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completed the round of studies at thirteen; when his youth led to a further course of study at Princeton, where, after two years and a half, he took his degree with distinguished honor, at a

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remarkably early age, in 1801. He then studied law in Philadelphia for three years, when his father's friend, General Armstrong, receiving the appointment of Minister to France, he embarked with him as his secretary, and resided till 1807 in Europe. They were the days of the Empire. At this time the payment of the indemnity for injuries to American commerce was going on, and young Biddle, at the age of eighteen, managed the details of the disbursements with the veterans of the French bureau. Leaving the legation he travelled through the greater part of the continent, and arriving in England, became secretary to Monroe, then minister at London. On a visit to Cambridge, the story is told of his delighting Monroe by the exhibition of his knowledge of modern Greek, picked up on his tour to the Mediterranean, when, in company with the English scholars, some question arose relating to the present dialect, with which they were unacquainted.

On his return to America in 1807 he engaged in the practice of the law, and filled up a portion of his time with literary pursuits. He became associated in the editorship of the Port Folio in 1813, and wrote much for it at different times. His papers on the Fine Arts, biographical and critical on the old masters, are written with elegance, and show a discriminating taste. He also penned various literary trifles, and wrote occasional verses, with the taste of the scholar and humorist. Among these light effusions a burlesque criticism of the nursery lines on Jack and Gill is a very pleasant specimen of his abilities in a line which the example of Canning and others has given something of a classic flavor.

When Lewis and Clarke were preparing the history of their American Exploration, the death of Lewis occurred suddenly, and the materials of the work were placed in the hands of Biddle, who wrote the narrative, and induced Jefferson to pen the preliminary memoir of Lewis. It was simply conducted through the press by Paul Allen, to whom the stipulated compensation was generously transferred; when the political engagements of Biddle rendered his further attention to it impracticable. He was in the State Legislature in 1810, advocating a system of popular education with views in advance of his times. It was not till 1836 that his ideas were carried out by legislative enactment. When the question of the renewal of the Charter of the old United States Bank was discussed in the session of 1811, he spoke in defence of the Institution in a speech which was widely circulated at the time, and gained the distinguished approval of Chief-justice Marshall.

From the Legislature he retired to his studies and agriculture, always a favorite pursuit with him. When the second war with England broke out, he was elected to the State Senate. He was now one of seven brothers, all his father's family

engaged in the service of the country-in the navy, the army, and the militia. When the land was threatened with invasion, he proposed vigorous measures for the military defence of the State, which were in progress of discussion when peace intervened. At the close of the war, he met the attacks upon the Constitution of the Hartford Convention, by a Report on the questions at issue, adopted in the Pennsylvania Legislature. In the successive elections of 1818 and 1820, he received a large vote for Congress from the democratic party, but was defeated.

In 1819 he became director of the Bank of the United States, which was to exercise so unhappy an influence over his future career, on the nomination of President Monroe; who about the same time assigned to him the work, under a resolution of Congress, of collecting the laws and regulations of foreign countries relative to commerce, money, weights, and measures. These he arranged in an octavo volume, The Commercial Digest.

In 1823, on the retirement of Langdon Cheves from the Presidency of the Bank, he was elected his successor. His measures in the conduct of the institution belong to the financial and political history of the country. The veto of Jackson closed the affairs of the bank in 1836. The new state institution bearing the same name was immediately organized with Biddle at its head. He held the post for three years, till March, 1839. The failure of the bank took place in 1841. The loss was tremendous, and Biddle was personally visited as the cause of the disaster. He defended his course in a series of letters, and kept up his interest in public affairs, but death was busy at his heart; and not long after, the 26th February, 1844, at his residence of Andalusia on the Delaware, he died from a dropsical suffusion of that organ, having just completed his fifty-fourth year. He had entered upon active life early, and performed the work of three score and ten.

In addition to the pursuits already mentioned, requiring so large an amount of political force and sagacity, Biddle had distinguished himself through life by his tastes for literature. He delivered a eulogium on Jefferson before the Philosophical Society, and an Address on the Duties of the American to the Alumni of his college at Princeton. As a public speaker, he was polished and effective.

GARDINER SPRING.

