, and a life little congenial to his tastes began. His master was his mother's brother-in-law, old David Wright, a character in his way, but with little sympathy for his imaginative nephew. The toil in the stone-mason's yard had a sobering effect upon Hugh's character ; his strong will came into force. He determined, having chosen his career, to excel in it ; and, after a few months' awkwardness, astonished his master and fellow-apprentices by becoming one of the most expert hewers in the village. Recognized as an expert workman, Hugh Miller became at- tached to a regular squad of masons ; and we find him pursuing his calling in various parts of the country, occupying his leisure HUGH MILLER. 635 in writing long letters to his friend William Ross, a painter's apprentice, whose genius was second only to his own. Under the pressure of work unsuited to his nature Hugh Miller's health gave way, and it was a fortunate thing that the expiration of his apprenticeship on the nth of November, 1822, allowed of his return home. He was now a journeyman ; and his first work was a stone house, still in existence, built for an aunt whose means scarcely allowed of her paying rent. He had difficulty at first in obtaining employment, and in the interval wrote many poems, which he sent to his friend William Ross. Work, when at last it was offered, took him to the West of Ross- shire ; but there an accident, in which his foot was crushed, for some weeks disabled him. In 1823 he first visited Edinburgh, where he soon obtained employment, and remaining in the neighborhood at Niddrie he worked at his trade for two seasons, returning to Cromarty with health so impaired from the hardships of his life that he antici- pated death. His lungs had been permanently injured by ex- posure and hard living, but his suffering could not quench his spirit. Letters and poems of this period of his life attest the increasing power of his genius, and that wonderful love of na- ture which was to assist in his later development. Religious diffi- culties met him as his intellectual culture ripened, and his letters to his friend tell of many a struggle and battle before he could write truly of a "change of heart that had brought him peace." In 1825 Hugh Miller visited Inverness in search of work. In this quest he was unsuccessful ; but forming during his visit the acquaintance of the editor of the " Inverness Courier " he was in- duced to allow some of his poems to be printed. In spite of the welcome his verses received, and the gratifying comments of the critics, Hugh himself decided that his poetic faculty was not worthy of further cultivation, and determined to devote himself to prose. In this year he lost by death his two uncles, who had stood to him in the relation of parents, and also his great friend William Ross. In 1831 Hugh Miller met Miss Eraser, who afterwards became his wife. To her influence we are mainly indebted for his deter- 636 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. mination to devote all his leisure to prose works and to the investi- gation of scientific theories. Encouraged by her he proceeded with his first book. And anxious above all else to provide a fitting home for his promised wife, he sought employment which might raise him socially. He was offered a clerkship in a bank, and was soon temporarily established in the Commer- cial Bank at Linlithgow. While giving much of his attention to the details of a business which was essentially new to him, Hugh Miller completed and corrected the proofs of his first prose work, " Scenes and Legends in the North of Scotland." Its success was his introduction to society. He was now to be sought out and encouraged ; and his prospects improving he was able, upon the /th of January, 1837, to marry the lady he had so long loved. The newly married couple settled in Cromarty, the wife add- ing something to their small income by taking pupils. The first sorrow that clouded their happiness was the death of a little daughter who was inexpressibly dear to her father. The head- stone for her grave was chiselled by his hand, and was the last occasion of his practising his early handicraft. Hugh Miller for a while threw himself ardently into literature, taking up the questions of the day with great earnestness, and advocating reforms in the leading newspapers; but the quiet years as they succeeded each other increased the attraction which science had ever possessed for him. His books had already attracted the attention of men of intellect, and a chapter in " Scenes and Legends" upon geological formations was the occasion of more than one letter from scientific men. In 1838 we find him in correspondence with Sir William Murchison and Mr. Agassiz as to the strata of the Old Red Sandstone, and from that time till his death his scientific researches were unwearying. At this time the ecclesiastical questions which agitated Scot- land aroused the deepest interest in Hugh Miller's mind, and in 1840 he settled in Edinburgh to undertake the editorship of the " Witness,'* a paper started on behalf of the Non-Intrusion party in the Church of Scotland. In this paper some of his first geological articles were published. They were afterwards HUGH MILLER. 637 collected under the title of " The Old Red Sandstone." Con- taining as they did an accurate account of his discoveries in palaeontology, they aroused the attention not only of the literary world but of the entire public ; and the enthusiasm which was already felt for his moral character as the champion of the Na- tional Church was increased by the fresh evidence of his genius which every number of his paper revealed. The immense labor imposed upon Hugh Miller before the final disruption of the Church so seriously impaired his health that for a long time he was forced to give up all literary effort. When he resumed his pen it was once more to labor indefati- gably in the interests of the Free Church, with which his name is inseparably connected. In 1848 he visited England, and upon his return published his " First Impressions of England and her People." The good which Hugh Miller's works have done for the cause of science is inestimable ; for his genius not only developed new truths, but overcame old errors and established, above all, the independence of science. " The Testimony of the Rocks," his last book, was an attempt to reconcile the truths of geology with the facts of the Creation as given in Genesis. In 1850 Hugh Miller was elected secretary to the Geological Department of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, an office which he filled until his death. When we reflect what an immense amount of work was crowded into those years of the great Scottish geologist's life, it is little surprising that serious symptoms of brain disease re- vealed themselves. Terrible visions haunted his highly strung mind ; fear, unnatural and hideous, took possession of him, and under the terrible influence of a distraught fancy he imagined himself pursued by demons. In a moment of paroxysmal mania he died by his own hand during the night of December 23-24, 1856. This sad ending could not spoil the nobility of a life devoted to the cause of humanity and science. In history Hugh Miller will be honored as the true gentleman ; and in the annals of dis- tinguished men few can be found more worthy a nation's esteem than the " Stone-mason of Cromarty." 638 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. SIR CHARLES WHEATSTONE. [BORN 1802. DIED 1875.] A S several of the more brilliant and widely useful discov- -**- cries and inventions have been unappreciated by the general public for a long period after they were first notified to them, and as by far the greater portion of these scientific results have proved unremunerative to their authors for many years after they originated, it is very satisfactory to learn that the subject of this memoir was one of those fortunate individuals who not only gained many honors, but earned good if not excellent pecuniary reward for his splendid scientific labors within a reasonable time after they were completed. This eminent physicist and inventor was born in 1802 at Gloucester, where his father was a music-seller. The son, having been brought up as a musical-instrument maker, set up business for himself in London in 1823. Possessing, however, a fertile inventive mind, and having made many important re- searches and experiments of a scientific character, he notified some valuable discoveries in his " New Experiments of Sound," which were published in that year. In 1832 he sent a paper to the Royal Society, " On the Acoustic Figures of Vibrating Surfaces," and was appointed, two years afterwards, Professor of Experimental Philosophy at King's College in London. At this establishment he completed his researches upon the ve- locity of electric transmission by means of revolving mirrors, an experimental system which has been used with great success by other persons in other branches of physical science. Wheatstone also pointed out the possibility of distinguishing metals according to the spectrum character of the electric spark passed between them ; and an apparatus was invented 41 SIR CHARLES WHEATSTONE. SIR CHARLES WHEATSTONE. 641 by him for the measurement of electrical resistance. He also invented the polar clock, for ascertaining the time by the position of the plane of polarization of the light of the polar sky, and the catoptric stereoscope. But by far the greatest service he rendered for the good of mankind, and one for which he has attained a world-wide fame, is his practical application of the electric telegraph for public purposes ; and this, it is claimed, Wheatstone, with the mechan- ical assistance of a Mr. Cooke, was the first to introduce for practical purposes. Consequently, in May, 1837, they took out a patent in their joint names " for improvements in giving signals and sounding alarums in distant places by means of electric currents trans- mitted through metallic circuits." Other patents were after- wards obtained by them, either individually or in co-operation, for various improvements upon their first method ; but the great principles of this remain unchanged, and form an essen- tial part of nearly all the later telegraphic instruments of other inventors. Immediately after the date of their first pat- ent, wires were laid down on the London and Northwestern Railway between Euston Square and Camden Town stations, a mile and a quarter apart, and messages were effectually sent between them. The first telegraph used for public purposes was fixed in 1838 on the London and Blackwall line. In the following year permission was given to use the apparatus on the Great Western Railway as far as West Drayton, which was only thirteen miles, and it was afterwards extended five miles beyond this to Slough. In these trials, as well as in the one on the London and Blackwall Railway, the wires were enclosed in iron tubes placed on the ground. Notwithstanding the successful experiments of the telegraph, the directors of the Great Western Railway were opposed to wires being placed between Paddington station and Bristol, while the general pub- lic, who were allowed to transmit messages by this instrument, availed themselves but little of the advantage for some years after it was first introduced. An event, however, occurred in 1845, which at once manifested its great utility and heightened 642 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. its estimation wonderfully. In that year it was used to send a message to the London police to arrest Tawell on a charge of murder, who was travelling by an express train to escape being captured. The Electric Telegraph Company purchased their earlier pat- ents for ; 1 20,000, and their system was quickly extended over Europe by this and other rival companies ; and shortly afterwards no railway was considered complete without a good supply of telegraph wires. It is now considered indispensable that every important city and town shall be provided with means of tele- graphic communication with other cities and towns, and that the wires shall be laid down on all new trunk and branch lines. The charge for the transmission of intelligence has also been considerably reduced, and messages are sent on an immense variety of subjects. It is interesting to know that, according to returns published in 1879, the entire length of telegraphic lines over the globe was then no less than 431,761 miles, which are divided among the several continents as follows : namely, Africa, 7,999; America, 127,980; Asia, 24,760; Aus- tralasia, 36,692 ; Europe, 234,330 miles. The total length of wireage is about three times this length. It was also estimated that there were about 230,089 miles of cable laid down. But even these figures have been enormously increased. Frequent controversies have arisen as to who should rightly be considered the first contriver of the electric telegraph for popular use. Two names have been prominently mentioned to dispute Wheatstone's claim to this distinction ; namely, Steinheil, of Munich, and Morse, of New York. It appears, according to a statement of M. Arago to the French Academy of Sciences, that the telegraph of the former was in use on he 1 9th of July, 1837, for a distance of seven miles, being the same month in which Wheatstone and Cooke tested their ap- paratus on the London and Northwestern Railway. The reason, however, which gives Wheatstone a priority of claim over Steinheil beyond the fact of his patent being ob- tained in the preceding month and being based upon many previously good successful experiments, is that until August, SIR CHARLES WHEATSTONE. 