a new attack of his disease, and, after a fortnight's serious illness, died at Pau, March 10th, 1862, "full of Christian peace and hope." RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD 66 Was born in Rutland county, Vermont, Feb. 15, 1815, of an old New England family which contributed some of the earliest settlers to the country. Much of his early life, as we learn from a biographical article which originally appeared in the Knickerbocker Magazine, was spent in voyaging about the world; before he was twenty years of age, he had seen the most interesting portions of his own country, and of southern and central Europe." He afterwards studied divinity and became a preacher of the Baptist denomination. He is chiefly known to the public, however, through his literary productions. He became early connected with the press; was associated in the editorship of the New Yorker, the Brother Jonathan, and New World newspapers, and other journals in Boston and Philadelphia. In 1842, he was the editor of Graham's Magazine, which he conducted with eminent success, drawing to the work the contributions of some of the best authors of the country who found liberal remuneration, then a novelty in American literature, from the generous policy of the publisher. and on the reputation of the numerous authors included, in their reception at home and abroad. His most prominent relations of this kind, however, have been through his series of books, The Poets and Poetry of America, the first edition of which appeared in 1842; The Prose Writers of America, which was first published in 1846; and the Female Poets of America, in 1849. They were the first comprehensive illustrations of the literature of the country, and have exerted an important influence through their criticisms, Mr. Griswold is also the author of a volume, The Poets and Poetry of England in the Nineteenth Century, in similar style with the AmeriSacred Poets of England and America. can series, and has edited an octavo volume, The In 1847, he was engaged in Philadelphia in the preparation of two series of biographies, Washington and the Generals of the American Revolution, and Napoleon and the Marshals of the Empire. Mr. Griswold, among other illustrations of American history and society, is the author of an interesting appendix to an edition of D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, entitled The Curiosities of American Literature. In 1842, he published in New York a volume on an excellent plan, worthy of having been continued, entitled The Biographical Annual. Among other productions of his pen should be mentioned an early volume of Poems in 1841; a volume of Sermons, and a Discourse in 1844, on The Present Condition of Philosophy. His latest publication is, The Republican Court, or American Soc.ety in the Days of Washington, a costly printed volume from the press of the Appletons, in 1854. On the thread of the domestic life of Washington, Mr. Griswold hangs a social history of the period, which he is thus enabled to sketch in its leading characteristics in the northern, middle, and southern states; the career of the great founder of the Republic, fortunately for the common sympathy of the whole, having been associated with all these elements of national life. The book is full of interesting matter from the numerous memoirs and biographies, is illustrated by a number of portraits of the more eminent ladies of the time, and has been well received by the public. Dr. Griswold was in 1855 engaged on a revision of his larger works on American literature, which have passed through numerous editions with successive improvements. Mr. Griswold died at New York, August 27, 1857, at the age of forty-two. His latest literary employment, in addition to those enumerated, was the preparation of the text for an illustrated Life of Washington, which increasing ill health compelled him to leave unfinished. Mr. Griswold was a diligent collector of books relating to American history and literature, and left a large library in these departments, which was sold under direction of his executor, Mr. George H. Moore, in New York, in May, 1859. A small portion of this library was bequeathed, with several original portraits of American authors, to the New York Historical Society. **A new edition, revised and enlarged, of Griswold's Prose_Writers of America, with a "Supplementary Essay on the Intellectual Prospects and Condition of America," by Prof. John H. Dillingham, was published in 1870, by Messrs. Porter & Coates. It contains notices of the works of thirty-seven leading American authors not previously inserted, with representative extracts from their chief writings. Mr. Henry T. Coates and Mr. Samuel G. Hazard assisted in its preparation. BENJAMIN DAVIS WINSLOW Was born in Boston, February 13, 1815. His early years were passed at home, at the residence of Gen. William Hall, at Boston, and with the Rev. Samuel Ripley at Waltham, where he received his first instructions in Latin. He was prepared for Harvard under the tuition of Mr. D. G. Ingraham, of Boston, received his degree at this