GARDINER SPRING was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts, February 24, 1785. He was the son of the Rev. Dr. Samuel Spring, one of the Chaplains of the Revolutionary Army, who accompanied Arnold in his attack on Quebec in 1775, and carried Burr, when wounded, off the field in his arms.

The son was prepared for college in the grammar-school of his native town, and under a private tutor in the office of Chief Justice Parsons. He entered Yale College, and delivered the valedictory oration at the conclusion of his course in 1805. After studying law in the office of Judge Daggett at New Haven, a por

*Memoir by R. T. Conrad in the National Portrait Gallery. vol. iv. Ed. 1854.

tion of his time being occupied in teaching, he passed fifteen months in the island of Bermuda, where he established an English school. On his return he was admitted to the bar in December, 1808. He commenced the profession with good prospect of success, but was induced soon after, by the advice of his father and the effect of a sermon of the Rev. Dr. John M. Mason, from the text "To the poor the gospel is preached," to study theology. After a year passed at Andover, he was licensed to preach towards the close of 1809. In June, 1810, he accepted a call to the Brick church in the city of New York, where he has since remained, unmoved by invitations to the presidencies of Hamilton and Dartmouth Colleges, maintaining during nearly half a century a position as one of the most popular preachers and esteemed divines of the metropolis. He has for many years commemorated his long pastorate by an anniversary discourse.

Dr. Spring is the author of several works which have been published in uniform style, and now extend to eighteen octavo volumes. They have grown out of his duties as a pastor, and consist for the most part of courses of lectures on the duties and advantages of the Christian career. The edition of his works now in course of publication, embraces The Attraction of the Cross, designed to illustrate the leading Truths, Obligations, and Hopes of Christianity; The MercySeat, Thoughts suggested by the Lord's Prayer; First Things, A Series of Lectures on the Great Facts and Moral Lessons first revealed to Mankind; The Glory of Christ, Illustrated in his Character and History, including the Last Things of His Mediatorial Government; The Power of the Pulpit, or, Plain Thoughts addressed to Christian Ministers and those who hear them, on the influence of a Preached Gospel; Short Sermons for the People, being a Series of short Discourses of a highly practical character; The Obligations of the World to the Bible; Miscellanies, including the Author's "Essays on the Distinguishing Traits of Christian Character," "The Church in the Wilderness," &c., &c. The Contrast, in press.

These volumes have passed through several editions, and have been in part reprinted and translated in Europe, and are held in well deserved repute.

In 1849 he published Memoirs of the late Hannah L. Murray, a lady of New York, distinguished in the wide circle of her friends for her benevolence and intellectual acquirements. She translated, with the aid of her sister, the whole of Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, and many of the odes of Anacreon, into English verse, and was the author of a poem of five thousand lines in blank verse entitled The Restoration of Israel, an abstract of which, with other unpublished productions, is given by her biographer.

Dr. Spring is an eloquent, energetic preacher; his style direct and manly. As a characteristic specimen of his manner we give a passage from his volume, The Glory of Christ.

A POPULAR PREACHER.

Nor may the fact be overlooked, in the next place, that he was an impressive and powerful preacher. In the legitimate sense of the term, he was popular, VOL. II.-6