643 1838, Stcinheil published no description of his means of tele- graphic communication, which he altered and improved in the interval; and the only information we have of his instru- ment describes its improved form. His apparatus, however, was a very meritorious one; for in addition to its other ex- cellent qualities, Steinheil was the first to employ the earth to complete the circuit. But in its mechanical arrangements it was considerably inferior to Wheatstone's telegraph, and the former soon gave it up and adopted a modification of the contrivance of Morse. The celebrated dot-and-dash, or regis- tration, system of this American professor, which has been generally used throughout the United States as its means of telegraphy, is treated of in the succeeding article. The rapid interchange of intelligence between individuals resident in different nations and states and in different cities and towns, as well as within many of the great centres of popu- lation which Professor Wheatstone really commenced by his .telegraphic system ; and the splendid and most useful results which have followed from the early receipt of political, mer- cantile, and other news, both public and private, after it is committed to the telegraphic wires, have been so marvel- lous and almost immeasurably beneficial, that no reasonable person who is acquainted with the grand experiments of this eminent man can justly "question his title to be ranked among the more distinguished of our permanent cosmopolitan benefactors. As to the honors which were conferred upon this illustrious professor, these were both important and numerous. In 1840, and again in 1843, he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society as a high acknowledgment of his meritorious experimental researches. He was also appointed vice-pres- ident of this society, and a corresponding member of the Im- perial Institute of France and of the chief scientific academies of the principal capitals of Europe, and in addition received nearly thirty foreign distinctions. He was knighted in 1868, and died in Paris in 1875. Although he appears to have writ- ten but little for publication for the use of general readers, 644 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. the scientific journals and transactions contain many durable records of his discoveries, applications, and inventions which have greatly furthered the progress of science and civilization throughout the world. SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. [BouN 1791. DIED 1872.] AMUEL F. B. MORSE, the inventor of the " Morse " sys- tern of telegraphy, was born at Charlestown, Massachusetts, April 27, 1791. He was the son of the Rev. Jedediah Morse, who is sometimes called the father of American geography, he having prepared and published the earliest text-books upon that subject that issued from the press of this country. When young Morse was twelve years old, he was sent to Yale, where he exhibited a much greater aptitude for drawing and painting than he did for academic studies; so much so that Dr. Dwight, the president of the college, once severely repri- manded him for his want of application, and, thinking to reclaim the dull student by " heroic treatment," nearly broke the boy's heart by telling him that he was " no painter." Morse, how- ever, thought otherwise, and upon leaving college he determined to adopt painting as his profession. To this end he went to Eu- rope under the care of Allston, and in London he became the pupil of West. After studying four years under these masters, Morse returned to America, opened a studio, and began work as a portrait- painter. He pursued this calling with limited suc- cess until 1832, when, as he was returning home from England in the ship " Sully," the novel idea of transmitting intelligible signals by means of electricity became a topic of discussion among the passengers. Professor Jackson, who was on board, has declared that he first gave Morse the idea of its practi- cability. The subject immediately took such firm hold upon Morse's mind that thenceforth how to solve the problem became SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 647 the absorbing idea of his life. He brooded over it in secret ; he attended scientific lectures ; he patiently experimented with this new and mysterious agent until a method for practically adapting it to the end he had in view was found. There is no claim that Morse possessed peculiar knowledge in this branch of science. Such is not the fact. But it is certain that from the moment it first presented itself to his mind he grasped its great possibili- ties with peculiar intelligence ; and he pursued his idea not only with such earnest conviction of its entire feasibility, but with such determination to succeed, as very shortly took the prob- lem of electrical telegraphy out of the experimental stage in which he had found it, and placed it upon that of recognized practical utility. While it would be unjust to others to claim for him all the merit of this truly wonderful discovery, 1 Morse's in- vention is so distinctly original, so simple, and so thoroughly practical in its workings as to have advanced it at once to the head of all the methods that his age has produced, and it is to- day in more general use than any other. The galvanic battery, the passing of an electrical current generated by it through a wire connecting the positive and neg- ative poles of two such batteries, and the action of the electro- magnet were things that were then occupying the attention of the learned scientists of Europe. The discoveries of Volta and Arago were being steadily advanced by Faraday, Steinheil, and Wheatstone ; but to Morse belongs the credit of having perfected a method of recording upon paper at one end of a wire the characters formed by the operator at the other, by simply opening and closing the telegraphic circuit. Its merits were so evident that Professor Steinheil with rare disinterestedness wrote to his American rival that he had decided to abandon his own system in favor of that of his distinguished confrere. Noth- ing, in fact, could be simpler than Morse's combination of the electro-magnet with his receiving instrument and manipulating key. But before this admirable result was attained by Morse, there ensued a long period of toil, anxiety, and suspense, inseparable 1 Refer to the article on Wheatstone. 648 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. from the history of every great invention. It took Morse five years to get his own into shape so as to be able to file a caveat in the Patent Office at Washington, and three more to perfect his idea. It was not until 1844 that Morse obtained from Con- gress a grant of $30,000, which was the sum he asked for to enable him to construct between Baltimore and Washington the first telegraph line in America. While his bill was pending the inventor passed through all the alternations from hope to de- spair; for after its passage by the Lower House it was so bur- ied underneath those bills having priority in the Senate that to reach it in the few remaining days of the session seemed an impossibility. On the last day Morse left the Senate Chamber at a late hour in despair. After paying his hotel bill he had only enough money left in his pocket to take him back to New York. He had staked everything upon the issue, and he had lost. It was now become an imperious necessity to abandon his darling project for some occupation that would at least give him a livelihood. At fifty-three such a prospect comes home to a man with overwhelming force. In this frame of mind, but with that unshaken courage characteristic of him, Morse prepared to leave Washington on the following day. In the morning, while the inventor was getting ready to start, he was notified that a young lady wished to speak to him. This early caller proved to be Miss Annie G. Ellsworth, the daughter of the Commis- sioner of Patents. She seemed to be in great spirits. "I 'bring you my father's congratulations and my own," she said. " For what? " the surprised inventor asked. "Why, upon your great triumph, to be sure; the passage of your bill." " Ah ! thanks, my dear child ; but you are then ignorant that I only left the Senate at a late hour after seeing that the bill could not pass?" " Oh, sir, is it possible that I am the one to first bring you this great news ? The bill did pass ; my father was there. " " Annie ! " cried Morse, " the very first message which passes over my wires shall be yours." SAMUEL F. B. MORSE. 649 This promise was faithfully kept. 1 By the month of May the wires had been hung on poles, and the two cities were con- nected. When all was ready Miss Ellsworth announced to the world the greatest achievement of the age in these four noble words, " What hath God wrought ! " It is unnecessary here to record the progress of telegraphic communication throughout the globe. From the day that pro- claimed his telegraph to be an accomplished fact, honors were showered upon its illustrious inventor from every quarter ; and long before his death, which occurred in 1872, Professor Morse was permitted, with rare good fortune, to realize how great were the benefits that had accrued not only to science but to the human race through his instrumentality. To-day any interruption of telegraphic communication is an interruption of the business of the world, 'which would be followed by results disastrous, not alone to commerce, with all its vast and varied interests, but also to the every-day wants of the people at large. As no other means of communication has ever performed such extensive or important functions as the electric telegraph is now doing, we cannot help regarding its discovery as the greatest step towards the universal brotherhood of nations that mankind has yet taken. Most truly has it annihilated space, and thus joined the hands of all peoples on the face of the globe in one grand, magnetic impulse towards a higher civilization, which through instant interchange of deeds or ideas is silently working out its promised fulfilment. Before this discovery Archimedes' boast fades into insignificance. With a spark Professor Morse has not only moved the world, he has illuminated it without other fulcrum than his own superior intelligence. This, in point of fact, is the point (fappui of the nineteenth century. 1 This valuable souvenir, which occupies about as much space as the palm of the hand, is now in the possession of Mr. Koswell Smith, of New York, Mrs. Roswell Smith being the Miss Annie Ellsworth referred to. An autograph from Professor Morse reads : " This sentence was written from Washington by me, at the Baltimore terminus, at 8 h. 45 min. A. M., on Friday, May 24, 1844, being the first ever transmit- ted from Washington to Baltimore by telegraph, and was indited by my much loved friend, Miss Annie G. Ellsworth. SAM'L F. B. MORSE, Superintendent of Elec. Mag. Telegraphs." 65* OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. THOMAS ALVA EDISON. [BORN AT MILAN, OHIO, 1847.] "\ /TEN of genius are found in every age ; but genius allied -1V.L w ith fertility of resource, with breadth of view, with indomitable energy and persistency, is a gift too rare for Na- ture to bestow oftener than once in a century. When such a man appears, he rises head and shoulders above his contem- poraries ; and that is where Thomas A. Edison, by common consent, stands to-day. His is the old, the oft-repeated story of a poor boy, of humble parentage, of scarcely any education, and with little or no equipment, discipline, or training, outstripping the pro- foundest thinkers of his time, and upon their own chosen ground. Those who have called Edison a mere man of ex- pedients have failed to correctly gauge the calibre of his mind. Edison owes nothing to the schools, to society, or to patronage. He is a natural force, and as such has at last made his own way to universal recognition. Our Fultons, our Whitneys, our Morses, and our Edisons, all go to show that great inventors, like great poets, are born and not made, and that the New World is taking the lead in the grand march of progress. Young Edison began life as a train-boy on a railway in the West. If we look at the date at the head of this article, we shall see that the inventor of the duplex and quadruplex sys- tems of telegraphy, of the phonograph, and of the most prac- ticable and satisfactory method of electric lighting thus far discovered, is not yet forty years old. Even as a boy, his brain was busy with problems that clearly prove an intellectual precocity, going far beyond his years. For instance, while THOMAS ALVA EDISON. THOMAS ALVA EDISON. 