college in 1835, entered the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church at New York, pursued the usual term of study, and was ordained Deacon in 1838, by his friend Bishop Doane of New Jersey, to whom he became assistant minister of St. Mary's Church, Burling ton. The brief remaining portion of his life was passed in this service. He died November 21, 1839. We may ever lift up the eye and heart Blest thought, so kindly given! HENRY BARNARD, Henry Barnard, a gentleman most honorably associated by his devoted labors with the great cause of American education, is a native of Connecticut. He was born at Hartford, January 14, 1811, of a family which had lived on the spot from the first settlement of the colony. His father was a wealthy farmer, who gave to his son every advantage of education. Beginning with the usual New England preliminary training of the common school, he advanced through the higher course of an academy at Monson, Massachusetts, and the Hopkins Grammar School, in Hartford, to Yale College, which he entered at the age of fifteen, in 1826. His college career of four years was marked by his dilwrit-igence and success in classical studies, with a greater devotion to English literature than generally enters into the subgraduate course. especially availed himself, also, of the opportu The A genial memorial of his Sermons and Poetical Remains, in an octavo volume, was prepared by Bishop Doane, entitled The True Catholic Churchmân, in his Life and in his Death. sermons are earnest doctrinal compositions, ten with ease and elegance. The poems, many of which are devoted to sacred church associations, are all in a truthful and fervent vein, with a happy facility of execution, and on the score both of taste and piety are well worthy to be associated with the kindred compositions of the author's friends, Croswell and Doane. These dull brick walls which span My daily walks, and which shut me in; These crowded streets, with their busy dinThey tell too much of man. Oh! for those dear wild flowers, Which in their meadows so brightly grew, Where the honey-bee and blithe bird flew That gladdened boyhood's hours. Out on these chains of flesh! Binding the pilgrim who fain would roam, To where kind nature hath made her home, In bowers so green and fresh. But is not nature here? From these troubled scenes look up and view The orb of day, through the firmament blue, Pursue his bright career. Or, when the night-dews fall, Go watch the moon with her gentle glance Her own broad star-lit hall. And blot out its beauties one by one; And o'er the dusky town, The greater light that ruleth the day, So, 'mid the hollow mirth, He nities of intellectual intercourse with his fellowpupils, and of the prompt use of his faculties offered by the discussions and the exercises of the college literary societies. Leaving college with honor, in 1830, Mr. Barnard devoted five years to a systematic course of reading and preparation for the law, joining to the usual preliminary study of the profession a diligent reading of the best English authors, including the works of Bacon, Gibbon, Warburton, Burke, Barrow, Taylor, and other great masters of thought and expression. Following, too, as we are told, the advice of President Day of Yale, he kept up and improved his acquaintance with the classics, by reading every day something of Homer, Virgil, or Cicero. His mental habits as a scholar were also strengthened by taking charge for a time of a school in Willsboro, Pennsylvania. In 1835, having pursued his special legal studies in the office of the Hon. Willis Hall, afterward Attorney-General of the State of New York, and of Mr. William H. Hungerford, of Hartford, he was admitted as attorney and counsellor at law in Connecticut. Before entering on the practice of his profession, he was enabled, by the liberality of his father, to visit Europe, having previously travelled with the earnestness of a diligent observer through the Western and Southern portions of the United States. For the purpose of a more intimate knowledge of life and nature abroad, he made extensive journeys on foot in England, Scotland, and Switzerland. He also made the acquaintance of some of the most eminent literary personages of Great Britain. Thus fortified by intelligent travel, he returned, after an absence of eighteen months, to the United States, with increased power, and a confirmed resolution to make his life useful to his countrymen. In 1837, he was elected to represent Hartford Journal of the Rhode Island Institute of Instruction, 3 vols. (1845-49). At the close of his services, which he was compelled to relinquish from ill health, Mr. Barnard received the unanimous thanks of the Senate and House of Representatives of the State for "the able, faithful, and judicious manner in which he had, for five years, fulfilled his duties as Commissioner of Public Schools." in the Legislature of the State, and served in that body for three years, devoting himself to measures relating to the social, intellectual, and moral welfare of the people. Various humanitary objects enlisted his