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and interested the multitude. He never preached to empty synagogues; and when he occupied the market or the mountain side, they were not hundreds that listened to his voice, but thousands. It is recorded of him, that "his fame went throughout all Syria;" and that "there followed him great multitudes of people from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan." On that memorable day when he went from the Mount of Olives to Judea, "a great multitude spread their garments in the way, and others cut down branches from the trees," and all cried "Hosannah to the Son of David!" After he uttered the parable of the vineyard, the rulers "sought to lay hold of him, but feared the people." When he returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee, there went out a fame of him throughout all the region round about," and he "was glorified of all, and great multitudes came together to hear him." So much was he, for the time, the idol of the people, that the chief priests and Pharisees were alarmed at his popularity, and said among themselves, "If we let him then alone, all men will believe on him; behold, the world is gone after him." He was the man of the people, and advocated the cause of the people. We are told that "the common people heard him gladly." He was "no respecter of persons." He was the preacher to man, as man. He never passed the door of poverty, and was not ashamed to be called "the friend of publicans and sinners." His gospel was and is the great and only bond of brotherhood; nor was there then, nor is there now, any other universal brotherhood, than that which consists in love and loyalty to him. He was the only safe reformer the world has seen, because he so well understood the checks and balances by which the masses are governed. His preaching, like his character, bold and uncompromising as it was, was also in the highest degree conservative. He taught new truths, and he was the great vindicator of those that were old. All these things made him a most impressive, powerful, and attractive preacher. His very instructiveness, prudence, and boldness, interested the people. They respected him for his acquaintance with the truth, and honored his discretion and fearlessness in proclaiming it, This is human nature; men love to be thus instructed; they come to the house of God for that purpose. A vapid and vapory preacher may entertain them for the hour; a smooth and flattering preacher may amuse them; a mere denunciatory preacher may produce a transient excitement; but such is the power of conscience, and such the power of God and the wants of men that, though their hearts naturally hate God's truth, they will crowd the sanctuaries where it is instructively and fearlessly, and discreetly urged, while ignorance, and error, and a coward preacher, put forth their voice to the listless and the few

ANDREWS NORTON.

ANDREWS NORTON was of the family of the celebrated John Norton of Ipswich, of the old age of Puritan divinity. He was born at Hingham, Mass., the last day of the year 1786. Fond of books from a child, at the age of eighteen he had completed his course at Harvard, where he remained a resident graduate, pursuing a course of literary and theological study. In October, 1809, he was appointed tutor in Bowdoin College. At the end of the year he returned to Cambridge, where in 1811 he was chosen tutor in mathematics in his college, where he remained till 1812, when he engaged in the conduct of The General Repository, a periodical work on the side of the

new liberal school, as it was called, which took position at Harvard shortly after the beginning of the century. He had previously written for the Literary Miscellany, published at Cambridge, in 1804-5, several reviews and brief poetical translations, and had been a frequent contributor to the Monthly Anthology.

Andrews Norton

From 1813 to 1821 he was college librarian. In the former year he also commenced the course of instruction through which he gained his greatest distinction in his entrance upon the lectureship of Biblical Criticism and Interpretation, under the bequest of the Hon. Samuel Dexter, in which Buckminster and Channing were his predecessors. He discharged this duty till a similar professorship was created in 1819, when he became the new incumbent, holding the office till 1830. He then resigned it with the reputation of having performed its offices with industry, selfreliance, and a happy method of statement. He had in the meanwhile published several works. In 1814 he edited the Miscellaneous Writings of his friend Charles Eliot, whose early death he sincerely lamented, and in 1823 published a similar memoir of another friend and associate, the poet and professor Levi Frisbie. He wrote several tracts on the affairs of the college in 1824-5. At this time he was a contributor to the Christian Disciple of several articles on theological topics. In 1826 he edited an edition of the poems of Mrs. Hemans, of whom he was an earnest admirer, and in the following year in a visit to England was rewarded with her friendship in a personal acquaintance. In 1833 he published a theological treatise, A Statement of Reasons for not believing the Doctrines of Trinitarians concerning the nature of God and the person of Christ. In 1833-4 he edited, in connexion with his friend Charles Folsom, a quarterly publication, The Select Journal of Foreign Periodical Literature, which contained, among other original articles from his pen, papers on Goethe and Hamilton's Men and Manners in America.

In 1837 appeared the first volume of the most important of his publications, the Genuineness of the Gospel, followed by the second and third in 1844. It is devoted to the external historical evidence, and maintains a high character among theologians for its scholarship, and the pure medium of reasoning and style through which its researches are conveyed. He had also prepared a new translation of the Gospels, with critical and explanatory notes, which he left at the time of his death ready for the press. Besides these writings Mr. Norton was a frequent contributor to the Christian Examiner of articles on religious topics and others of a general literary interest, on the poetry of Mrs. Hemans and Pollok's Course of Time. He wrote for the North American Review on Franklin, Byron, Ware's Letters from Palmyra, and the Memoir of Mrs. Grant of Laggan.

His poems were few, but choicely expressed; and have been constant favorites with the public. They are the best indications of his temper, and

of the fine devotional mood which pervades his writings.

