Stella, (for now I see it clearly, I, like my namesake without guile, And close the bleedings of a heart- Kind mamma gives them aught that's handy, Fair Laura hints-the hint I take, And now, farewell!-may ev'ry hour Nathaniel JAMES ALLEN. JAMES ALLEN, the son of a wealthy merchant of Boston, was born in that city, July 24th, 1739. He entered Harvard College, but owing to his indolent habits and a supposed want of orthodoxy, left the institution at the end of the third year of his course. He resided, after this, in Boston, occasionally amusing himself by writing essays or verses, but without any serious devotion to literary or professional pursuits. He died, a bachelor, in 1808. The publication of his chief production, Lines on the Massacre, is due more to accident than design. It was written at the request of Dr. Warren, to accompany the oration on the saine subject, which the doctor had been appointed to deliver. The poem was submitted to the committee having the matter in hand, who decided that it should be printed with the oration, but afterwards, owing to suspicions as to the writer's political faith, it was suppressed. Allen, with his usual indolence, gave himself no trouble about the matter, but his friends, indignant at the treatment the poet had received, procured a copy from him, and published it, with extracts from The Retrospect, another poem by the samne hand, which they accompanied by a commentary by themselves, exhibiting the author's political soundness and poetical merits.* Allen also wrote a patriotic epic, entitled Bunker Hill, but after making arrangements for its publication, was too listless to proceed further, and the manuscript is now supposed to be lost. These, with the exception of a few slight magazine pieces, form the whole of his writings. FROM THE POEM ON THE MASSACRE. From realms of bondage, and a tyrant's reign, A dreary desert, and a howling waste; The Poem which the committee of the town of Boston had voted unanimously to be published with the late oration. Boston, E. Russell, 1778. Pp. 8). And each, ingenuous, speaks in freedom's cause; ST. GEORGE TUCKER. JUDGE TUCKER, of Virginia, was born in the island of Bermuda, June 29, 1752 O. S., went to college at William and Mary, in Williamsburg, and in 1778 married Mrs. Randolph, the mother of John Randolph of Roanoke. He became By Fucker Judge of the Court of Appeals in 1803, on the death of Edmund Pendleton. He published an essay on the question, How far the Common Law of England is the Common Law of the United States; a treatise on Slavery, in 1796; a letter on the Alien and Sedition Laws, 1799, and an annotated edition of Blackstone. He died in Nelson county, Virginia, in November, 1827. He was a man of literary taste, great amiability, and thorough patriotism in the revolutionary struggle. These fugitive stanzas, attributed to his pen, are much admired: STANZAS. Days of my youth, ye have glided away; ELIAS BOUDINOT. ELIAS BOUDINOT, of one of the numerous Пnguenot families which, taking refuge in America from persecutions in France, made its return in patriotic efforts when America was to be defended, was born in Philadelphia, May 2d, 1740. He studied law with Richard Stockton, and his first wife was a sister of that distinguished statesman. He married, afterwards, a lady of New York, of the Beekman family, who survived him. Boudinot became distinguished as a member of Congress, of which body he was President in 1782, and was rewarded by Washington with the appointment of Director of the Mint, as the successor of Rittenhouse, in 1796. He was the first president of the American Bible Society, on its creation in 1816. He took great interest in the cause of missions, particularly with reference to the Indians, the question of whose descent he endeavored to solve in his elaborate volume, A Stur in the West; or a humble attempt to discover the long lost ten tribes of Israel, preparatory to their return to their beloved city, Jerusalem. This he published at Trenton, in New Jersey, in 1816. It is a curious work, which displays considerable diligence in the collection of facts and conjectures, and is written with an unaffected tone of sincerity, The writer evidently regarded the work as a religious duty. From his study of the sacred writings, his own observations of the Indian character, and the writings of Adair (who had taken this view), Colden, Brainerd, and others furnishing facts exhibiting similarity of customs, ho established himself in the conclusion that the American Indians were the descendants of the lost tribes. He also published, in 1790, The Age of Revelation; or the Age of Reason an Age of Infidelity; an oration before the Society of Cincinnati, 1793; and The Second Advent of the Messiah, 1815. He was generous and public-spirited, giving the Bible Society on one occasion ten thousand dollars, and founding in his lifetime a costly cabinet of natural history at Princeton. He left numerous liberal legacies at his death, for charitable uses. THEODORIC BLAND. RICHARD BLAND. COL. THEODORIO BLAND was of an old Virginia family, and the uncle of John Randolph. He was born in 1742. He was educated in Great Britain, at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, at