attention, as the education of the deaf and dumb, the care of the poor and insane, public libraries, &c.; but he was especially engaged in originating and securing the passage of an "Act to Provide for the Better Supervision of Common Schools." A board of Returning now to his home in Connecticut, and commissioners was created by this act, of which the enjoyment of the mansion which he had inMr. Barnard was made the secretary. The du- herited from his father, he resisted various offers ties of this office were of the most responsible of professorships and other responsible situations character, and, in fact, threw upon the secretary connected with education, to advance this good the guidance and working of the whole system. work in his own State. In 1849, he saw his faIt became his duty to ascertain, either by com- vorite project successful, of the establishment of munication or by personal inspection, the actual a State Normal School, and he was placed at the condition of the schools; to address at least one head of it, in its general conduct, with the duties meeting of parents, teachers, and school officers added to this office of principal, of Superintendin each county; to edit and superintend the pub-ent of Common Schools. On the 4th of June, lication of a journal devoted to education, and to present to the board and the Legislature a report of his various observations, with suggestions as to the management of the great interests intrusted to him. His first annual report was presented in 1839, exhibiting a vast array of facts, the result of a diligent and intelligent performance of these various duties. It called forth the admiration of the late Chancellor Kent, who pronounced it, in his Commentaries on American Law, “A bold and startling document, founded on the most painstaking and critical inquiry, and containing a minute, accurate, comprehensive, and instructive exhibition of the practical condition and operation of the common-school system of education."* Four reports of this character covered the period of Mr. Barnard's secretaryship, when the board was abolished by some untoward political action, in 1842. During this period, Mr. Barnard also issued four volumes of the Connecticut Common School Journal. The compensation allowed by the State for these services, nearly four thousand dollars, was generously expended by the secretary in promoting the work of education. 1851, he delivered the dedicatory address on the completion of the building provided by the citizens of New Britain for the accommodation of the State Normal School. In 1852, he published a Discourse in Commemoration of the Life, Character, and Services of the Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet, delivered at the request of the citizens of Hartford, with an appendix, embracing a "History of Deaf-Mute Instruction and Institutions in Europe and the United States, and particularly of the American Asylum at Hartford." He again edited the Connecticut Common School Journal from 1850 to 1855. In 1854, he published a volume of nearly nine hundred octavo pages, an elaborate view of National Education in Europe, a repository of valuable facts, which was declared by the Westminster Review "to group under one view the varied experience of nearly all civilized countries." He Mr. Barnard resigned his official duties as Superintendent in Connecticut in 1854; but he did not, however, relinquish the purpose of his life in his devotion to the cause of education. began the publication, at Hartford, of a quarterly review, the American Journal of Education, in 1856, and it has since been continued, and conducted by him. Its pages embrace all that relates to the history, the philosophy, and practice of the work of instruction. One of the latest and most important distinct publications of Mr. Barnard is a volume, the first of a projected series, entitled, Educational Bio Mr. Barnard next made a tour throughout the country, collecting material for a History of Public Schools and the Means of Popular Education in the United States, from the preparation of which he was withdrawn to the work of setting on foot a comprehensive system of school education in Rhode Island. He was instrumental in introducing a bill providing for the appoint-graphy, or Memoirs of Teachers, Educators, and ment of an agent or commissioner to examine into and further this work of instruction in the State; and, on the act being passed, became such commissioner. He performed these new duties from 1843 to 1849, creating a system of organization, exact in detail, thorough and efficient in all its regulations. His published writings during this time include A Report on the Public Schools of Rhode Island (1845); Documents Relating to the Public Schools of Rhode Island (1848); Documentary History of the Public Schools of Providence, from 1800 to 1849, and * Notice of Dr Barnard in the Massachusetts Teacher, Jan., 1858. Promoters and Benefactors of Education, Literature, and Science. One of its subjects, the precursor of a long line of American worthies, has also furnished a separate theme for the