Professor Norton died at Newport, which he had chosen for his residence in the failing health of his last years, Sunday evening, September 18, 1852.*

SCENE AFTER A SUMMER SHOWER.

The rain is o'er. How dense and bright
Yon pearly clouds reposing lie!
Cloud above cloud, a glorious sight,
Contrasting with the dark blue sky!

In grateful silence, earth receives

The general blessing; fresh and fair,
Each flower expands its little leaves,
As glad the common joy to share.
The softened sunbeams pour around
A fairy light, uncertain, pale;
The wind flows cool; the scented ground
Is breathing odors on the gale.
Mid yon rich clouds' voluptuous pile,
Methinks some spirit of the air
Might rest, to gaze below awhile,

Then turn to bathe and revel there.
The sun breaks forth; from off the scene
Its floating veil of mist is flung;
And all the wilderness of green

With trembling drops of light is hung.
Now gaze on Nature-yet the same—
Glowing with life, by breezes fanned,
Luxuriant, lovely, as she came,

Fresh in her youth, from God's own hand. Hear the rich music of that voice,

Which sounds from all below, above; She calls her children to rejoice,

And round them throws her arms of love. Drink in her influence; low-born care, And all the train of mean desire, Refuse to breathe this holy air, And 'mid this living light expire.

ON LISTENING TO A CRICKET.

I love, thou little chirping thing,
To hear thy melancholy noise;
Though thou to Fancy's ear may sing

Of summer past and fading joys.
Thou canst not now drink dew from flowers,
Nor sport along the traveller's path,
But, through the winter's weary hours,
Shalt warm thee at my lonely hearth.
And when my lamp's decaying beam
But dimly shows the lettered page,
Rich with some ancient poet's dream,
Or wisdom of a purer age,—
Then will I listen to thy sound,

And, musing o'er the embers pale,
With whitening ashes strewed around,
The forms of memory unveil;
Recall the many-colored dreams,

That Fancy fondly weaves for youth,
When all the bright illusion seems
The pictured promises of truth;
Perchance, observe the fitful light,

And its faint flashes round the room,
And think some pleasures, feebly bright,
May lighten thus life's varied gloom.

We have followed closely in this account the authentie narrative article, published after Professor Norton's death, in the Christian Examiner for November, 1858.

I love the quiet midnight hour,

When Care, and Hope, and Passion sleep, And Reason, with untroubled power,

Can her late vigils duly keep;I love the night: and sooth to say, Before the merry birds, that sing In all the glare and noise of day,

Prefer the cricket's grating wing.

But, see! pale Autumn strews her leaves, Her withered leaves, o'er Nature's grave, While giant Winter she perceives,

Dark rushing from his icy cave;

And in his train the sleety showers,

That beat upon the barren earth; Thou, cricket, through these weary hours, Shalt warm thee at my lonely hearth.

ΣΥΜΝ.

My God, I thank thee! may no thought E'er deem thy chastisements severe; But may this heart, by sorrow taught,

Calm each wild wish, each idle fear.

Thy mercy bids all nature bloom;

The sun shines bright, and man is gay; Thine equal mercy spreads the gloom That darkens o'er his little day.

Full many a throb of grief and pain

Thy frail and erring child must know, But not one prayer is breathed in vain Nor does one tear unheeded flow. Thy various messengers employ; Thy purposes of love fulfil; And mid the wreck of human joy,

May kneeling faith adore thy will!

FUNERAL DIRGE.

He has gone to his God; he has gone to his home;
No more amid peril and error to roam;

His eyes are no longer dim ;
His feet will no more falter;

No grief can follow him,

No pang his cheek can alter.

There are paleness, and weeping, and sighs below;
For our faith is faint, and our tears will flow;
But the harps of heaven are ringing;
Glad angels come to greet him;
And hymns of joy are singing,

While old friends press to meet him.
O honored, beloved, to earth unconfined,
Thou hast soared on high; thou hast left us behind;
But our parting is not for ever;

We will follow thee, by heaven's light,
Where the grave cannot dissever

The souls whom God will unite.

JOHN ENGLAND.