653 he was selling newspapers, as a mere lad in his teens, it oc- curred to him that if he were to telegraph short summaries of news to be bulletined at stations in advance of the arrival of his train, it would be a good scheme ; upon this idea he acted. When the enterprising newsboy stepped out upon the platform, he was at once surrounded by eager customers, whose appetite for news had been whetted by reading his bul- letins. Young Edison then conceived the idea of publishing a paper of his own, which was actually printed on board the train, though in the rudest manner; the impressions being taken from the types by rubbing the paper with the hand. It was here, too, that the boy first set his audacious foot within the domain of science. Unconsciously his true vocation was dawning upon his eager mind. He haunted the railway shops ; he studied the mechanism of locomotives ; and in mo- ments of leisure he became an omnivorous reader of such books as Newton's " Principia " and Dr. Ure's Dictionary. The won- ders of chemistry thus opened to him seized upon his youthful imagination so strongly that we presently find the lad buying up various chemicals, with which he set up his first laboratory in the same car that had served him for a printing-office. But alas for his hopes in this direction! In an unlucky hour his phosphorus one day set the car on fire. The flames threat- ened destruction to the train and all on board. The young chemist, along with his types and bottles, was summarily ejected from the train for having put the lives and property of the passengers in peril by his carelessness. By this time Edison had mastered the rudiments of practical telegraphy, and he had resolved to be an operator as soon as he could make his way into an office. We may see, even at this stage, how quick was his invention. On one occasion when the submarine cable between Port Huron and Sarnia had been broken by the ice, and telegraphic communication interrupted, Edison jumped upon a locomotive that happened to be standing by the river with steam up, and, pulling open the valve, pro- ceeded to give with the whistle sounds corresponding to the Morse telegraphic signals. He repeated these signals, which of 654 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. course drew everybody's attention by their noise, until the tele- graph operator upon the other side of the river had caught the idea and had answered in the same manner, thus establishing the communication. For the next few years Edison developed a good deal of the roving propensity of his class; but there were some things about him that very soon established his decided superiority among his fellows. In the first place he exerted himself to the utmost to become a skilled operator, working early and late, visiting the office after the regular hours for work were ended, and studying how to make his services most useful to his employers. But what speedily raised Edison above the rank of a mere master oF routine work was the grand deter- mination he displayed to fathom the mysteries of electrical science. Herein he showed the powers and attributes of a superior mind. To him the wondrous exploits that he daily performed on a slender wire had opened a new world filled with the most fascinating possibilities and promise. He be- came what some of his critics have asserted that he is not, a scientific thinker ; for there is not one of his discoveries that does not rest upon some principle the elements of which Edison has thought out for himself, or that has not in some way advanced the general cause of science by building upon what was already known. In a very short time he had de- vised the automatic repeating-instrument, by which a series of telegraph lines may be joined (practically speaking), and worked without the help of an operator at the connecting points. The " repeater " then in general use required the constant oversight of an operator to reverse and to keep it adjusted. To Edison this useful, labor-saving invention was only a step in the direction he was pursuing. He had become possessed with the idea that double transmission on a single wire was possible ; and his experiments, his search among books, and his preoccupation soon gained for him the title of " luny " among his companions, besides discrediting him with his employers. A few years more passed, and the electricians as well as the uninstructed public were astounded THOMAS ALVA EDISON. 655 by the announcement that a mechanism had been perfected by an unknown telegraph-operator, by which messages were being sent over the same wire in opposite directions at the same time. It was held to be an impossibility, an absurdity, in plain violation of all the well-known laws governing the action of electrical currents. But there was no getting over actual demonstration ; for the " duplex basis " was soon doub- ling the capacity of overworked wires. But we are advancing a little the story of Thomas A. Edison's development from a boy who dreamed dreams and saw visions into the man who has seen most of those visions realized to the fullest extent. The year 1870. proved to be the turning-point in Edison's ca- reer. In that year he arrived in New York. His dabbling with inventions had lost him one situation after another. " Com- petent, but unreliable " was the verdict of one manager after another, who had tried him. Unsuccessful in procuring work, it is said that he wandered through the streets of the great city penniless, friendless, and hungry. One day he happened to step into the office of the Laws Gold-Reporting Telegraph Company. The office instrument was out of order, and the inventor in despair. Edison looked at it; he thought that he could make it work, and was permitted to make the trial. In a few moments he had the complicated little instrument ticking as usual, and was immediately employed. Edison's discourage- ments were now at an end. He at once began the work of improving the Indicator, and had very soon produced his Gold Printer. His inventions pertaining to this branch of te- legraphy have largely superseded the old apparatus employed, and they have resulted in greatly extending the system throughout the commercial centres of the country. Means were now at Edison's command. Business flowed in upon him in a steady stream. Establishing himself in Newark, New Jersey, Edison became the head of a manufactory for turning out his improved instruments. With three hundred workmen, with full scope for his ingenuity, his inventions multiplied so rapidly that he was described by the Commissioner of Patents 42 656 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. as " the young man who kept the path to the Patent Office hot with his footsteps." Most of these were for improvements in electrical apparatus or methods of transmission; and in- deed it must be admitted that Edison's most solid successes are his telegraphic inventions. Perceiving his value at last, the same company from whose service Edison had been repeatedly turned away on account of his so-called vagaries was now glad to retain him at a munificent salary in consideration of securing for itself the first chance to use his discoveries. When we state that Edison's patents relating to telegraphy alone al- ready number not far from a hundred in all, the value of this connection, as well as the point of the remark that " Edison kept the path to the Patent Office hot with his footsteps," will fully appear. It was during the summer of 1874, at Newark, while experi- menting with the view of introducing certain modifications into the duplex apparatus, that Edison discovered the basis of the quadruplex system of telegraphy. " The distinguishing feature of this method consists in combining at two terminal stations two distinct and unlike modes of single transmission in such a manner that they may be carried on independently on the same wire and at the same time without interfering with each other." One of these methods is known as the double-current system, and the other as the single-current or open-circuit system. By making use of these two methods, combined with the duplex principle of simultaneous transmission in opposite directions, four sets of instruments may be operated at the same time on the same wire. In 1873 Edison was married to Miss Mary Stillwell, of Newark. An incident is related of the honeymoon as tending to show how entire was the absorption of the inventor in his work. One of his friends upon returning home at a late hour saw a light in Edison's laboratory, and climbed the stairs to find the inventor plunged in one of his characteristic stupors over some problem that happened to be taxing his mind to the utmost. Seeing his visitor standing before him, Edison roused himself and wearily asked the hour. " Midnight," was the THOMAS ALVA EDISON. 657 reply. " Then," said the inventor, " I must go home. I was married to-day." The Phonograph, or " Talking-Machine," was discovered, ac- cording to Mr. Edison, by the merest accident. For a time it astounded the ignorant and the learned alike; for even when the simple nature of the mechanism that could repeat all pos- sible modulations of the human voice with absolute fidelity was clearly understood, there seemed at first sight no limit to the possible uses for which such an instrument might be employed. A world of delighted speculation was quickly opened ; but thus far the Phonograph has developed less practical value than was hoped for it. Said Mr. Edison to some friends at Menlo Park: " I was sing- ing to the mouthpiece of a telephone, when the vibrations of the wire sent the fine steel point into my finger. That set me to thinking. If I could record the action of the point, and then send the point over the same surface afterwards, I saw no rea- son why the thing would not talk. I tried the experiment, first on a strip of telegraph paper, and found that the point made an alphabet. I shouted the word ' Halloo ! Halloo ! ' into the mouthpiece, ran the paper back over the steel point, and heard a faint ' Halloo ! Halloo ! ' in return. That 's the whole story. The discovery came through the pricking of a finger." When Edison's phonograph was first exhibited to the Acad- emy of Sciences a murmur of admiration was heard from all parts of the hall, a murmur succeeded by repeated applause. Yet some members of a sceptical turn started a report that the Academy had been mystified by a clever ventriloquist. Re- peated experiments were required to convince these incredulous persons that no chicanery was used, and that after a few trials they could manipulate the phonograph as easily as Mr. Edison's agent had done in their presence. Edison's own discoveries, or his application of new principles to the discoveries of others, have come so thick and fast that we must be content with a simple reference to the more important ones. His Carbon Telephone was one of the earliest and most interesting improvements made upon the telephone of Professor 658 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. Bell, who is the subject of an article in this volume. Edison began his experiments in the early part of 1876 with the Reiss Transmitter; and after continuing them a long time with no great success, he at length found that a simple carbon disk, made of lampblack, was the key to the problem which he had been so long endeavoring to work out. The carbon button, or disk, was the essential factor. For this telephone Edison received the sum of $ 1 00,000. It at once greatly enlarged the sphere of telephone communication by making it available for conversing at greater distances than had been practicable with the tele- phones in common use. Upon being put into the telegraphic circuit between New York and Philadelphia it was found to work well, while the other telephones would not transmit intel- ligible sounds. The following year (1879), Edison's apparatus was tested on a wire 210 miles long, between Chicago and Indi- anapolis, and was then found to work with the best results. The Megaphone is a combined speaking and ear trumpet, by which persons may converse in the open air when several miles apart. It was suggested by the phonograph. There are two great ear-trumpets and one speaking-trumpet mounted together upon a tripod. Mr. Edison has applied the same principle to a smaller instrument to be used by deaf persons, who may thus hear a whisper distinctly in the largest public hall, and so prac- tically overcome a defective hearing. One objection that we have heard urged against the use of the megaphone out of doors is that it collects all intervening sounds coming within its range, even the twitter of birds and the cropping of the grass by animals being confusedly heard. We now come to that most beneficent of modern discoveries, the electric light, the only artificial light whose brilliancy ap- proaches that of the sun. It is now coming into common use, both for out-of-door and in-door illuminations, streets, railways, manufactories, theatres, steamships, and lighthouses being al- ready included in its practical working, and the public are now awaiting with impatience its promised introduction into private houses in the same manner and as a substitute for gas. When this shall be fully accomplished, as much will be added to the THOMAS ALVA EDISON. 659 comfort and safety of every home as has already been secured to simple pedestrians and travellers at home or abroad. It is to the elucidation of this particular problem that Edison has latterly directed all his resources. Although the general principle of the electric light is more or less clearly understood, to the multitude it remains as great a phenomenon as ever. Stated as briefly as we can do it, this principle is that the passage and play of an electric current across a break by means of electrodes like carbon, for instance brings those substances to a white heat, or glow, which is main- tained so long as the conducting substance is not consumed. Every one has seen the effect of a jeweller's blow-pipe upon a piece of charcoal. So, if two carbon pencils are attached each to one end of the conducting wire, and are then brought nearly into contact, the electric current or spark will freely pass from one to the other, and combustion of the carbon sticks takes place. This produces that dazzling white light used for illu- minating streets or other open areas, and is called the " voltaic arc," or, briefly, the " arc light," from the nature of the flame. The light is kept steady by clockwork, which moves the car- bon pencils nearer as they are consumed. To produce a light of the desired intensity the electric current must be of corre- sponding energy, or what would be sufficient to kill a man or a horse as quickly as a stroke of lightning if passed through the body of either; so that, unless they are buried underground, the electric-lighting wires constitute an element of danger. Sir Humphry Davy was the discoverer of the voltaic arc. The second method of electric lighting, and the one to which Edison is almost exclusively devoting himself at this time, is that usually known as the incandescent light. This is bringing carbon to incandescence within a vacuum by the same means we have just described. But the results are far different; for the flame is now enclosed within a glass bulb instead of being exposed like a gas jet, and is therefore safer for interior illumina- tion. Not being in contact with the air, the light is also steadier and more constant, and the waste of the carbon is checked. When Edison came to the investigation he had never seen an electric 660 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. light; but at the Paris Exhibition of 1881 Edison's improve- ments in the whole system of electric lighting by incandescence were pronounced by experts far the best of any then submitted. In speaking of the various exhibits of electrical lamps, Mr. Preece, one of these experts, says that the lamp which possessed the greatest novelty and was decidedly the most efficient was that of Mr. Edison. The distinctive character of the Edison lamp is the remarkable