age that he was placed by his father in charge of Dr. Dwight, at Greenfield, to continue his literary studies, until sufficiently matured to commence the study of medicine. This he prosecuted with his father, a physician of eminence, and completed at Philadelphia, where he became acquainted with Charles Brockden Brown. He established himself in New York, keeping bachelor's hall with his friend William Johnson, the lawyer, in genial and hospitable style, in a house in Pine street, the head-quarters of the Friendly Club. He wrote a play, a number of sonnets and essays for the magazines of the day, an operatic version of the ballad of Edwin and Angelina, played with indifferent success at the John Street Theatre in 1794, and established in connexion with his friends, Doctors Samuel L. Mitchill and Edward Miller, a professional periodical entitled the Medical Repository.

In 1793 he edited the first collection ever made of American poetry.* In 1798, during the horrors of the yellow fever, he was unremitting in the discharge of the duties of his profession. He escaped the infection for a long time, but finally fell a victim, under circumstances which do honor to his humanity as well as intrepidity. A young Italian, Joseph B. Scandella, who had during his brief sojourn in America endeared himself to all whose acquaintance he had formed, fell sick of the fever, and was removed from the Tontine CoffeeHouse by Smith to his own apartments. The disease speedily proved fatal, not only to the patient but to the physician, who died Sept. 21,

1798.

EPISTLE TO THE AUTHOR OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN.

For unknown ages, 'mid his wild abode, Speechless and rude the human savage trode; By slow degrees expressive sounds acquired, And simple thoughts in words uncouth attired. As growing wants and varying climes arise, Excite desire and animate surprise, Gradual his mind a wider circuit ranged, His manners softened, and his language changed; And grey experience, wiser than of yore, Bequeathed its strange traditionary lore.

Again long ages mark the flight of time,
And lingering toil evolves the Art divine.
Coarse drawings first the imperfect thought revealed;
Next, barbarous forms the mystic sense concealed;
Capricious signs the meaning then disclose;
And last, the infant alphabet arose;

From Nilus' banks adventurous CADMUS errs,
And on his Thebes the peerless boon confers.

Slow spread the sacred art, its use was slow:
Whate'er the improvements later times bestow,
Still how restrained, how circumscribed its power!
Years raise the fruit an instant may devour.
Fond Science wept; the uncertain toil she viewed,
And in the evil, half forgot the good.

What though the sage, and though the bard inspired,
By truth illumined, and by genius fired,

In high discourse the theme divine prolong,
And pour the glowing tide of lofty song:
To princes limited, to PLUTUS' sons,

Tyrants of mines and heritors of thrones,

The theme, the song, scarce touched the general

mind,

Lost or secluded from oppressed mankind.

Fond Science wept; how vain her eares she saw,
Subject to fortune's ever-varying law.

Month after month a single transcript claimed,
The style perchance, perchance the story maimed:
The guides to truth corrupted or destroyed,
A passage foisted, or a painful void,

The work of ignorance, or of fraud more bold,
To blast a rival, or a scheme uphold;
Or in the progress of the long review,
Th' original perished as the copy grew;
Or, perfect both, while pilgrim bands admire,
The instant prey of accidental fire.

Fond Science wept; whate'er of costliest use,
The gift and glory of each favoring Muse;
From every land what genius might select;
What wealth might purchase, and what power
protect;

The guides of youth, the comforters of age;
Swept by the besom of barbaric rage,-
Scarce a few fragments scattered o'er the field
Frantic in one sad moment she beheld.
"Nor shall such toil my generous sons subdue;
Nor waste like this again distress the view!"
She cries: where Harlem's classic groves
Embowering rise, with silent flight she moves;
She marks LAURENTIUS carve the beechen rind,
And darts a new creation on his mind:
A sudden rapture thrills the conscious shades;
The gift remains, the bounteous vision fades.
Homeward, entranced, the Belgic sire returns;
New hope inspires him and new ardor burns;
Secret he meditates his art by day:
By night fair phantoms o'er his fancy stray;
With opening morn they rush upon his soul,
Nor cares nor duties banish nor control;
Haunt his sequestered path, his social scene,
And in his prayers seductive intervene,
Till shaped to method, simple, and complete,
The filial ear the joyful tidings greet.

First, their nice hands the temper'd letter frame, Alike in height, in width, in depth, the same; Deep in the matrices secure infold, And fix within, and justify, the mould; The red amalgam from the cauldron take, And flaming pour, and as they pour it, shake; On the hard table spread the type congeal'd, And smooth and polish on its marble field; While, as his busy fingers either plies, The embrion parts of future volumes rise.

