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Blackwood, and Dublin University Magazine, the latter of which he conducted for a time. He is at present a barrister in Dublin.

Page 132.-Izaak Walton, an English author, who lived 15931683. He was a haberdasher in London in early life, but his later years were devoted to literature and the study of Nature. He was specially fond of angling, and is best known by a treatise on that subject.

Page 135.-Laöcoön was a son of Priam, king of ancient Troy. He and his two sons are said to have been killed by two monstrous serpents which came from the sea. The serpents first entwined the boys, and when their father attempted to rescue them, they crushed him also in their folds. This is made the subject of one of the most celebrated works of ancient sculpture, which is now preserved in the Vatican at Rome.

Page 139.- -Wordsworth (William), 1770-1850. He was born at Cockermouth, Cumberland county, England, and graduated at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1791. He was fond of pedestrian tours for the observation of Nature and the common people, both in his own country and on the Continent, and at one time contemplated settling in France and espousing the cause of the people in the Revolution. He, however, returned to England, and devoted his life mainly to poetic composition, -a new school of which he, in connection with Coleridge and Southey, originated. The chief characteristics of his poetry are simplicity of style, and extreme sensibility to and accurate acquaintance with the changing phenomena of Nature. At first his productions were severely criticised, but at length grew into popular favor, and he was made poetlaureate in 1843.

Page 143.-Mrs. H. B. Stowe (Harriet Elizabeth Beecher) was born in Litchfield, Conn., in 1812. At the age of fifteen she was assistant to her sister Catherine in conducting a young ladies' seminary at Hartford. She removed with her father, Rev. Dr. Lyman Beecher, to Cincinnati in 1833, and was married to Rev. C. E. Stowe in 1836. In 1851-52 she wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, a novel which has attained the largest circulation of any similar work ever published, having been translated into all the languages of Europe and several of those of Asia. A number of her subsequent works have been quite popular.

Page 144. Lord Macaulay (Thomas Babington), 1800– 1859. His birthplace was Rothley, Leicestershire, Eng., and he obtained his collegiate education at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he received the degree of M. A. in 1825. In the following year he entered upon the practice of law in London. His contributions on political and historical subjects to various magazines and reviews soon attracted attention, and he was elected to Parliament in 1830.

In 1834 he went to India as a member of the Supreme Council, and while there drafted a new code for the government of that country. After his return he was in 1839 elected to Parliament from Edinburgh, and ten years later he was made lord rector of the University of Glasgow. In 1853 Edinburgh again returned him to Parliament, and in 1857 he was made a peer of the realm. The last years of his life were chiefly devoted to the preparation of a History of England, of which seven volumes were published before his death. He was a writer of remarkable perspicuity, and power to invest the dullest themes with interest.

Page 149.-John Burroughs is a native of Roxbury, Delaware county, N. Y.; born in 1837. He obtained his education in the common country schools, with the addition of three terms in a seminary; commenced teaching at the age of seventeen, and contributing to the press three or four years later. His published productions are not numerous, but they display a keen observation and great love of Nature, and a fine artistic taste.

Page 149.-Thomas Moore, 1779-1852. He was born in Dublin, Ireland, and died at Cloperton, Wiltshire, England. In early childhood he manifested a taste for music, dramatic representations, and rhyming. He graduated at Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of twenty, and then attempted the study of law in London; but his chief attention was given to literature and music. He was appointed to an admiralty office in Bermuda in 1803, but disliking the employment, he left it and spent some time in the United States and Canada. Returning to England, the remainder of his life, including three years spent on the Continent, was devoted to literature, in both prose and verse. His works are voluminous and of varied merit, but his Irish Melodies are perhaps most highly esteemed.

Page 151.-Mrs. L. M. Child (Lydia Maria) was born in Medford, Mass., in 1802. She was educated in the public schools and in a female seminary in that town, and from 1825 to 1828 kept a private school in Watertown. In the latter year she was married to David Lee Child, a lawyer of Boston. From 1841 to 1849 she resided in New York, and with her husband edited the Anti-Slavery Standard. Her literary productions were numerous in the various departments of romance, biography, housewifery, art, religion, human rights, and juvenile culture. She died in 1880 at Wayland, Mass.

Page 151.-Leigh Hunt (John Henry Leigh), 1784-1859, was born at Southgate, Middlesex, Eng. He received his education at Christ Hospital, shortly after leaving which, at the early age of sixteen,

a volume of his juvenile poems was published. After some experience as an attorney's clerk and clerk in the War Office, he, in 1808, became editor of the London Examiner, which attained great popularity. His literary career was distinguished by great activity for more than half a century, and his productions in both poetry and prose, and in the departments of romance and criticism, are highly esteemed.

Page 153.-Washington Irving, 1783-1859. He was a native of the city of New York, where his early education was obtained. At the age of sixteen he commenced the study of law, but did not enter upon its practice. He began his literary career at the age of nineteen by publishing in the Morning Chronicle, edited by his brother, a series of articles on the drama and on the social customs of New York. ́ In 1804-6 he traveled in Europe for his health, and on his return engaged in various literary ventures in New York, which gave him great popularity. In 1815 he again went to Europe, where his literary labors were continued, and some of his most valuable works-as the Life of Columbus, Conquest of Granada, etc.—were produced. From 1829 to 1831 he was Secretary of the U. S. Legation in London. Returning to New York after an absence of seventeen years, he was the recipient of the highest honors, but his fertile pen knew no respite. He received the title of LL.D. from Columbia College, N. Y., Harvard University, and Oxford University, Eng. From 1842 to 1846 he was U. S. Minister to Spain. His last years were spent at his romantic home on the banks of the Hudson, in Tarrytown, N. Y. His voluminous productions, in the fields of both romance and authentic history, have the highest reputation.