a school to which Richard Henry Lee had been sent, and at Edin Thesk Bland burgh, where he received his Doctor's degree. In 1764 or '5, he returned to America, and practised medicine in Virginia. At the outbreak of the Revolution he celebrated the Battle of Lexington, in some verses, and took part in the struggle as & captain of Virginia cavalry. Col. Bland was present at the Battle of Brandywine, and enjoyed the respect and confidence of Washington, who frequently corresponded with him. He was a member of Congress from 1779 to 1788, and was again elected to the new Congress, in attendance upon which, at New York, he died June 1, 1790. Col. Bland held a correspondence with the leading actors of the Revolution, which he preserved with care, but which was exposed to the disaster of two fires. What escaped those injuries was nearly lost by negligence, a negro man on one occasion offering eggs for sale in a basket lined with the manuscripts of Washington, picked from the damaged remnants of the collection in a cellar. John Randolph in vain endeavored to get possession of the papers. The remnants were at last secured by a Virginia gentleman of antiquarian tastes, Mr. Charles Campbell, by whom they were published as The Blind Papers, in 1840 and 1843.* Mr. Campbell has preserved in his memoir portions of the verses, the manuscript of which was considerably broken. This is the close: Shall Brunswick's line, exalted high, And trampled on by Brunswick's son. Ye nobles great, ye barons bold, Remember glorious Runnymede, Stood ready for their rights to bleed. Then spurn the proffered bribe with scorn— Let not the sire [enslave] the son. Your brothers free in distant climes, The collection is one of the most interesting memorials of our Revolutionary History, with its notices of old Virginia manners, and the public events of the times. Besides Col. Bland's own letters, the correspondence includes letters of Henry St. George Tucker, Arthur Lee, Jefferson, and others. Col. Theodoric Bland is not to be confounded with his partial contemporary, Richard Bland, Rechard Bland "the Virginia Antiquary," who bore a prominent part as a political writer in the Revolution. He was a politician of the first class, a profound logician, and was also considered as the first writer in the colony." He died in 1778. NATHANIEL EVANS. NATHANIEL EVANS was born in Philadelphia, June 8, 1742. He was educated at the Academy of that city, and then apprenticed to a merchant. At the expiration of his indentures he entered the college, which had in the meantime been established. At the Commencement in 1765 he received the degree of Master of Arts, although he had not taken that of Bachelor, in consequence of the interruption in his studies. He immediately after left for England, for the purpose of being ordained, and returned in December of the same year, having passed a highly successful examination as one of the missionaries of the Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and was stationed in Gloucester county, New Jersey, where he remained, occupied with the duties of his profession, until his death, October 29, 1767. One of his fellow-passengers on his return voyage from England was Miss Elizabeth Graeme, afterwards Mrs. Ferguson. The acquaintance formed on shipboard ripened into a friendship which was only interrupted by his death. Several of his poems are addressed to her as Laura; the title of his Ode written at G-me Park, shows that he visited at her family country-seat; and the Rev. Dr. Smith acknowledges her aid in the preparation of the collection of her friend's poems, which he published, with a brief memoir, in 1772. This volume contains, in addition to the pieces already mentioned, and a brief poetical correspondence between Laura and himself, a few fugitive verses on contemporary topies, including an Ode to the Memory of General Wolfe, and a similar composition on the Peace, with an Imitation of Horace addressed to Thomas Godfrey, and an Elegy to the memory of the same friend, with paraphrases of a few of the Psalms, and two or three pastorals. One of his poems is addressed to Benjamin Franklin, Esq., LL.D occasioned by hearing him play on the harmonica. His verses are smoothly written in the taste of the period, but do not possess high literary merit. The lines which we select are a version of a Latin published in 1767, An Inquiry into the Rights poem, also by the author, addressed to a friend. of the British Colonics, after the House of Burgesses had declared the independence of the people of Virginia of the Parliament of Great Britain in matters of taxation.t Wirt, in a note to the Life of Patrick Henry, commemorates him as "one of the most enlightened men in the colony; ; a man of finished education, and of the most unbending habits of application. His perfect mastery of every fact connected with the settlement and progress of the colony, had given him the name of the Virginia Antiquary. He The Bland Papers, being a selection from the MSS. of Col. Theodoric Bland, Jr., of Prince George County, Va, to which are prefixed an Introduction and a Memoir of Col. Bland. Edited by Charles Campbell. Petersburg: Edmund and Julian C. Ruffin. 