Next, with wise care, the slender plate they choose, Of shining steel, and fit, with harden'd screws, The shifting sliders, which the varying line Break into parts, or yet as one confine; Whence, firmly bound, and fitted for the chase, Imposed, it rests upon the stony base; Till, hardly driven, the many figured quoins Convert to forms the accumulated lines.

Then, with new toil, the upright frame they shape,
And strict connect it by the solid cap;
The moving head still more the frame combines,
The guiding shelf its humbler tribute joins;
While the stout winter erring change restrains,
And bears the carriage, and the press sustains:
The platen these, and spindle well connect,
Four slender bars support it, and direct,
As the high handle urging from above,
Downwards and forceful bids its pressure move.
Beneath, with plank the patent carriage spread,
Lifts the smooth marble on its novel bed,
Rides on its wheeled spit in rapid state,
Nor fears to meet the quick-descending weight.

Last, the wise sire the ready form supplies,
With cautious hands and scrutinizing eyes;
Fits the moist tympan (while the youth intent,
With patting balls, applies the sable paint),
Then lowers the frisket, turns the flying rounce,
And pulls amain the forceful bar at once;
A second turn, a second pressure, gives,
And on the sheet the fair impression lives.
Raptured, the youth and reverend sire behold,
Press to their lips and to their bosoms fold;
Mingle their sighs, ecstatic tears descend,
And, face to face, in silent union blend:
Fond Science triumphs, and rejoicing Fame,
From pole to pole, resounds LAURENTIUS' name.

Hence, doom'd no more to barbarous zeal a prey, Genius and taste their treasured stores display; Nor lords, nor monks, alone, the sweets procure, But old and young, the humble and the poor.

Hence, wide diffused, increasing knowledge flies, And error's shades forsake the jaundiced eyes. Man knows himself for man, and sees, elate, The kinder promise of his future fate; Nations, ashamed, their ancient hate forego, And find a brother, where they found a foe.

Hence, o'er the world (what else perchance conceal'd,

Supprest for ages, or fore'er withheld,

To one small town, or shire, or state, confin'd,
In merit's spite to long neglect consign'd,
The sport or victim of some envious flame,
Whence care nor art might rescue nor reclaim),
Flies the Botanic Song; around

Successive nations catch the enchanting sound,
Glow as they listen, wonder as they gaze,
And pay the instructive page with boundless praise :
For not to Britain's parent isle alone,
Or what the East encircles with her zone,
The bounty flows, but spreads to neighboring realms,

And a new hemisphere with joy o'erwhelms.
Here, read with rapture, studied with delight,
Long shall it charm the taste, the thought excite,
And youths and maids, the parent and the child,
Their minds illumined, and their griefs beguiled,
By all of fancy, all of reason, moved,

Rise from the work invigor'd and improved.
Nor only here, nor only now, enjoy'd:
Where opes the interior desolate and void;
Where Mississippi's turbid waters glide,
And white Missouri pours its rapid tide;
Where vast Superior spreads its inland sea,
And the pale tribes near icy confines stray;
"Where now Alaska lifts its forests rude,
And Nootka rolls her solitary flood;"
Where the fierce sun with ray severer rains
His floods of light o'er Amazonian plains;
Where, land of horrors! roam the giant brood
On the bleak margin of the antarctic flood;
In future years, in ages long to come-
When radiant justice finds again her home;
Known, honor'd, studied, graced with nobler fame,
Its charms unfaded, and its worth the same,
To vaster schemes shall light the kindling view,
And lift to heights no earlier era knew,
Some ardent youth, some Fair whose beauties shine,
In mind, as person, only not divine;-

In halls where Montezuma erst sat throned,
Whom thirty princes as their sovereign own'd,
In bowers where Manco labor'd for Peru,
While the white thread his blest Oella drew,—
Where Ataliba met a tyrant's rage,—
Entranced, shall ponder o'er the various page;
Or, where Oregon foams along the West,
And seeks the fond Pacific's tranquil breast;
With kindred spirit strike the sacred lyre,
And bid the nations listen and admire.

Hence keen incitement prompts the prying mind
By treacherous fears, nor palsied, nor confined;
Its curious search embrace the sea, and shore,
And mine and ocean, earth and air, explore.