uniformity of its texture and light-giving power. It consists of a fine filament of carbon, not much larger than a horse-hair, inserted as a part of the electric circuit inside a glass globe which has been exhausted of air to the utmost attainable limit. A fine uniform quality of Japanese bamboo has been selected as giving the best filament for carbonizing. This filament is warranted to burn for six hundred hours. The whole lamp can be unscrewed from its socket and replaced by another lamp in a moment. When it is thus detached the elec- tric circuit is of course broken and ihe light xtinguished. When replaced, the circuit is perfected and the lamp instantly relights itself. There are no cocks to be turned on or off, and there is no gas to escape. Nothing could be simpler in its working or more beautiful in its results. " What constitutes Mr. Edison's system," remarks the Comte du Moncel, " is not alone his lamps ; it is the totality of the ar- rangements referring to them, which have attained such a degree of simplicity that henceforth nothing remains to be desired in practice. Generating machines, distribution of circuits, instal- lation, indicating and regulating apparatus, meters for measur- ing the amount of current employed, are all combined for immediate application." In fact, every detail has been thor- oughly worked out by Mr. Edison, whose lamps to the number of 75,000 are already in use throughout the world, some 18,000 being found in the stores, mills, and workshops of New Eng- land. In New York the Edison system has already been applied to the lighting of a district a mile square, in which the supply of dwelling-houses is included ; and in Brockton, Massachusetts, the same system is now in course of installation for lighting the numerous factories of that thriving city, the supply in each case ELIAS HOWE. ELIAS HOWE. 663 being generated at a central station and distributed throughout the district to be lighted by subterranean wires. Mr. Edison's workshop at Menlo Park, New Jersey, is a hive of industry, in which the inventor is the animating genius. His first announcement of the perfection of his incandescent light was received in Europe with a general cry of derision. In the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " of so late an issue as 1878, Edison is not even mentioned. His extraordinary talents have at length commanded universal recognition, and to-day he stands without a peer among the discoverers and inventors of his age. ELIAS HOWE. [BORN 1819. DIED 1867.] *"T"*HE miseries that have been borne by those who, had they -*- lived in our own time, need not have been ground by want, is one of the saddest reflections that can come to us. We can- not explain why these things are. It is this reflection that gives point to Hood's famous "Song of the Shirt;" for since the sewing-machine is now found in every household, however humble, no woman starves over her needle. Thanks to that wondrous piece of mechanism, the needlewoman of to-day is no longer one of a class whose deplorable condition calls for special effort on the part of the philanthropist. To her, indeed, more than to any other, has the sewing-machiue proved a priceless blessing; for not only has it prodigiously extended the scope of woman's labor, but it has raised that labor from its former con- dition of hopeless and ill-paid drudgery to one easily performed and fairly remunerative. We think there will be no dissent from the statement that the sewing-machine has done more to broaden the working-woman's opportunities than any invention of the century. We are not now to state by an array of facts and figures how much the invention of Elias Howe may have added to the pro- 664 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. ductive industry of the world ; but we may say, briefly, that the gross sum contributed by the various departments of skilled labor in which sewing-machines are employed has reached an enormous sum total. Not only has the invention superseded many of the older methods employed in the manufactures of cotton, silk, or woollen fabrics, but even such refractory sub- stances as leather are now easily made up into the thousand and one articles for which those substances are adapted. The first attempts to make a machine that would take the place of sewing by hand go as far back as 1755, and they origi- nated in Europe. Quite a number of persons are credited with having got hold of the crude idea that sewing by machinery was practicable, and one after another attempted the devising of a mechanical contrivance for the purpose. Each may be said to have contributed something to the general result, although no one had succeeded in attaining it. Freisenthal's, Alsop's, Dun- can's, Heilman's, Saint's, and Thimonier's experiments were each and all approximations toward the desired end. But neither of these persons had yet solved the problem, although Thimonier had so nearly succeeded that a mob of working- men destroyed his machine for fear it would take the bread out of their mouths. Walter Hunt is the first American who brought the sewing-machine problem nearly to the point of practical demonstration. This was in 1834. But he stopped here, either baffled or discouraged by the obstacles he found even his ingenuity unable to overcome ; and his machine, which em- bodied what is known as the " lock-stitch," rusted in a garret until a man of clearer head and greater persistency had worked out his own idea independently of any other, and so gained the prize which Hunt was so near grasping. This man was Elias Howe ; and it is a pleasure to record that his claim rests upon no doubtful or insecure foundation, for it has been assailed by every possible form of judicial inquiry and has come out of the ordeal triumphantly. Elias Howe was, in fact, a genius of the first rank, one of the kind that is seldom appreciated by its own age, to whom a man's personality is everything. No inventor ever endured ELIAS HOWE. 665 greater vicissitudes, or came out of them more triumphantly, than did Elias Howe. The son of a farmer who lived in Spen- cer, Massachusetts, he had found his way first to a workman's bench in a Lowell machine-shop, and then, in his twentieth year, to a mathematical-instrument maker's in Boston. He had married young, and had a family dependent upon him for their daily bread. One day Howe overheard a conversation that was going on between the master of the shop and a customer over a knitting- machine that the latter had brought in for examination and to see if its defects could be remedied. After inspecting the crude and incomplete device before him awhile, the master broke out with, " What are you bothering with a knitting-machine for? Why don't you make a sewing-machine?" " I wish I could," said the other; " but it can't be done." " Oh, yes, it can ; I can make a sewing-machine myself." " Well, then," said the customer, " you do it, Davis, and I '11 insure you an independent fortune." The idea thus dropped, probably more in bravado than in sober earnest, nevertheless took firm hold on the young jour- neyman's mind ; but it was several years yet before he seriously applied himself to working it out to the exclusion of everything else. It was, in fact, ten years after Hunt had constructed his machine before Howe took hold of the matter at all ; but we do not find that he knew anything whatever of that most ingenious man's attempts. In December, 1845, with the help of a friend who advanced the means necessary for his own and his family's support, Howe shut himself up in a garret in this friend's house, and for six months worked with dogged perseverance over the slowly developing mechanism that finally embodied his idea of a sewing-machine. It was finished, patented, and exhibited in successful operation to admiring crowds. But it found no pur- chasers. No one would touch it. Howe's partner became disheartened, and abandoned the enterprise in despair; for now that the sewing-machine was an accomplished fact it seemed even more difficult to convince the public of its practical utility 666 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. than it once had to create the machine itself. This first sewing- instrument applied the principle .of the curved needle, with the eye near the point that perforated the cloth, and of a shuttle that by moving rapidly to and fro carried a second thread through the loop formed by the needle, and in this way made the seam commonly known as the " lock-stitch." Convinced that nothing was to be done in the United States, Howe took his machine to England, where he was glad to sell it, together with the patent right for Great Britain, for a paltry .250, in order that he might be able to pay off some of his debts. The shrewd purchaser, who was a manufacturer named Thomas, soon secured a patent both in England and in France, thus obtaining an absolute control of the invention in those coun- tries, subject only to the payment of a small royalty to the in- ventor. The money Howe had thus procured was soon gone, and he then had to seek employment as a means of livelihood. Again Howe became a workman dependent upon the labor of his hands ; but even this resource so often failed him that he was forced to borrow small sums on one occasion a shilling to keep himself from starving. Howe finally got a passage home to the United States, where he arrived destitute of every- thing but the pluck that had never deserted him even when he did not know where his next meal was coming from. To his surprise, and not altogether to his delight, he found that in his absence the sewing-machine had steadily grown in the appre- ciation of the public, and was at that time employing all the re- sources of other skilful inventors, who aimed to bring it to a still higher state of perfection. From the piece of ingenious mechanism of problematical worth at which it had first been estimated, the sewing-machine had now advanced to a position of admitted utility; and this fact, in a country where manual labor of every kind was so dear as it was in the United States, assured its success beyond a doubt. This too stimulated the exertions of others besides Howe to obtain control of the manu- facture and sale in the United States. Howe found his rights endangered. In Mr. I. M. Singer, Howe encountered his most energetic and formidable competitor. The courts were appealed ELIAS HOWE. 667 to. They decided that Elias Howe's claim to be the original inventor of the sewing-machine was good and valid ; and from that day the struggling mechanic, the man of -brain and pluck, began to receive the reward of genius. It is not our purpose to write the history of sewing-machines further than to record these incidents in the life of Elias Howe. In a few years he rose from poverty and obscurity to affluence and the possession of a great name ; but even the greatness of the reward does not seem too much in view of the benefits se- cured to mankind, or the obstacles that had to be overcome before these results could be attained. It is characteristic of nearly all really great inventions that they have occupied the minds of several different persons at the same period of time, but it is seldom indeed that the rights of a claimant have been so universally conceded as they have in the case of Elias Howe and his wonderful little mechanism. Nor is there a particle of evidence going to prove that Howe pursued any other plans than such as were the coinage of his own fertile and inventive brain. During the great civil war between the North and the South, Mr. Howe's zealous patriotism led him to enlist as a private sol- dier in' the Seventeenth Connecticut Volunteers. To this example of what a citizen in any station owes to his country whenever that country may demand the sacrifice from him, Howe also added the voluntary use of his means for the payment of the regi- ment. He served until failing health compelled his retirement from the ranks ; but this simple incident has conferred upon the eminent inventor and millionnaire an honor greater in its way than any he may have derived from the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, or from those other decorations that marked the appre- ciation of foreign governments for his achievements in the domain of mechanical science. 668 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. CYRUS HALL McCORMICK. [BORN 1809. DIED 1884.] A N English journal frankly gives credit to American genius * for at least fifteen inventions and discoveries which, it says, have been adopted all over the world. These triumphs of American genius are thus enumerated: First, the cotton gin; second, the steamboat ; third, the grass-mower and grain-reaper ; fourth, the rotary printing-press ; fifth, the planing-machine ; sixth, the hot-air or caloric engine; seventh, the sewing-ma- chine; eighth, the india-rubber industry; ninth, the machine for manufacturing horse-shoes ; tenth, the sand-blast for carv- ing ; eleventh, the gauge-lathe ; twelfth, the grain-elevator ; thirteenth, artificial ice manufacture on a large scale ; four- teenth, the electro-magnet and its practical application ; fif- teenth, the composing-machine for printers. To these should be added the improvements in practical telegraphy, the tele- phone, and the electric light; and even then the catalogue will be far from complete. The most suggestive thought, as related to the world's progress, is that a single century covers the whole list just enumerated, while a majority of the inventions have seen the light within half a century. Americans may well point with pride to a record at once so remarkable and so honorable in a country which has only just begun to measure its own achievements with those that the Old World is producing as the fruit of centuries of preparation of the ground. All eyes are now turned to the future with the conviction that it will show no less beneficent results to human progress than the present has done. In the meantime miracles are being per- formed under our eyes every day, we might almost say every hour. CYRUS HALL McCORMICK. CYRUS HALL McCORMICK. 