JOHN ENGLAND, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Charleston, was born in Cork, Ireland, September 23, 1786. He was educated in the schools of his native town, and at the age of fifteen, avowing his intention to become an ecclesiastic, was placed under the care of the Very Rev. Robert M'Carthy, by whom he was in two years fitted for the college of Carlow. During his connexion with this institution, he was instrumental in procuring the establishment of a female penitentiary in the town. On the ninth of October, 1808, he was ordained Deacon, and the following day Priest,

and was appointed lecturer at the Cork Cathedral, an office which he discharged with great success. In May, 1809, he started a monthly periodical, The Religious Repertory, with the object of supplanting the corrupt literature current among the people, by a more healthy literary nutriment. He was also active in various charitable works, and indefatigable in his attendance on the victims of pestilence, and the inmates of prisons. In 1812 he took an active part, as a political writer, in the discussion of the subject of Catholic Emancipation. In 1817 he was appointed Parish Priest of Bandon, where he remained until made by the Pope, Bishop of the newly constituted See of Charleston, embracing the two Carolinas and Georgia. He was consecrated in Ireland, but refused to take the oath of allegiance to the British government customary on such occasions, declaring his intention to become naturalized in the United States. He arrived in Charleston, December 31, 1820.

One of his first acts was the establishment of a theological seminary, to which a preparatory school was attached. This led to corresponding exertions on the part of Protestants in the matter of education, which had hitherto been much neglected, and the first number of the Southern Review honored the bishop with the title of restorer of classical learning in Charleston. He was also instrumental in the formation of an "Anti-duelling Society," for the suppression of that barbarous and despicable form of manslaughter, of which General Thomas Pinckney was the first president. He also commenced a periodical, The United States Catholic Miscellany, to which he continued a constant contributor to the time of his death.

The bishop was greatly aided in his charitable endeavors, and in his social influence, by the arrival of his sister, Miss Joanna England. "She threw her little fortune into his poverty-stricken institutions. Her elegant taste presided over the literary department of the Miscellany. Her feminine tact would smoothe away whatever harshness his earnest temper might unconsciously infuse into his controversial writings. Her presence shed a magic charm around his humble dwelling, and made it the envied resort of the talented, the beautiful, and gay."* This estimable lady died in 1827.

In times of pestilence, Bishop England was fearless and untiring in his heroic devotion to the sick. He was so active in the discharge of his duties and in his ordinary movements, that on his visits to Rome, four of which occurred during his episcopate, he was called by the cardinals, il vescovo a vapore.

It was on his return from the last of these journeys, that in consequence of his exertions as priest and physician among the steerage passengers of the ship in which he sailed, he contracted the disease, dysentery, which was prevalent among them. He landed after a voyage of fifty-two days in Philadelphia, and instead of recruiting his strength, preached seventeen nights in succession. His health had been impaired some months previously, and although on his arrival at Charleston he became somewhat better, he died not

* Memoir of Bp. England prefixed to his works.

long after, on the eleventh of April, 1842, in the fifty-sixth year of his age.

The collected works of Bishop England* bear testimony to his literary industry, as well as ability. They extend to five large octavo volumes of some five hundred pages each, closely printed in double columns. They are almost entirely occupied by essays on topics of controversial theology, many of which are in the form of letters published during his lifetime in various periodicals. A portion of the fourth and fifth volumes is filled by the author's addresses before various college societies, and on other public occasions, including an oration on the character of Washington. These writings, like the discourses which in his lifetime attracted admiring crowds, are marked by force and elegance of style.

THOMAS SMITH GRIMKÉ

Thos. S. Make

Was born in Charleston, S. C., September 26, 1786. He was a descendant of the Huguenots. At the age of seventeen he was at Yale College, and travelled with Dr. Dwight during one of his vacations. Returning home, he studied law in the office of Mr. Langdon Cheves, and gradually attained distinction at the bar and in the politics of his state. His most noted legal effort was a speech on the constitutionality of the South Carolina "test oath" in 1834. As state senator from St. Philip's and St. Michael's in a speech on the Tariff in 1828, he supported the General Government and the Constitutional authority of the whole people. His literary efforts were chiefly orations and addresses illustrating topics of philanthropy and reform. Literature also employed his attention. He wrote several articles for the Southern Review. In a Fourth of July Oration at Charleston in 1809, by the appointment of the South Carolina State Society of Cincinnati, he supports union, and describes the horrors of civil

war.