Thus shall the years proceed-till growing time Unfold the treasures of each differing clime; Till one vast brotherhood mankind unite In equal bands of knowledge and of right. Then the proud column, to the smiling skies, In simple majesty sublime shall rise, O'er Ignorance foil'd, their triumph loud proclaim, And bear inscrib'd, immortal Darwin's name. New York, March, 1798.

STEPHEN ELLIOTT

Was born at Beaufort, S. C., on the 11th November, 1771. He was the son of William Elliott, married to Miss Mary Barnwell in 1760. The father died while Stephen was a child, but his elder brother William took good care of his education. After the preliminary studies he entered Yale College in the sixteenth year of his age, and graduated in 1791. He then delivered an English Oration on "the Supposed Degeneracy of Animated Nature," and took one of the highest honors in his class. Among his college companions were Chancellor Jones, Samuel Miles Hopkins of New York, and Judge Gould of Litchfield, Conn.

This couplet is from an unpublished poem of my friend, Mr. Richard Alsop; a poet who, were his ambition equal to his talents, would appear among the poets of his time rolul inter ignes luna minores.

In 1796 Stephen Elliott married Miss Esther Habersham, of Georgia, and was elected a dele

Suphin Eleiste

gate to the State Legislature, in which he continued to serve until the establishment of the "Bank of the State" in 1812, of which he was elected President. He then removed with his family to Charleston. All his leisure hours had for many years been devoted to literary pursuits, to natural science, and to botany in particular. Mr. Elliott was here considered the leader in all associations for their advancement. He was the

founder of the Literary and Philosophical Society in 1813, and commenced it by inviting to his own house, at stated periods, such gentlemen as were most likely to concur in this his favorite object. In 1814 he delivered the first Anniversary Address to that institution, remarkable alike for its elegance of diction, and the capacity of his mind, which could embrace such various pursuits of science. His object was not only to explain their relations to each other as branches of literature, but to encourage the members to add zeal to knowledge, and perseverance to enterprise. He took the lead in what he recommended, and delivered a course of lectures on botany gratuitously, to a large class of ladies and gentlemen. He likewise, in conjunction with Hugh S. Legaré, became editor of the "Southern Review," and hinself wrote ten of its articles, viz., in No. 1 on Napoleon Bonaparte. In No. 2 on the Constitution of the United States. In No. 3, three papers, on Irving's Columbus, Travels in Russia, and Napoleon Bonaparte. In No. 4 the Views of Nature, and Internal Improvement. In No. 5 Walsh's Narrative. In No. 6 the Manufacture of Sugar. In No. 7 Education in Germany. In No. 8 Cuba, and Classification of Plants. In No. 10 Bourrienne's Memoirs.

Mr. Elliott was one of the earliest and warmest advocates for the establishment of the Medical College in 1825, and was elected one of the Faculty, and Professor of Natural History and Botany. His most elaborate and valuable work, his Botany of South Carolina and Georgia, was compiled and published in the midst of these laborious engagements, financial and scientific; the first volume appeared in the year 1821, and the second in 1824.* This accumulation of business, mental and bodily, was too great for him to sus

In the preparation of this work on Botany, Elliott was greatly assisted by Dr. James M'Bride, particularly in the notices of the medicinal properties of many indigenous plants. M'Bride was a native of South Carolina, born in the Williamsburg District, April 17, 1784. Left an orphan at an early age, and with humble means, he devoted himself earnestly to his college studies at Yale, at a time when Bishop Gadsden, Grimke, and Calhoun were his companions there, economizing his resources by his superior industry in passing rapidly through the college studies. His love of natural science led him to the study of medicine, which he pursued with the same ardor and economy of time and money. He settled as a physician in Pineville, S. C., and communicated articles on the botany of the region to the scientific and medical societies of the day. He died young, September 21, 1817, from fatigue and exposure in his efforts to alleviate the yellow fever of that year at Charleston.

tain; he died suddenly in 1830, struck down by apoplexy.

Mr. Elliott has left a family emulous in good works. Among them, his oldest son, the Rt. Rev. Stephen Elliott, is the Bishop of Georgia; his youngest, James H. Elliott, is the favorite assistant minister of St. Michael's, Charleston; and his daughter is the wife of Bishop Boone, the distinguished head of the China Mission.