6/1 Different inventions possess, of course, a relative importance. Those which add to the material wealth of nations are unques- tionably greater than those that contribute exclusively to the comfort or convenience of mankind. By common consent that * man is a benefactor who has made two blades of grass grow where only one grew before. We need not pursue so sugges- tive a simile. Of the class of inventors who create national wealth we have had in the United States two notable examples, namely, Eli Whitney and Cyrus Hall McCormick. What W T hit- ney's gin did for the South has already been shown by the most irrefragable testimony. What McCormick's reaper was doing for the North so long ago as 1859 was estimated by the Hon. Reverdy Johnson to equal " an annual income to the whole coun- try of fifty-five millions of dollars at least, which must increase through all time ; " and William H. Seward said that McCor- mick's invention had advanced the line of civilization westward thirty miles each year. In this connection it is interesting to note that while the North gave to the South the cotton-gin, the South has given to the North the reaping-machine ; but to in- ventions of such universal utility as these are, neither section may lay exclusive claim, for both the gin and the reaper have become the common property of nations, and each has gone into and is doing its appointed work in the remote parts of the earth in the interest of the great common weal. We find that the idea of harvesting grain in some more ex- peditious way than by hand labor goes back to a remote period ; and we are also assured that certain crude efforts to construct machines for the purpose have tangible record in the patent- offices of European countries as well as in our own. Many may have been engaged for a long time in unsuccessful or only partially successful attempts to bring their schemes to perfec- tion, who have come before the public to contend for the merit justly due to the more fortunate or more skilful inventor. But such failures become only more conspicuous by a comparison with achieved success. The world extends its sympathy to baffled or half-successful inventors, but it recognizes and re- serves its rewards only for accomplished facts. To demand 43 672 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. recognition for a failure is to belittle the efforts of genius by claiming distinction for mediocrity. The reaping-machine is no exception to the history of every really great invention. It has been claimed for the unknown, the unpractical, and, above all, for the unsuccessful competitor whose work, be it said, has been brought to notice chiefly through the efforts of a mind greater than his own. Cyrus Hall McCormick, the inventor of the reaping-machine, and the subject of this brief sketch, was born at Walnut Grove, Rockbridge County, Virginia, February 15, 1809, and was there- fore, at the time of his death, in his seventy-sixth year. His parents were of Scotch-Irish descent, a race noted for energy, sturdy independence, and thrift. Young McCormick's inventive genius developed early in life. This trait of character he seems to have inherited from his father, Robert McCormick, who, though a planter, .owned several saw and grist mills, and kept a carpenter's and blacksmith's shop, in which were made and repaired nearly all the tools and machinery required on the farm. He was the inventor and patentee of several valuable machines for threshing, hydraulic hemp-breaking, etc. In 1816 he had devised a reaping-machine with which he experimented in the harvest of that year. Disappointed in his experiments, he laid it aside, and did not resume work on it again for fifteen years. He then added some improvements ; but on testing it again in a field of grain, he became so thoroughly convinced that its principle was wrong that he abandoned it as a Utopian idea, just as all his predecessors in reaper-inventing had done before him. During these years young Cyrus was improving his time in be- coming an adept in handling tools and in the study of machinery, while assisting his father to work out his inventions. At fifteen the lad had turned his own mechanical training to such purpose as to contrive a grain cradle, and, five years later, a hillside plough, which was the first self-sharpening plough ever invented. Very much against his father's judgment, young McCormick next turned his attention to the abandoned reaper. Avoiding the errors that had proved fatal to all previous attempts, he de- CYRUS HALL McCORMICK. 673 vised a machine wholly unlike anything that had been pro- jected, or, so far as he knew, even ^thought of. As one by one the problems involved presented themselves to his mind, his ingenuity provided for them. First came the cutting-sickle, with its fast alternating and slow advancing motions; second, the receiving platform upon which the cut grain should fall and be cared for ; third, the reel to gather and hold up the grain in a body. These three salient points being decided upon, it remained to bring them into harmony as co-operating parts of one machine ; and here the inventor's training in his father's workshops became of great use to him. Perseverance finally enabled him to work out the various mechanical combinations that he had outlined in his mind, and it was then a compara- tively easy matter to mount the machine on wheels, which by intermediate gearing gave the required motion to the sickle and reel. These successive steps were taken little by little, but they were taken surely and upon sound judgment. In 1831 McCormick had the great satisfaction of completing with his own hands and by his own unaided ingenuity, and of suc- cessfully testing in the harvest field, the first practical reaping- machine that the world ever saw. It is evident, however, that McCormick at twenty-two had formed no adequate idea of the value of his invention ; for we now find him laying it aside in order to go into the iron-smelting business, which he considered as opening a broader and more lucrative field to his ambition. The panic of 1837, however, brought financial ruin to the new enterprise. McCormick's business partner secured his own pri- vate property, leaving the smelting business and the junior part- ner to their fate. It is most honorable to McCormick that in a situation at once so trying and so disheartening as this proved to be, he with rare integrity and determination set to work pay- ing off his own debts, though it was at the sacrifice of every- thing he possessed. But in the light of present knowledge we may consider what McCormick no doubt felt to be a most cruel reverse of fortune, if not ruin to his future prospects in life, as one of those bless- ings in disguise, which men indeed do not know how to accept, 674 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. but are nevertheless wisely ordered, to bring out the best that is in them. In the discarded reaper McCormick had a resource both congenial and stimulating. To that he therefore turned his attention, and from that day onward we have only to chron- icle his successes. In 1834 his first patent was secured, when he began the manufacture of the machine on a very limited scale, cautiously feeling his way with it, as he went along, while engaged in other pursuits, for he had not yet fully realized the value of his inven- tion. A second patent was taken out for important improve- ments in 1845. Additional patents issued in 1847 and 1848 for further improvements. In the year last mentioned seven hundred machines were built and sold. Other valuable patented improve- ments have since been added. When McCormick began his ex- periments the harvesting of a single acre was considered a fair day's work for one man. The reaping-machine as now perfected is capable of cutting and binding in sheaves, under the manage- ment of a girl or a boy having skill enough to drive a pair of horses, at the rate of two acres per hour. His earlier patents having expired, a refusal by the Patent Office to renew them threw open to competition all the leading features of the inven- tion. The expiration of the first patent that of 1834 hap- pened at a most critical moment for McCormick, who was then devoting himself to the introduction of his first machines ; but disappointments like these, or perplexities incident to infringe- ments of his patents by rival manufacturers, seem only in the case of McCormick to have produced still greater exertions followed by greater successes. Allowing them free use of his expired patents, he still kept ahead of his competitors. The in- ventor of the sewing-machine had been able to secure a judicial confirmation of his rights to the principle of this wonderful mechanism, although the greatest improvements in it had not come from his hand or brain. McCormick, as we have seen, failed to obtain an equally equitable decision in his favor, and for the reason that his inventions were too valuable, in the opinion of the Patent authorities, to be the exclusive property of any one man. CYRUS HALL McCORMICK. 675 In 1845 Mr. McCormick had removed to Cincinnati, Ohio, for the purpose of establishing himself there; but with that keen foresight so characteristic of him, he was among the first to see the advantages which Chicago even at that early day possessed for becoming the commercial centre of the West. He accordingly removed there in 1847, and began the erection ot the first reaper works. When the success of the machine was assured, Mr. McCor- mick spent much of his time abroad, in bringing his machine to the notice of European agriculturists. In 1851 he attended the World's Fair in London with his machine. During the early weeks of the exhibition it was the subject of much ridicule on the part of those who knew nothing of its character or its capabil- ities. Even the " London Times," in an article casting contempt on the poor show made in the American Department, character- ized the reaper as a monstrosity, something like a cross between an Astley chariot and a flying-machine. A few weeks later, when the machine was practically tested in the English harvest fields, ridicule was turned into admiration ; and those journals which, like the " Times," had sneered at the reaper on account of its queer looks, could not now say enough in its praise. The " Thunderer " declared it equal in value to the entire exhibition. McCormick suddenly found himself famous. His reaper received the grand Council medal of the exhibition. The press everywhere rang with his praise, and he was cheered, feasted, and toasted wherever he went. Greater honor has never been awarded to an American inventor.' His was the rare grat- ification of having conquered the prejudice against everything American by exhibiting in practical operation the most skilfully contrived, the most original, and the most useful contribution to the needs of the great agricultural classes. It is true that McCormick had for some time longer to contend with efforts to belittle his invention on the part of those who could not be reconciled to the idea that this unknown and unheralded Amer- ican had carried off the honors of an exhibition that was ex- pected to assert the superiority of British inventors, and so had secured the prestige for his own country. But if John Bull is 676 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. slow to admit himself vanquished, he is at least hearty in mak- ing due acknowledgment when fully convinced of error. The achievement of McCormick seems all the greater when we con- sider the nature of the obstacles which had to be overcome before the merits of his reaper were fully recognized in Great Britain. In the face of much carping criticism the inventor pursued the even tenor of his way, exhibiting, explaining, and vindicating his machine from attack with a persistency, a confi- dence in the great merit of his creation, that cannot fail to win our respect for those resources of mind that were always equal to the demands made upon him. At subsequent International Expositions such as those at Paris in 1855; London, 1862; Hamburg, 1863; Paris, 1867; Vienna, 1873; Philadelphia (Centennial), 1876; Paris, 1878; Royal Agricultural Society, England, 1878; Melbourne, 1880; Royal Agricultural Society, England, 1881 ; Christ Church, New Zealand, 1882; Grosetto, Italy; and at Louisville, 1883 Mc- Cormick was equally triumphant. In addition to these high honors, often won in opposition to all the contesting machines of Europe and America, Mr. McCormick was decorated with the Cross of the Legion of Honor at Paris in 1867, and at the suc- ceeding Exposition of 1878 further honored with the decoration of Officer of the Legion of Honor ; and he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences in the Department of Rural Econ- omy, as " having done more for the cause of agriculture than any other living man." Unlike most inventors, Mr. McCormick has been noted for the energy and shrewdness of an eminently successful business man, having in himself the rare combination of inventive in- genuity, mechanical skill, and tact to manage a business that has now been extended all over the world. In 1858 Mr. McCormick married a daughter of the late Melzar Fowler, a niece of Judge E. G. Merrick, of Detroit, a most beautiful, accomplished, and refined lady, whose gentle- ness, charity, and good deeds adorn the position she occupies. Three sons and two daughters complete the family circle. The eldest son, C. H. McCormick, is in his twenty-fourth year, and CYRUS HALL McCORMICK. 