Thus should we see the objects of these States not only unanswered but supplanted by others. They had instituted the civic festival of peace, and beheld it changed for the triumph of war. They had crowned the eminent statesman with the olive of the citizen, and saw it converted into the laurels of the warrior. The old man who had walked exultingly in procession, to taste the waters of freedom from the fountain of a separate government, beheld the placid stream that flowed from it suddenly sink from his sight, and burst forth a dark and turbulent torrent.

His addresses on peace societies, Sunday schools, temperance and kindred topics, secured him the respect and sympathy of a large circle. He published and circulated gratuitously a large edition of Hancock on War, and at his death was republishing Dymond's Enquiry into the Accordance

The Works of the Right Rev. John England, First Bishop of Charleston, collected and arranged under the advice and direction of his immediate successor, the Right Rev. Ignatius Aloysius Reynolds, and printed for him, in five volumes. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1849.

of War with the Principles of Christianity, for which he wrote an introductory essay. In 1827 he delivered an address on The Character and Objects of Science before the Literary and Philosophical Society of South Carolina; in 1830, an address before the Phi Beta Kappa of Yale, on The Advantages to be derived from the Introduction of the Bible and of sacred literature as essential parts of all Education, in a literary point of view. His oration on American education before the Western Literary Institute and College of Professional Teachers at Cincinnati, was delivered by him only a few days before his death, which occurred suddenly at the house of a gentleman by the roadside, from an attack of cholera, October 12, 1834, while on his way to Columbus, Ohio.

In a prefatory memorandum to this last address, the views of orthography which he had latterly adopted are clearly stated.

"Having been long satisfied that the orthography of the English language not only admitted but required a reform; and believing it my duty to act on this conviction, I hav publishd sevral pamphlets accordingly." These are his several propositions, which we give mostly in his words, following the exact spelling. 1. He omits the silent e in such classes of words as disciplin, respit, believ, creativ, volly, dec. 2. Introduces the apostrophe where the omission of the e might change the sound of the pre ceding vowel from long to short, as in requir'd, refin'd, deriv'd. 3. Nouns ending in y added an s to make the plural instead of changing y into ie, as pluralitys, enmitys, &c. 4. In verbs ending in y, instead of changing into ie and then adding an s or d, he retains the y and adds s or d: as in burys, buryd, varys, varyd, hurrys, hurryd. 5. In similar verbs where the y is long, I retain the y, omit the e, and substitute an apostrophe, as in multiply's, multiply'd, satisfy's, satisfy'd. 6. In such words as sceptre, battle, centre, I transpose the e, and write scepter, battel, center. 7. He suppresses one of two and the same consonants where the accent is not on them; as in necesary, excelent, ilustrious, recomend, efectual, iresistible, worshipers. 8. In such words as honor, favor, savior, neighbor, savor, the u is omitted. 9. In adjectives ending in y, instead of forming the comparativ and superlativ by changing y into ie and adding er and est, I hav retained the y, and simply added the er and est, as in easyer, easyest, holyer, holyest, prettyer, prettyest. In quotations and proper names, I hav not felt call'd upon to change the orthography.

This was not Grimke's only literary heresy. In his oration on the subject "that neither the classics nor the mathematics should form a part of a scheme of general education in our country," he condemns all existing schemes. "I think them radicaly defectiv in elements and modes." They are not "decidedly religious," neither are they "American." The latter, since the classics and mathematics being the same everywhere, are not of course distinctive to the country. "They do not fill the mind," he says, "with useful and entertaining knowledge." "As to valuable knowledge, except the first and most simple parts of arithmetic, I feel little hesitation in saying, as the result of my experience and observation, that the whole body of the pure mathe matics is ABSOLUTELY USELESS to ninety-nine out of every hundred, who study them. Now, as to entertainment. Does more than one out of every hundred preserv his mathematical knowlege?"

"Ten thousand pockets," says he," might be pick'd

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