CHARLES CALDWELL,

A physician of Philadelphia, whose career may be traced with interest through the pages of his autobiography, was a writer of industry and ability, and of original powers of reflection. He was the son of an Irish lieutenant, who, on his emigration to America, settled in Delaware, and subsequently removed to North Carolina, and established himself "in a region which but a short time previously had been the home of the savage, whose haunts and hunting grounds were still but a short distance remote from it, in Orange, now Caswell County, on Moon's Creek, a small branch of Dan River, about twenty miles south of the southern border of Virginia." There our author was born, May 14, 1772. His early education in that ill-furnished district was picked up more by his own sagacity and perseverance, than through the assistance of others. In his boyhood he assisted in building a small log-house near his father's crowded home, that he might have an opportunity of studying by himself. His father removing to the southern portion of the State, he there fell in with better opportunities of instruction, being taught by an estimable schoolmaster named Harris, who subsequently became Tutor in the College of New Jersey, and of whose eccentric appearance Caldwell has left an account in his autobiography. With some slight additional preparation at an "academy," the latter became himself a teacher, taking charge at first of the Snow Creek Seminary, "situated on a stream of that name, not far from the foot of the Bushy Mountains in North Carolina," and afterwards of the Centre Institute in the same State. Still pursuing his own studies, his taste was directed to topics of scientific study by meeting with Samuel Stanhope Smith's Essay on the Variety of Color in the Human Race, to the positions of which he became thus early an antagonist.

In the choice of a profession, after meditating the Presbyterian pulpit and the law, he chose medicine, and pursued the study for a time with the inefficient aid of a practitioner at Salisbury, in his native state. In 1792 he arrived at Philadelphia, and engaged with the medical classes of the University, which at that time were sustained by Shippen and Wistar in Anatomy and Surgery, and Rush in the Institutes of Medicine. He engaged with ardor in the study, and enjoyed the personal friendship of Rush and others, while he devoted himself assiduously to his profession during the arduous yellow fever season of 1793. On the breaking out of the Whiskey Insurrection, he received the appointment of surgeon to a brigade, and proceeded with the forces to the neighborhood of Pittsburgh, when the difficulty was declared to be terminated, and the troops

retired. In the military banquet which followed, the management of the affair was assigned to Caldwell, whose address on the occasion drew forth a liberal compliment from Hamilton.

66

In 1795, he commenced his literary career by translating Blumenbach's Elements of Physiology from the Latin, followed within a few years by a number of medical treatises, on the Epidemic of the city, the vitality of the blood, physiognomy, quarantines, and other subjects of a speculative and practical character. In 1814, he became the editor of the Port Folio, succeeding Nicholas Biddle in the management of the work, to which he gave new efficiency by his ready pen and activity of mind, covering a great variety of subjects and securing immediate success by the introduction of original material relating to the conduct and heroes of the war with England, which had then just commenced. He secured the last by his intimacy and correspondence with the officers. "So earnest and determined," he tells us, was General Brown in the scheme, that he asserted, in one of his letters, that he reported himself and ordered his officers to report themselves, in their connexion with all interesting events of the army, as regularly to the editor of the Port Folio as they did to him, or as he did to the Secretary of War." The articles in the Port Folio by Caldwell were chiefly biographical, or reviews of the prominent books of poetry of the day. In 1816, at the suggestion of Dr. Chapman, he edited Cullen's Practice of Physic, and the same year wrote most of the biography in Delaplaine's Repository. He was also at this time professor of Natural History in the University of Pennsylvania. In 1819, he published his Life and Campaigns of General Greene, the most important in extent of his biographical studies. In 1819, he removed to Kentucky, to take charge of a medical department in the Transylvania University at Lexington. His place was that of the Institutes of Medicine and Clinical Practice. Besides the immediate duties of instruction, Dr. Caldwell had to interest the state legislature in the school, and create a prestige for Western medical education throughout that whole region. He succeeded in securing funds from the state, and by his journeys a favorable public opinion towards the enterprise. In 1820, he set out on an eight months' tour to Europe, for the purpose of purchasing books and materials for the institution. His notices of the celebrities of London and Paris on this tour sketched in his autobiography, include among others Sir Astley Cooper, Abernethy whose oddity he fairly mastered by his decision and selfpossession, Mrs. Somerville whose remarkable attainments put the doctor's universality to a test in a conversation running over criticism and the sciences.