677 is assisting in the management and control of the immense busi- ness interests left by his father. It is gratifying to write that some part of the wealth which Mr. McCormick amassed from his inventions, in the course of a long and arduous business career, has taken the direction of practical philanthropy. Like the late George Peabody, the subject of our biography preferred to give during his life- time, to the end that he might see, or better direct, the fulfil- ment of those benevolent objects which his philanthropy aimed to bring about. He was the founder of the Presbyterian Theo- logical Seminary of the Northwest, at Chicago, having at the start donated $100,000 to endow a professorship in that insti- tution ; and during the years of its early struggles, before its ultimate success and permanency were secured, his purse was ever open to replenish its empty treasury, until he had nearly trebled the amount of his original donation. He also liber- ally remembered Washington College, and other institutions of his native State of Virginia. The city of Chicago, which was for thirty-seven years Mr. McCormick's adopted home, owes to him no small share of her great prosperity, as well as her increasing prestige at home and abroad. He had always been actively identified with the building up of this almost phenomenal American city ; and after the disastrous fire of 1 87 1, by which his own extensive works were laid in ashes with the rest of the city, he was one of the first to commence building again, thus inspiring confidence in others to follow his example. The new works occupy a tract of twenty-five acres. They are substantially built, and are furnished with every appli- ance requisite for turning out 50,000 machines annually, that enormous figure, showing an increase in ten years of 32,000 and in fifteen years of 40,000 machines manufactured and sold, having been reached in 1883. To show what the reaping-machine has done for the age we live in, and more particularly for the Great West, would be our most congenial task, were not the facts within the recollection of every man living. It is an amazing record, one unmatched by any similar achievement even in this age of marvels. Old 678 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. methods have been revolutionized. What was an uninhabited and unproductive region forty years ago has been converted into the great granary of the world, with a population of mil- lions, a thrift as boundless as its resources, and a weight in the nation that is already turning the scale against the older States of the East as the seat of power. " Tickle me with a hoe and I laugh with a harvest," is the promise held out to those farm- ers who have delved all their lives in less kindly soils for a bare subsistence. In the East small farms are the rule ; in the West they are the exception. And as the ability to cultivate large tracts sometimes equalling in size a European principality comes wholly from the introduction of improved machinery, so the work of estimating the past and present worth of a machine like McCormick's Reaper, which is not only labor- saving but labor-extending as well, is also the history of the marvellous development of a dozen or more new States and Territories of the Great West. Even the most superficial study of the character of Cyrus H. McCormick shows us a man who would unquestionably have made his mark upon the age in any calling. A closer look forcibly suggests that admirable relation which such men hold to certain eras of extraordinary progress in the world's history. In McCormick we discover an inventor by heredity, but pre-eminently an inventor of the kind in whom an idea once seized upon becomes the fixed purpose of a lifetime, an in- ventor who to superior intelligence unites the power of an iron will to achieve, and a certain grandeur of determination which knows no such word as fail. For a man so endowed one of the highest prizes that the world bestows upon, the fortunate few might easily be predicted. It follows that in his lifetime McCormick reaped his abundant reward, both of honors and of more substantial wealth. But the world, which sees only the accomplished fact in its entirety, takes little note of the long and weary period of toil, the most exacting and unremitting, to the inventor's brain, that has preceded the grand result. In a word, Mr. McCormick is a notable example of the typical, self- made American of the nineteenth century, whose achievements L. J. M. DAGUERRE, L. J. M. DAGUERRE. 68 1 in the interests of human progress have produced effects the most beneficent to mankind, and are therefore not for an age but for all time. L. J. M. DAGUERRE. [BORN 1789. DIED 1851.] A T the session of the French Academy of Sciences, held ** in January, 1839, M. Arago announced the remarkable discovery made by their countryman, M. Louis Jacques Da- guerre, by which the long-sought method of fixing the images of the camera obscura had at length been perfected. M. Da- guerre had explained in advance confidentially to M. Arago the processes by which this result had been secured ; so that the able and learned speaker was able to give a full and lucid account of this most interesting, admirable, and valuable achieve- ment in the interest of both science and art, for to these twin branches its benefits were at first believed most to accrue. But even M. Arago's forecast, sound and discriminating as it was, fell far short of developing the ultimate value of Daguerre's dis- covery to mankind ; for instead of its inuring exclusively to the benefit of science or art, or of either of them, it speedily passed into the possession of the whole civilized world, and became domesticated in every household to whose treasures of affection or memory it had contributed so priceless a gift. Still, even within the limitations which were supposed at first to govern it, the discovery produced a startling impression upon the public. Daguerre had gone no further at this time than to reproduce upon his plates such architectural objects as were familiar to the Parisians, and might therefore be easily recog- nized ; but this feat, affording as it did the best test of the fidelity of Daguerre's processes, was quite enough to establish the fact that a great discovery had been made, and to fix a 682 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. starting-point for the astonishing development that has suc- ceeded Daguerre's original efforts. Let us trace the progress of the discovery a little, in order to show how far Daguerre may be entitled to the name that we have assigned to him of a benefactor of the race. It is about two centuries ago since a Neapolitan scientist by the name of Giovanni Battista Porta discovered the camera obscura, or dark chamber, in which the images projected by a sun-ray upon the dark background of the chamber were re- produced with the utmost fidelity. But this was considered as no more than a curious phenomenon, and as such, attracted much attention from learned and unlearned. There the in- vention rested until Wedgwood, as we have stated in our sketch of him, attempted the transfer of objects, and also ot paintings, sculptures, and engravings to his ware. Davy also made some experiments with the same general view; but neither succeeded in obtaining the results he aimed at for want of knowledge of the proper chemical substances to hold the pictures he had obtained, which faded or turned black as soon as exposed to the light. The matter was, however, too interesting to be dropped. In 1814 a Frenchman named Niepce turned his attention to the same subject, pursuing it indefatigably until he had worked out his own ideas ; and it is to him, more than to any other, Daguerre excepted,. that the final and signal success of the great invention is due. Niepce's first efforts were directed to the fixing of silhouettes by chemical substances. For years he pursued his favorite idea until he had perfected a process by which he was able to- do what Wedgwood and Davy had failed to accomplish ; namely, to copy engravings by the aid of the camera. Up to this point, where Niepce was joined by Daguerre as co-laborer in the purpose to work out the discovery to a practical so- lution, no one seems to have heard anything of Daguerre in connection with it, although M. Arago asserts that Daguerre had for several years been assiduously engaged upon the same thing as Niepce, each being ignorant of the other's purpose. L. J. M. DAGUERRE. 683 Daguerre was born at Cormeilles in 1789. From infancy he showed a predilection for designing. He came to Paris, like so many other young men of talent, in search of the career that the great metropolis had opened to his ardent imagina- tion. His inclination for drawing, the proficiency he soon showed in that particular branch of art, procured him a situa- tion as scene painter and decorator in the theatres of Paris; and in this profession he rapidly took a leading place. Da- guerre's inventive genius soon asserted itself. He introduced many pleasing illusions by means of his art, to the wonder and delight of the Parisians ; but his greatest success as a painter came when he opened to the public his diorama, which was at that time a novelty in scenic representation. It had an immense popularity. The arrangement was a circular hall having a mov- able floor, which, by turning with the spectators upon it, trans- ferred them without inconvenience before the successive series of pictures with marvellous realistic effect. The diorama was, however, destroyed by fire. At this epoch, therefore, we find that Daguerre was an artist of merit in his particular line who had made a study of, and had introduced many novel optical effects into, scenic display in the theatre. His native ingenuity and invention had been shown too in working out the various improvements introduced by him ; but we are absolutely without knowledge respecting his earlier experiments with the camera obsctira, or of the reasons which had induced him to set about the elucidation of its problems with all the energy of his nature. It is certain, only, that he had been some time at work over them, when he heard of M. Niepce, whom he immediately sought out, and with whom he subsequently formed a partnership for perfect- ing the discovery upon which both were intent. This instru- ment, which was signed in 1836, was duly recorded, and is in effect an admission by Niepce of Daguerre's claims at that particular stage of the discovery, since it is hardly to be sup- posed that Niepce would have admitted Daguerre to an equal share of the benefits of his own protracted experiments unless corresponding advantage to himself had been made clear to 684 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. his mind. We state this because it is asserted that while Niepce disclosed his processes to Daguerre, there is nothing to show what Daguerre offered him in return. It was understood and agreed that the new discovery should bear the names of both the contracting parties ; but in consequence of a condition im- posed by M. Daguerre himself, the new process took the name of Daguerre only, hence, Daguerreotype. Niepce died in 1833, six years before the discovery was made public. It aroused a veritable enthusiasm. At the instance of the Academy the process was purchased by the State ; and then, in a spirit most honorable to the nation, it was given to the public, Daguerre receiving an annuity of 6,000 francs, and Niepce fils, 4,000 francs. Daguerre continued to devote himself to the improvement of his processes. In the meantime an Englishman named Talbot had nearly secured the result achieved by Daguerre, and now appeared as his competitor for the honor of the discovery. His claims, however, were not allowed by the French Academy, to which body Mr. Talbot had submitted them, although his process differed from that of Daguerre in that Talbot took his images on chemically prepared paper instead of metal. In 1851, when M. Daguerre died, the art of photography was still in its infancy ; but under the impetus of publicity, it has since made great progress. Not only his own process, but that of Talbot, has been entirely superseded by the improve- ments of Mr. Scott Archer, of England, glass being now used to receive the image instead of metal or paper, thus securing almost indefinite duplication of a subject. It should be stated, however, that Dr. J. W. Draper, of New York, was the first to obtain with enlarged lenses portraits by the process of Daguerre. From every point of view, the grand discovery of Daguerre is one of the most useful that has signalized the century we live in ; and its possibilities seem all the greater when we consider its earlier achievements in the light of present adaptability to the multitude of purposes for which it may be employed. If printing is the art preservative of all arts, photography merits a still higher place, since it preserves for us an exact counterpart of the object itself, while printing at most secures _v ^"^Sas. y^T^^S ^* WILLIAM T. G. MORTON. WILLIAM T. G. MORTON. 