1840-8. Jefferson's Notes on Va, Qy. xxiii., where another revolutionary pamphlet, The Monitor's Letters, by Arthur Lee, 1709, la mentioned. AD GULIELMUM LAUDEBUM, P.P. Caseus pinguis, pyra, mala, nectar Diligit pullos nitidumque nidum Gratior umbra. Hane moram rugis sapiens futuris Gaudia blandæ. Nulla volantes. Uinbra seu pulvis fumus, aut inanis Fumus, et nostrum remanebit olim Nil uisi virtus, monumenta sacra Ingeniique. TO WILLIAM LAUDER, P.P. Pears, apples, cheese, dear Will, and wine, Thy wife delights in her neat home And be receiv'd with pleasure. And with thee haste the virgin Muse, And mirth that cheers the soul: That might our joys control. When life's no more inviting: Be cheerful and delighting. Or th' evanescent wind; And fleeting moments bind. Which endless shall endure. WILLIAM HENRY DRAYTON. THIS eminent political leader was born in South Carolina in 1742. He was educated in England, at Westminster School and at the University of Oxford. He was appointed in 1771 Privy Councillor for the Province, and in 1774 Assistant Judge; distinguishing himself by his maintenance of the rights of the colonists. On the eve of the meeting of the Continental Congress he published a pamphlet under the signature of "Freeman," in which he marked out the line to be pursued, and submitted a "bill of American rights." In consequence of this publication le lost his place in the colonial judiciary. In 1775 he became president of the Provincial Congress, and was soen appointed by that body Chief Justice of the Colony, when he delivered his celebrated political charge to the Grand Jury of Charleston, April 23, 1776, on the Necessity of Independence. It is one of the masterly state papers of the Revolution.* Its enumeration of royal grievances gave something more than a hint to Jefferson for his draft of the Declaration of Independence. The address was an assertion of the rights of the people of South Carolina in forming the administration under which he acted. Its language was direct, and its line of argument legal and convincing. "I proceed to lay before you," said he, the principal causes leading to the late revolu tion of our government, the law upon the point, and the benefits resulting from that happy and necessary establishment. The importance of the transaction deserves such a statement, the occasion demands, and our future welfare requires it. I will expound to you the constitution of your country." He thus directly states the precedent of the revolutionary course which had been pursued: The house of Brunswick was yet scarcely settled in the British throne, to which it had been called by a free people, when in the year 1719, our ancestors in this country, finding that the government of the lords proprietors operated to their ruin, exercised the rights transmitted to them by their forefathers of England; and casting off the proprietary authority, called upon the house of Brunswick to rule over them-a house elevated to royal dominion, for no other purpose than to preserve to a people their unalienable rights. The King accepted the invitation; and thereby indisputably admitted the legality of that revolution. And, in so doing, by his own act, he vested in them our forefathers, and in us their posterity, a clear right to effect another revolution, if ever the goverment of the house of Brunswick should operate to the ruin of the people. So the excellent Roman Emperor Trajan delivered a sword to Saburanus, his captain of the Pretorian guard, with this admired sentence, Receive this sword, and use it to defend me if I govern well, but against me if I behave ill." 66 He then proceeds to draw out the legal argument of the Revolution of 1CSS, and closes with a review of the conditions of accommodation with England, which he summed up in this vigorous phrase: In short, I think it my duty to declare in the awful seat of justice, and before Almighty God, that, in my opinion, the Americans can have no safety but by the Divine favor, their own virtue, and their being so prudent as not to leave it in the power of their British rulers to injure them. Indeed the ruinous and deadly injuries received on our side, and the jealousies entertained, and which, in the nature of things, must daily increase against us on the other; demonstrate to a mind, in the least given to reflection upon the rise and fall of empires, that true reconcilement Lever can exist between Great Britain and America, the latter being in subjection to the former. The Almighty created America to be independent of Britain. Let us beware of the impiety mighty hud, now extended to accomplish his pur of being backward to act as instruments in the Alpose; and by the completion of which alone, Amerien, in the nature of human affairs, can be secure against the craft and insidious designs of her onemics who think her prosperity and power already • It is mentioned by Paine in the third number of the Crisis, as "of the first rank in America." by far too great. In a word our piety and political safety are so blended, that, to refuse our labors in this divine work is to refuse to be a great, a free, a pious, and a happy people. And now, having left the important alternative, political