After eighteen years' devotion to the Transylvania University, finding a new site for the school desirable and the trustees offering to make a change of locality which had been contemplated, he withdrew from that institution in 1837 to establish in the neighboring city the "Louisville Medical Institute." He encountered the labors of this new enterprise with resolution, procuring funds and securing professors. After six years' devotion to this arduous work, difficulties arose between Dr. Caldwell and the trustees, and in

It

1849, when he was on the eve of closing his connexion with the institute, he was removed by the Board. The remainder of his life was passed in retirement at Louisville till his death at that place July 9, 1853. He occupied himself during these last years with the composition of his Autobiography, which was published in 1855, with a brief conclusion by the editress, Harriot W. Warner. affords abundant indication of the abilities of the man, and of the sources of opposition which he frequently encountered. Of bold, vigorous powers, his egotism and self-assertion appear constantly on the alert. The activity and energy of his mind are remarkable; but a certain uneasiness of temper lessens the force of his abilities. The style of the autobiography is diffuse and impeded by cumbrous expressions; while it contains much written with strength and insight which will continue to be of interest, both for the idiosyncrasy of the author and the important people with whom he was brought into relation. The closing chapter enumerating the author's "published writings and translations" from 1794 to 1851, embraces a catalogue of more than two hundred items, including magazine articles and pamphlets, but many large works as well. Among the latter, in addition to those which we have noticed, may be mentioned a volume of Memoirs of the Rev. Dr. Horace Holly; Bachtiar Nameh, or the Royal Foundling, a Persian Story, translated from the Arabic; and various publications of medical and physical memoirs, growing out of his advocacy of Phrenology, with which he was greatly identified, and his more immediate professional pursuits.

SKETCH OF THE REV. JAMES HALL, OF NORTH CAROLINA.*

An early acquaintance, of whom it is peculiarly pleasing to me to speak (though he was advanced in years when I was but a boy), was the Rev. James Hall, D.D., of Iredell County. In piety he was peculiarly signalized; and his aspect was more venerable and apostolic than that of any other man I have ever beheld. His intellect was also of a high order, especially in mathematics, astronomy, and mechanics; and, in the power and majesty of pulpit eloquence, he had no superior.

In mathematical and astronomical science he gave me my earliest and most instructive lessons. And he was certainly one of the first, if not himself the very first constructor of a steamboat. And the invention was original with him, not derivative. I witnessed myself the movement of his first model (a structure five or six feet long), over a small pond on his own plantation. But he was too deeply engrossed by his clerical labours to pursue his inven tion to any useful effect.

I have said that Dr. Hall was a man of great and moving pulpit eloquence. Of the truth of this, the following occurrence gives ample proof :

On a sacramental occasion, in Poplar-tent congregation, in Cabarrus County, the assemblage of people was far too great to be contained in the meeting. house. The time being summer, suitable arrangements were made, and the multitude were seated beneath the shade of a dense forest of ancient oaks; and Dr. Hall addressed them from a temporary stage erected for the purpose. In the course of his sermon, which, from beginning to end, was bold and fervent, he took occasion to liken the condition of a heedless and reckless sinner to that of a wild and

From the Autobiography.

unthinking youth, crossing, in a slight batteau, a deep and rapid river, a short distance above a lofty and frightful waterfall.

On each bank of the stream were members of the family and friends of the young man eyeing, in wild distraction and horror, the perils of his situation, and loudly calling to him, in screams of terror, to ply his oars and press for the shore. But he either hears them not, or disregards their supplication; and in perfect negligence and apparent security, giving only with his oars an occasional stroke, gazes on the beauties of the landscape around him, the azure of the heavens, the birds disporting in air above him, his faithful, but terrified dog, crouching by his side, and looking him affectionately and imploringly in the face; he gazes, in fact, upon everything visible, except the waterfall, near to him, and the gulf beneath it, towards which, with fearful power and rapidity, the current is sweeping him. But, suddenly, at length awakened from his revery, he hears the distracted and piercing calls of his friends, sees their bent bodies and extended arms, as if outstretched to save him; beholds the cataract, over whose awful brink he is impending, and, horrorstricken at the sight, starting up and convulsively reaching out his wide-spread hands, as if imploring a rescue, and uttering an unearthly shriek of despair, is headlong plunged and swallowed up in the boiling gulf that awaits him.

So completely had the words of the orator arrested and enthralled the minds of his audience, so vivid and engrossing was the scene he had pictured to their imaginations, and so perfectly, for his purpose, had he converted fiction into reality, that, when he brought his victim to shoot the cataract, a scream was uttered by several women, two or three were stricken down by their emotion, and a large portion of the assembled multitude made an involuntary start, as if, by instinct, impelled to an effort to redeem the lost one, and restore him to his friends.