687 only a history or a description, more or less accurate accord- ing to the ability of the writer to convey the impression he may have received. As a disseminator of the great works of art, photography has already proved a valuable means of art education to the masses. WILLIAM T. G. MORTON. [BORN 1819. DIED 1868.] "\T 7E have once more to repeat, what must have become * * already apparent to the reader of the foregoing pages, that those discoveries from which mankind has derived the greatest benefits are as often the result of some quick grasp of principles, followed by decisive action thereon, as of the pro- longed and studious application of scientific methods, by scien- tific men, to the same end. In making its awards the world does not ask for a diploma, but for a result. Such, in fact, is the whole philosophy of the ether discovery. In the early part of the month of October, 1846, members of the medical staff of the Massachusetts General Hospital at Boston were much importuned by a young surgeon dentist of that city for permission to try upon some of the hospital patients the effect of a preparation he had discovered. He asserted that this preparation would produce insensibility to pain, that he had tried it successfully in his own practice in extracting teeth, and that he had fully proved it to be perfectly harm- less in its after results upon the patient. In the language of one of the surgeons, Dr. Morton " haunted " them. The proposal itself was so novel, not to say audacious, when coming from one outside of the medical profession, so contrary to all the traditions of that profession, that it was some time before consent to make the trial could be had ; but Morton's impor- tunities at last prevailed with Dr. J. C. Warren, the eminent surgeon in charge, who agreed to make the experiment at the 44 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. earliest opportunity. Dr. W. T. G. Morton was then a young man of twenty-six, a native of Charlton, Massachusetts, who had studied medicine for a short time in the office of Dr. Charles T. Jackson, and had attended medical lectures at the Massachusetts Hospital, the better to qualify himself for his chosen profession of dentistry, to which he returned with re- newed zeal after concluding his studies in medicine and chem- istry with Dr. Jackson, and in anatomy at the hospital. The acquaintance he had thus formed with members of the medi- cal profession was no doubt of advantage to Dr. Morton in procuring for him a hearing, at least; but it is well established that his own unaided efforts were, at this critical period in its history, his sole reliance in obtaining the opportunity he sought of testing his new sleeping-potion. Even the officers of the hospital were incredulous. Morton would only disclose that his preparation was to be inhaled ; but they wisely determined, as it turned out, to make the experiment in the interests of humanity as well as of medical science. The opportunity soon came. A patient at the hospital, hav- ing to undergo an operation for the removal of a tumor from the neck, was brought into the operating theatre on Friday, October 16. By request of Dr. Warren, who had seasonably recollected his promise, the house surgeon had invited Dr. Morton to attend, and make the first application of his then unknown compound. It may readily be supposed that Dr. Morton had lost no time in presenting himself at the hospital. How the operation was performed, how its success was first heralded to the world, will be best understood and appreciated by giving here, verbatim, the account that appeared in the Bos- ton "Transcript" of October 17, 1846. Several other journals have been consulted without finding any notice whatever of the operation. We beg the reader's attention to this fact, as it has an important bearing not only upon the discovery itself, but also upon the claim of priority afterwards advanced by another candidate for its honors. The " Transcript " said : " We understand that Dr. Morton, at the invitation of Dr. Hayward of the McLean Hospital, administered his prepara- WILLIAM T. G. MORTON. 689 tion to produce sleep, yesterday morning, to a man who had a tumor extracted from the neck. Our informant, who conversed with one of the physicians who witnessed the operation, states that the man, after inhaling the preparation for a few moments, was lost in sleep, giving no symptom of suffering while Dr. Warren was extracting the tumor. He was totally unconscious of what was going on till near the close of the operation (which lasted longer than usual), when he drew a long sigh. The unconscious state in which the man was afforded the surgeon an opportunity to perform the operation expeditiously, unin- terrupted by any struggles or shrinking of the patient." On the day following the first operation, a similar one was performed with equal success. In both these cases the inhala- tion of Dr. Morton's preparation was followed by a condition of insensibility to pain throughout the critical part of the op- eration. But we now have to record the crowning triumph achieved by Dr. Morton, and we will do it in the language of the surgeon who performed the operation of amputating the leg of a female patient ; for whatever may have been the opin- ion of medical experts in regard to the importance of the earlier operations, this at least was admitted to be a full and critical test of the value of the discovery to the practice of surgery, and as such its result was awaited with the greatest interest by unprofessional as well as professional persons. Up to this time Dr. Morton had been administering sulphuric ether to the patients without letting the operating surgeons know more than what was indeed evident, that it was some highly volatile, spirituous liquid, which had a pungent, though not dis- agreeable odor when allowed to escape through the inhaling tube. He had, in fact, excellent reasons for pursuing this course. Dr. Hayward, the surgeon who subsequently performed the first amputation, now determined to go no farther in the dark; and upon being put in charge of the surgical department of the hospital he refused to allow the surgical patients to inhale this preparation of Dr. Morton during his term of service, unless all the surgeons of the hospital were told what it was, and were 690 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. satisfied of the safety of using it; "for," says Dr. Hayward, in his paper giving an account of this operation, "we were then ignorant of the precise nature of it. Dr. Warren agreed with me as to the propriety of this course." That is to say, Dr. Mor- ton's preparation had been twice used at the hospital without knowledge of its component parts ; or, in other words, it was unknown in the practice of surgery. Dr. Hayward goes on to say that " on the 6th of November Dr. Morton called at my house, and asked me if I was willing to have his preparation inhaled by a patient whose limb I was to amputate on the fol- lowing day. I told him of the conversation I had had with Dr. Warren on the subject. Dr. Morton at once said that he was ready to let us know what the article was, and to give to the surgeons of the hospital the right to use it when they pleased. He added that he would send me a letter, in the course of the day, to this effect." Dr. Morton was as good as his word. The proposal was maturely considered by the surgeons, who were unanimously of the opinion that ether should be inhaled by the patient who was to undergo the operation on that day. The old and (to the sufferer who had to endure them with no other strength than that with which nature had endowed him) appalling methods attendant upon a capital operation are too painful, even in the bare relation, for us to dwell upon. There was no royal road under the dissecting knife. The strong man and the tender woman alike must submit to a period of torture which not unfrequently left the poor maimed human being flut- tering between life and death. To the agony attending the operation itself was joined that terrible tension of the nerves under which the patient often sunk into a deadly stupor from which no skill could recall him to life. But what were the few whom accidents or disease brought into our hospitals, there to be treated under the most favorable conditions, when compared with the numbers of maimed and crippled sufferers who had to submit to amputations hurriedly performed on the field of bat- tle? At the very moment of Morton's discovery hundreds of our soldiers were undergoing in Mexico the cruel torture of the dissecting knife. We shudder to think how much suffering WILLIAM T. G. MORTON. 691 might have been averted, and how many valuable lives saved to the world, had there been earlier knowledge of the power of this wonderful anaesthesia 1 over pain. And yet we are asked to believe that the discovery was already in the possession of a prominent member of the medical fraternity ! At this capital operation, the first performed in any country with the aid of ether, the operating-room was crowded. The principal physicians and surgeons of the city, many medical stu- dents, besides men prominent in various callings, were there await- ing in the utmost anxiety the result of the experiment they were about to witness. Dr. Hayward simply told them that it had been decided to allow the patient to inhale an article which was said to have the power of annulling pain. The patient was then brought in. She was a delicate-looking girl of about twenty years of age, who had suffered for a long time from a scrofulous disease of the knee-joint. The mouth-piece of the inhaling in- strument was put into her mouth, and she was directed to take long inspirations. In about three minutes Dr. Morton said, " She is ready." A deathlike stillness reigned in the room as Dr. Hayward began the operation by passing his knife directly through the diseased limb. Upon seeing this the spectators seemed to stop breathing. The patient gave no sign of feeling or consciousness whatever, but looked like one in a deep, quiet sleep. One long and audible murmur announced the relief experienced by the audience. When the last artery was being tied, the patient groaned, and consciousness soon returned; but she was wholly ignorant, and at first would not believe, that the surgeon's work was done, and that the leg had been removed while she slept. The discovery was of course carried far and wide with all speed, since upon such certain demonstration of its invaluable worth to society as had been given, no other topic could begin to claim the same interest with the whole public, learned or unlearned, as this. In Europe it was received with the greatest enthusiasm, and was speedily introduced into the hospitals of 1 The use of this word in etherization was first proposed !jy Dr. O. \V. Holmes. 692 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. England, France, and Germany with the same flattering results as had followed its use in our own country. Before the learned bodies of those countries the discussion of its merits and its pos- sibilities superseded for the time every other question. But while the world was thus congratulating itself upon so auspicious an event> a most bitter controversy had begun in the United States as to who was entitled to the credit of the discovery. After the second surgical operation had been performed at the Massachu- setts Hospital, and not until then, a new claimant appeared in Dr. Charles T. Jackson, with whom it has been mentioned that Dr. Morton had studied, and who had also laid claim to the dis- covery of the magnetic telegraph in opposition to Professor Morse. Dr. Jackson now asserted that he had not only discov- ered the anaesthetic properties of ether himself, but that he had explained them to Dr. Morton, and had suggested to him the use of ether in extracting teeth. Dr. Morton denied to Dr. Jackson any further agency in the discovery than some general information upon the chemical properties of ether dropped in the course of conversation. It appeared in evidence that not only had Dr. Jackson refused to sanction Dr. Morton's efforts to make the discovery public, but he had distinctly discountenanced them as reckless and untrustworthy. It was also shown that Dr. Morton had been experimenting with ether for some time before applying to Dr. Jackson for specific information in regard to the best way of inhaling it. For this information, given in his capacity of chemist and without reservation, Dr. Jackson made a fixed charge of $500; but upon the representations of mutual friends of the advantage to him of Dr. Jackson's name and influence, Dr. Morton generously agreed to allow the insertion of Dr. Jackson's name as joint discoverer with himself, in the caveat for a patent, Dr. Jackson then or sub- sequently assigning his own interest in the discovery to Dr. Morton for a stipulated consideration. In November, 1846, a patent was issued to Dr. Morton ; but in consequence of the re- newal of the controversy with Dr. Jackson, who had disavowed his previous engagements, the patentee's rights were so gen- erally disregarded that in 1849 he found himself obliged to WILLIAM T. G. MORTON. 693 appeal to Congress for a pecuniary compensation in room of the valueless patent which he now offered to surrender. Upon these facts, with all the voluminous testimony surround- ing them, several reports are of record. One emanates from the Trustees of the Massachusetts General Hospital, who gave, by a unanimous voice, the honor of the discovery to Dr. Mor- ton. One year later, upon request of Dr. Jackson, they reviewed their first decision, and unanimously confirmed it. In Congress, from 1849 to l %54> inclusive, two reports were made by committees of the House of Representatives, the testi- mony in each case being exhaustively considered, affirming the right of Dr. Morton and recommending compensation. Two committees of the Senate concurred in the reports of the House. Bills were reported in both bodies, and were lost in the mass of unfinished business. Worn out and hopeless of any action on the part of Congress, Dr. Morton, by advice of the President, brought suit against an army surgeon for using ether in a government hospital, in order to establish a direct claim for compensation. He recovered judgment, but nothing else. In 1863, Dr. Morton's patent having in the meantime ex- pired, the matter was again brought before Congress. Once more the decision was in Dr. Morton's favor ; but no substantial aid to the now disheartened and bankrupt discoverer followed, and had it not been for the generous action of the medical pro- fession of the country in setting on foot for him a national testi- monial, the discoverer of etherization in surgery would perhaps have ended his days in poverty. He also received from the French Academy the Monthyon prize in the form of their largest gold medal. A similar prize, 2,50x3 francs, was also awarded to Dr. Jackson " for his observations and experiments upon the anaesthetic effects of sulphuric ether." Dr. Morton died in 1868, after undergoing a series of trials, persecutions, and misfortunes almost unexampled in the event- ful lives of great public benefactors. Received first with in- credulity, then with hostility, by a large part of the medical world, the greatness of his discovery soon overwhelmed all opposition ; but the indefatigable discoverer had to contend 694 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. long and manfully against professional bigotry, the envy of little minds, the force of old traditions, or a conservatism which is startled by every innovation. The opposition to Morton was both able and unscrupulous. His enemies denounced and ridi- culed him in the same breath, denounced him for wishing to secure for himself and his family the fruits of his discovery; ridiculed him for his " audacity," " recklessness," and " pre- sumption" in making that inestimable boon known to the world. From first to last his efforts to secure suitable recognition from the public or the nation were thwarted by the active hostility of a rival whose claim has been again and again sifted until noth- ing remains but a bare suggestion. Be it ever so great, of what advantage to the world, let us ask, is the knowledge that is withheld from it ? Dr. Jackson's bore fruit only through the greater acuteness and persevering energy of Dr. Morton. While there is no evidence that Dr. Jackson could or would have ad- vanced the knowledge of etherization one step farther than was known to all the medical world, 1 it remains more than probable that but for Dr. Morton's active entrance into the field this grandest discovery of the age might have been still an un- solved enigma. To this conclusion all the earlier and later investigation of the subject upon its merits has inevitably led ; and while not acting in that spirit of enlightened generosity which had characterized the action of the French Government towards Daguerre and other eminent discoverers, our own has said, through its legislative and executive branches, and has placed it upon its records, that Dr. W. T. G. Morton is. the actual discoverer of etherization in medicine. 