Page 155.-O W. Holmes (Oliver Wendell) was born at Cambridge, Mass., in 1809, and graduated at Harvard College in 1829. He devoted a short time to the study of law, but soon exchanged this for medicine, and in 1833 visited Europe, where he spent two or three years in study and preparation. After his return he was elected Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Dartmouth College, and subsequently to a similar professorship in Harvard. In 1849 he relinquished general practice as a physician, and has since resided in Boston during winters, and at Pittsfield, Mass., in summers. He has published several medical works of merit, but is chiefly known through his poems and other literary productions, which are characterized by great originality, keen wit, genial humor, and exquisite taste.

Page 156.-Henry Clay, 1777-1852, was born in Hanover county, Va., and died in Washington, D. C. He obtained the rudiments of education in a log-cabin schoolhouse, laboring at intervals on a farm. At the age of fifteen he entered the office of the clerk of the Chancery

Court, and at twenty was admitted to the Bar, entering on his profession at Lexington, Ky. He rapidly gained distinction as a pleader in criminal cases, and was elected to the Legislature in 1803. In 1806-7, and again in 1809-10, he was U. S. Senator, and was a commissioner to Ghent to treat for peace in 1814-15. Subsequently he was Representative in Congress, and was five times elected Speaker; was Secretary of State in 1825-29, and afterwards Senator from 1831 to 1842, and from 1849 to 1852. He was an orator and statesman of rare abilities.

Page 157.-J. T. Trowbridge (John Townsend) is a native of Ogden, in Western New York, born in 1827. His youth was spent on his father's farm, but at the age of nineteen he went to New York City, where he commenced his career as a writer for the press. The following year he went to Boston, where he became known as a writer of popular tales over the signature of "Paul Creyton." His style is remarkably graphic and entertaining, and some of his poems and novels havè attained great popularity.

Page 161.-Joaquin Miller (or Cincinnatus Heine Miller) was born in Indiana in 1841. At the age of ten years his parents removed to Lane county, Oregon, where he found opportunity to attend a common school for the period of six months. At fifteen he went to the gold-fields of California, and subsequently joined the noted filibustering expedition of Captain Walker to Nicaragua. After the failure of this, he spent some years among the Indians and Spaniards of New Mexico and California, and in 1860 returned to Oregon, where, having studied law for a brief period, he was admitted to the Bar. We next learn of him as running a "pony-express" among the mountains of Idaho; then editing a newspaper at Eugene, Oregon; next, writing for the press in San Francisco; again, practicing law and officiating as county judge in Grant county, Oregon. In 1870 he went to London, where he published Songs of the Sierras, which gave him a literary reputation. The following year he returned to the Pacific coast.

Page 162.-Nestor, in Grecian mythology, was an ancient king of Pylos, in Greece, who lived to a great age, and was regarded as a wise counselor by other Grecian chiefs.

Page 162. Ossian (osh'an), a Celtic warrior-poet, mentioned in ancient Scotch ballads and traditions; by many considered fabulous.

Page 163.-William Wirt, 1772-1834, was born in Bladensburg, Md., and died in Washington, D. C. He was left an orphan at the age of eight, but was brought up by an uncle. At fifteen he became a private tutor, and a year or two later commenced the study of law, the practice

of which he entered upon at the age of twenty-one at Culpeper CourtHouse, Va. In 1799 he was elected clerk of the House of Delegates of Virginia, and subsequently represented the city of Richmond in that House. He assisted the U. S. Attorney in the prosecution of Aaron Burr for treason, and by his eloquence and learning established his reputation as one of the foremost lawyers of the country. In 1816, Mr. Wirt was appointed U. S. Attorney for Virginia, and in the following year Attorney-General of the United States, which office he held for twelve years. His literary works, of which the chief are the Letters of a British Spy, and Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, are held in high esteem.

Page 168.-Vernon Lushington, an English writer of the present day.

Page 171.-Spectator (The), à literary publication issued in London in the year 1711, to which the distinguished poet and essayist, ADDISON, was a chief contributor.

Page 173.-Beattie (James, LL. D.), 1735-1803. He was born at Laurencekirk, Kincardineshire, Scotland, and was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen. After teaching for two years in the grammar-school at Aberdeen, he was, in 1760, appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic in the college, which position he held till near the end of his life. His works consist mainly of poems, treatises on Moral Science, Evidences of Christianity, etc., and were highly esteemed in his time.

Page 178.-John Ruskin, an English artist and author, was born in London in 1819, and graduated in 1842 at Oxford. He has published several volumes and treatises on Art, Painting, Architecture, etc., which are distinguished for brilliancy of rhetoric, eloquence of description, and peculiarity of views.

Page 179.-John Adams, a distinguished patriot and statesman of the Revolution, member of the Provincial Congress from Massachusetts, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and second President of the United States.

Page 182.-Daniel Webster, 1782-1852. He was born in Salisbury, N. H., and died at Marshfield, Mass. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1801; taught an academy at Fryeburg, Me., in 1802; studied law in Boston in 1804, and was admitted to the Bar in 1805. After practising a year at Boscawen, N. H., he removed to Portsmouth, where he rapidly rose to distinction. He was member of Congress 1813-17, and removed to Boston in 1816. In 1823 he was again sent to Congress, where he served as Representative and Senator until 1839. The follow

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