Never did I, in any other instance, except one, witness an effort of oratory so powerful and bewitching; and, in that one, I myself was materially concerned, and in it a two-fold source of influence was employed-impassioned eloquence and scenic show. It occurred very many years ago, in the Chestnut Street Theatre, in Philadelphia, during the performance of Alexander the Great." The "Rival Queens" were personated; Statira, by Mrs. Wignel, afterwards, by another marriage, Mrs. Warren, and Roxana by Mrs. Whitlock, the sister of Mrs. Siddons. In the murder scene, so completely successful were those two accomplished actresses, that, in my fascinated view of the matter, playful fiction had given place to vindictive reality, and, when Roxana drew her glittering dagger, preparatory to the murderous act she meditated, I (being seated in the stage-box) sprang to my feet, and would have disarmed her in a moment, had I not been prevented by a gentleman in the box. Whether any person but myself now remembers the event, I know not; but its effect at that time was memorable and ludicrous. It drew from pit, box, and gallery, directed towards myself, a round or two of hearty laughter and applause, and utterly spoiled the after part of the play, by changing it from tragedy into comedy or farce.

Still further to evince the versatility and value of the powers, both bodily and mental, of the Rev. Dr. Hall, at the most unpromising period of our revolutionary war, in the South, when thick clouds were gathering on the horizon of freedom, when the hopes of the most sanguine and the hearts of the bravest seemed ready to fail, and every service of every patriot was called for in the contest-at that period of gloom and incipient despondency, the equally

brave and venerable Hall, to the sword of the Spirit, which he had long and successfully wielded, added that of the secular arm, by soliciting and readily obtaining, on two conditions, proposed by himself, a captaincy in a regiment of volunteer dragoons, to continue in service for at least a year, unless sooner disbanded by the termination of the war. And the conditions were, that his company should be raised by himself, and that he should act as chaplain, without pay, to the regiment to which he might belong. Whether he received pay as captain I do not remember, but believe he did not.

On these terms, he was soon at the head of a full and noble-looking company, on his march to the seat of war, where, as often as a suitable opportunity presented itself, he never failed to distinguish himself by his gallantry and firmness. An excellent rider, personally almost Herculean, possessed of a very long and flexible arm, and taking, as he did, daily lessons from a skilful teacher of the art, he became, in a short time, one of the best swordsmen in the cavalry of the South. Being found, moreover, to be as judicious in council as he was formidable in action, he received the sobriquet of the Ulysses of his regiment.

On the capture of Lord Cornwallis, believing the war to be on the verge of its termination, and persuaded that he could now more effectually serve his country in a civil than in a military capacity, having declined the acceptance of a proffered majority in a regiment of select cavalry about to be formed, he resigned his commission, and returned to the duties of the clerical profession.

It was long after this that I became, for a time, his private pupil in mathematics and astronomy. And, notwithstanding his previous stern and formidable qualities as a soldier, he was now one of the mildest and meekest of men. After a lapse of more, perhaps, than twenty years from the period of my pupillage under him, I saw him for the last time, in the city of Philadelphia, as a delegate to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, and had the high gratification of affording him relief from a troublesome complaint, produced by fatigue and exposure in travelling.

From the superior size of his person, the form and grandeur of his head and countenance, the snowy whiteness of his hair, of but little of which he had been shorn by the hand of time, and from the surpassing venerableness of his whole appearance, he was by far the most attractive and admired personage in the reverend body of which he was a member. He was instinctively regarded, by all who beheld him, as the rightful Nestor and ornament of the Assembly. He died, not long afterward, at the advanced age of about ninety years, bequeathing to posterity a reputation rarely equalled, and never, as I verily believe, surpassed, in moral rectitude, pure, fervent, and practical piety, and usefulness in the wide sphere of his diversified labors in the Christian ministry, by any individual our country has produced.

WILLIAM CLIFFTON,

AN author of fine poetical powers, among the early writers of the country, was a native of Philadelphia, born in 1772. He was of a Quaker family, and his father was a wealthy mechanic. The constitution of the son was delicate, with a tendency to consumption, which excited the early exercise of his faculties. At the age of nineteen, the rupture of a blood-vessel led to his abandonment of any notions he may have entertained of active life; when he found consolation and em