2 1 " The first discovery of the use of ether by inhalation is claimed for Sir H. Davy. The liquid is said to have been known to Raymond Sully, who lived in the thir- teenth century. It was Dr. Frobenious, in 1730, who first drew the attention of chemists to this curious liquor, and he described several of its properties. In his paper it was first called Ether." MUSPRATT. Morton first gave his discovery the name of Letheon. 2 We can allow but the space of a note to the claim of Dr. Horace Wells, which is thus ably summarized in the " Congressional Report : " " That Dr. Horace Wells did not make any discovery of the anaesthetic properties of sulphuric ether, which lie himself considered reliable, and which he thought proper to give to the world ; ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL. 697 There is in the Public Garden of the City of Boston a beauti- ful monument, dedicated to and perpetuating the discovery of ether as an anaesthetic. It is a superb memorial of the skill of the sculptor Ward. Public opinion will, we think, sustain us in the wish to see an important omission supplied by placing thereon, the name of the discoverer, William Thomas Green Morton. The monument will then be complete. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL. AT the Centennial Exhibition held at Philadelphia in 1876, ** commemorative largely of the world's progress, as well as of strictly American achievement and resources in every conceivable field of labor, was first seen an instrument that attracted marked attention by its novelty, as well as universal wonder by what it could be made to do. Had the Sphinx opened its granite lips, surprise could hardly have been greater or more genuine ; for this machine could transmit articulate speech from one point to another with absolute fidelity, thus surpassing all the conceptions of physicists, while unscientific people hardly knew whether science had compassed another miracle, or whether they were being cheated with some clever de- vice. Indeed, it was one of those amazing discoveries that, had it occurred in the days of the Inquisition, would have brought the inventor under suspicion of dealing in sorcery. This instrument was the now famous Speaking Telephone of Professor Alexan- der Graham Bell. In order to convey something like a proper idea of the way in which the telephone struck eminent scientific thinkers and workers, we will reproduce the first experience of Sir William that his experiments were confined to nitrous oxide, but did not show it to be an efficient and reliable anaesthetic agent, proper to be used in surgical operations and in obstetrical cases." 698 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. Thompson, himself an eminent electrician and inventor, had with Bell's original instrument ; and we will give Sir William's own language, as addressed to the British Association at Glas- gow, in September, 1876. We may then be better able to judge of the impression made by the telephone upon the gen- eral public. " In the Department of Telegraphs in the United States," says Sir William Thompson, " I saw and heard Mr. Elisha Gray's electric telephone, of wonderful construction, which can repeat four despatches at the same time in the Morse code ; and with some improvements in detail this instrument is evidently capable of a fourfold delivery. In the Canadian Department I heard 'To be or not to be? ... There's the rub,' uttered through a telegraphic wire ; and its pronunciation by electricity only made the rallying tone of the monosyllables more em- phatic. The wire also repeated some extracts from New York papers. With my own ears I heard all this, distinctly articu- lated through the slender circular disk formed by the armature of an electro-magnet. It was my fellow-juryman, Professor Watson, who at the other extremity of the line uttered these words in a loud, distinct voice, while applying his mouth to a tightly stretched membrane provided with a small piece of soft iron, which executed movements corresponding to the sound- vibrations of the air, close to an electro-magnet introduced into the circuit." This discovery he calls " the wonder of wonders in electric telegraphy," so that we may rest assured in respect to its strik- ing novelty in the scientific world, although familiarity has so far worn off that novelty that we can hardly hope to reproduce, even in a slight degree, the extraordinary effect caused by the first achievements of the telephone; yet the public had been for a long time in possession of that simple toy, the string tele- phone, which, to unscientific minds at least, seemed the clew conducting to the greater discovery. The telephone exhibited at Philadelphia by Bell with such striking results had reached only the first stages of develop- ment. Two instruments were required, one to send, the other ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL. 699 to receive, the spoken message. Consequently two would have to be used at each telephone station. Many improvements have since been made by Bell and others. " The prodigious results attained with the Bell telephones, which were at first discredited by many scientific men, necessarily provoked, as soon as their authenticity was proved, innumerable researches on the part of inventors, and even of those who were originally the most in- credulous. A host of improvements have consequently been suggested." It is claimed that the idea of the telephone is as old as the world itself, and that it was employed in some form to convey the decrees of the pagan oracles to those who consulted them, perhaps by means of a speaking-tube. Even as early as 1667 Robert Hooke seems to have made some progress in the study of acoustics, as related to the transmission of sound; for he asserts that with the help of a " distended wire he had propa- gated sound to a very considerable distance in an instant, or with seemingly as quick a motion as that of light." But the string telephone, which was so freely hawked about the streets a few years ago, and was regarded only as an inter- esting plaything, seems to have been the first practical form that the coming discovery had assumed. This appeared in Europe in 1867. Its principle is too simple to need explana- tion. Under the best conditions, speech could be exchanged by it to a distance of 170 yards. The speaking-tube or mouth- piece, the diaphragm to catch and transmit vibrations of the voice, and the connecting chord, are all found in the string tele- phone, which was, so to speak, the forerunner of the electric telephone ; and since that invention has come into general use the string telephone is again the fashion, as it succeeds in conveying to the unskilled mind, and in the simplest manner, those principles of acoustics common to both methods of transmission. Up to the time of Bell's invention the transmission of speech could only be effected with the aid of acoustic tubes or of the string telephone. Yet the idea of electrical transmission seems clearly expressed by M. Charles Bourseul, in a paper published 700 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. by him in 1854. He says: " I have, for example, asked myself whether speech itself may not be transmitted by electricity ; in a word, if what is spoken in Vienna may not be heard in Paris. The thing is practicable in this way: Suppose that a man speaks near a movable disk sufficiently flexible to lose none of the vibrations of the voice, that this disk alternately makes and breaks the currents from a battery; you may have at a dis- tance another disk, which will simultaneously execute the same vibrations. . . . Reproduce at the one end of the line the vi- brations of air caused at the other, and speech will be trans- mitted, however complex the mechanism may be by which it is effected." Still, we see that, notwithstanding the telephone existed in a crude form, and that the idea of electrical force as the agent destined for advancing it to the point of great utility, was slowly germinating in some minds at least, it was not for twenty years after the remarkable statements we have quoted from M. Bour- seul, that the problem approached practical solution, and not until 1876 that it was finally solved in the manner we have already related. The demonstration then came, not from Eu- rope, but from America. In that year, and in fact on the same day, both Professor Bell and Elisha Gray filed caveats in the Patent Office at Washington, for a speaking telephone. It is not our province to discuss the question of priority to which this simultaneous application gave rise. It seems certain that Gray had invented a perfectly practicable telephonic system of his own at least as early as Professor Bell. The patent, on account of some informality on the part of his distinguished competitor for this high honor, was however issued to Bell, who, as we have seen, exhibited his invention a few months later at Philadelphia in working condition, although, as we have shown, later improvements were required to adapt for general use. Mr. A. Graham Bell's own account of his discovery of the telephone is substantially the following. It is not the result, he says, of a spontaneous and fortunate conception, but of long and patient studies in acoustic science and of the labors of the ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL. 701 physicists who preceded him. 1 His father, Mr. Alexander M. Bell, of Edinburgh, had already made this science a study with the most interesting results., among which that of instilling into his son a taste for these experiments must take a foremost place. Bell first invented an electric harmonica, with a key- board, that when set in motion could reproduce sounds corre- . spending to the notes struck, as in the piano-forte. He next turned his attention to the idea of making the electro-magnet transmit audible sounds, as had long been done by the Morse Sounders, by applying this system to his electric harmonica. By employing an intensifying instrument at the receiving sta- tion, Bell thought it would be possible to obtain through a single wire simultaneous transmission of sounds produced by the action of the voice. This idea was realized almost at the same time by M. Paul Lacour, Elisha Gray, Edison, and Var- ley. Mr. Bell's study of electric telephones really dates from this time. Other claimants have appeared in Mr. John Ca- mack, Signer Manzetti, Mr. Drawbaugh, and in Professor Dolbear, of Tufts College, Massachusetts. Professor Bell's experiments were conducted in the laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an institution yet young, but having already graduated some of the rising men of the day in the various departments of applied science. Here was perfected the instrument exhibited at Philadelphia. The use of a voltaic battery was at length discarded by Bell, who found that equal or better results might be had with an induction current, produced by permanent magnets. The battery tele- phone has been treated of in a preceding article ; but it should be mentioned that, having found induced currents more favor- able to telephonic transmission than voltaic currents, Mr. Edi- son, by an ingenious contrivance, soon transformed the cur- rent passing from his battery through the sender into induced currents. Professor Bell's experiments in electrical science have pur- sued a wide range, and have shown him to be an original and 1 See Mr. Bell's paper in the " Journal o the Society of Telegraphic Engineers," TO!, vi. pp. 390, 391. 702 OUR GREAT BENEFACTORS. penetrating thinker. During the fatal illness of the lamented Garfield, Professor Bell made a number of experiments with an electrical apparatus, with the view of detecting the exact posi- tion of the assassin's bullet ; but in this instance no tangible results rewarded the hopes which had been raised in the minds of the surgeons, who had been baffled in every attempt to locate the ball. Professor Bell's experiments have also included a method of producing artificial respiration and of effecting sound by the action of light ; but it is by the speaking telephone that he is most widely and favorably known to the world at large as a public benefactor. Certainly no modern invention has been received with more universal appreciation ; for its uses are as un- limited as are the requirements of our every-day affairs in com- municating with one another, and it has effected a saving in time and labor not readily to be estimated in dollars and cents. Truly this is an age of marvels ; but the end is not yet . ~z\*$*^ 5^^^ ^s^. -v University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. r>Cfyp, ; ' ORION nrri3 JUN ?9 1993 UL APR 1 7 19Q5 DEC (T3 19$ MAY 1 7 2000 Sfcu 2 WEEK LO, t %m& ^_x zfZMm ^^^&m ?^~^> i-^^>--. ? ; *;z.r- /a. i-t2.\"-* w -