happiness or wretchedness, under God, in a great degree in your own hands; I pray the Supreme Arbiter of the affairs of men, so to direct your judgment, as that you may act agreeably to what seems to be his will, revealed in his miraculous works in behalf of America, bleeding at the altar of liberty. Drayton also published a pamphlet in opposition to Lord Howe's plan of reconciliation with the mother country. In 1777 he was made President of South Carolina, and the next year took his seat in the Continental Congress at Philadelphia; and while connected with this body, died suddenly in that city at the early age of thirtysix. In addition to his political pamphlets he prepared a large body of materials for a history of the American Revolution, which were put into shape by his son John Drayton and published in two volumes in 1821. John Drayton had previously published, in 1802, an Historical View of South Carolina. He died in Charleston in 1822 at the age of sixty, holding the oflice of District Judge of the United States. THOMAS JEFFERSON, THE author of the Declaration of Independence, was born on his father's estate at Shadwell, Albemarle county, Virginia, in the neighborhood of Monticello, April 2, 1743. On the father's side his ancestry was Welsh, "from near the mountain of Snowdon," he notices in his Autobiography, and adds, "the highest in Great Britain." His grandfather, who was settled in Virginia, left three sons, of whom the youngest, Peter, married Jane Randolph of Goochland in the state, and of Scottish descent. Of eight children by this marriage Thomas was the first born. The father was a man of "a strong mind and sound judgment, and eager after information,” as his son afterwards described him, whose neglected education in youth did not prevent his accomplishing himself sufficiently to be employed on a boundary survey between Virginia and North Carolina, and making the first actual map of the state on record. He died when his son was in his fifteenth year, having placed him on the track of a liberal education-under the instruction of Mr. Douglass, a clergyman from Scotland, who taught him French with the elements of Greek and Latin. On the death of his father, he was educated by the Reverend Mr. Maury, "a correct classical scholar," for two years, when in 1760 he entered William and Mary College, where he also remained two years. At the college his intellectual habits were greatly formed by the lectures and personal friendship of Dr. William Small, the Professor of Philosophy, from Scotland, a man of an active and liberal mind, who had a happy art of communicating his information on science, ethics, and the belles-lettres. "This acquaintanceship," says Jefferson, looking back to these early years, when he commenced his Autobiography at Rainsay's Hist, Rov. 8. C. 1. 94. 111st. 8. C. 11. 454 + Memoirs of the American Revolution. the age of seventy-seven, "was my great good fortune, and probably fixed the destinies of my life." The Professor introduced him to George Wythe, the able lawyer and patriot, with whom he studied law. The Autobiography recalls the partie car ree which these three friends formed, in company with Governor Fauquier at his table, where conversation never lacked intelligence. Sinall returned to Scotland in 1762. Jefferson has left the warmest acknowledg ments in his Correspondence and Autobiography, of his obligations to Wythe, who led him into business at the bar, and lived for forty years his friend.* At the age of twenty-six, he entered public life as member of the legislature from his native county. In 1772 he married a widow lady of the age of twenty-three, the daughter of John Wayles, a lawyer of position and attractive personal quali ties, a share of whose property on his death in 1773, doubled the fortunes of the pair. Jefferson had inherited from his father the lat on which Meterin In his notes for a biography of Wythe, prèqued in 1890, Jefferson this draws his character. "No" inan ever left behind him a character more venerated than George Wythe. His virtue was of the purest tint; his integrity in flexible and his justice exact; warm patriotism, and devot ed as he was to liberty, and the natural and equal rights of man, he might truly be called the Cato of his country, without never lived. Temperance and regularity in all his habits gave the avarice of the Roman; for a more disinterested person him general good health, and his unaffected modesty and snavity of manners endeared him to every one. He was of easy elocution, his language chaste, methodical in the arrange ment of his matter, learned and logical in the use of it, and of grent urbanity in debate; not quick of apprehension, but with a little time, profound in penetration and sound conclusion, In his philosophy he was firm, and neither troubling, nor per haps trusting, any one with his religious creed, he left the world to the conclusion, that that religion must be good which could produce a life of exemplary virtue. His stature was of the middle size, well formed and proportioned, and the fea tures of his face were manly, comely, and engaging. Such was George Wythe, the honor of his own, and the inodel of future tunes." |