author in his Biographical Sketch of Ezekiel Cheever; with Notes on the Early Free Schools and School Books of New England, of which a second edition was published at Hartford, in 1856. There are other works of Mr. Barnard relating to the topic of education, of which we may mention a volume, of which the large number of one hundred and thirty thousand copies have been sold, entitled, Practical Illustrations of the Principles of School Architecture. The value of such labors speaks for itself. It is of a practi cal character, and a reputation like that of Dr. Barnard he has received the degree of doctor of laws from Yale College, from Union, and from Harvard, founded upon it-can only be supported by manifest ability. Dr. Barnard, in 1855, was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Education. ** In 1867, Dr. Barnard was appointed Commissioner of the National Department of Education at Washington, then newly created; and he held that office three years. T. B. THORPE, T. B. THORPE was born at Westfield, Mass., March His father Thomas Thorpe, a man of 1, 1815. literary genius, was a clergyman, who d ed in New York city at the early age of twenty-six. His son lived in New York till his transfer to the Wesleyan University at Middletown, Connecticut, where he passed three years; but his health failing him, in 1836 he left Connecticut for the south, where he resided in Louisiana to the year 1853. Inearly life he displayed a taste for painting. His picture of "the Bold Dragoon," illustrative of Irving's story, was executed in his seventeenth year, and exhibited at the old American Academy of Fine Arts. Like Irving himself, he left the pencil for the pen, and turned his talent for grouping and sketching to the kindred province of descriptive writing. He soon became known as the author of a series of western tales, adopting the name of Tom Owen, the Bee-Hunter, the title of one of his first stories, the subject of which was an eccentric personage-to whom the author has given a wild flavor of poetry-a "beehunter " by profession, with whom he fell in shortly after his removal to the south. P. B. Thorpe. For many years Mr. Thorpe was an editor of one of the leading political newspapers in New Orleans, devoted to the interests of Henry Clay. In this enterprise, notwithstanding his fine litera His ry tact, political knowledge, and untiring energy, he was compelled, for lack of pecuniary resources, to leave the field to others. On the announcement of the war with Mexico, he distinguished himself by his zeal in raising volunteers; and as bearer of dispatches to General Taylor he was not only early in the field, but had a most excellent position to witness the scenes of war. letters, published in a New Orleans paper, were the first that reached the United States. The descriptions of the American camp, the country, and the Mexican people, were extensively published. Immediately after General Taylor took possession of Metamoras, he prepared, in 1846, a volume entitled Our Army on the Rio Grande, succeeded by Our Army at Monterey. These two volumes, according to their extent, have furnished most of the inaterials that have been wrought into the subsequent histories relating to the events which they describe. Mr. Thorpe bore an active part in the election He took of General Taylor to the Presidency. the field as a speaker, and became one of the most popular and efficient orators of the South-West. His speeches were marked by their good sense, brilliancy of expression, and graphic humorous illustration. This mis In 1853, Mr. Thorpe removed to New York with his family, and among other literary enterprises prepared a new collection of his sketches, which were published by the Appletons, with the title, The Hive of the "Bee-Hunter." cellany of sketches of peculiar American character, scenery, and rural sports, is marked by the simplicity and delicacy with which its rough humors are handled. The style is easy and natural, the sentiment fresh and unforced, showing a fine sensibility. In "the Bee-Hunter," there is a vein of poetry, which has been happily caught by Darley in the illustration which accompanies the sketch in the volume. In proof of the fidelity of Mr. Thorpe's hunting scenes, there is an anecdote connected with some of his writings. His taste for life in the back woods, the hunter's camp fire, and the military bivouac, shown in his published sketches, had attracted the attention in England of Sir William Drummond Stewart, an eccentric Scotch nobleman, who projected and accomplished a tour in the Rocky Mountains. On his arrival at New Orleans, he endeavored to secure Mr. Thorpe as a member of his party; an offer which could not be conveniently accepted. While Sir William was absent, however, Mr. Thorpe wrote a series of letters, purporting to give an account of the "Doings of the Expedition," which were published in this country and England as genuine, Sir William himself pronouncing them the most truthful of all that were written, all the while supposing they were from some member of his party. Mr. Thorpe is a contributor to Harpers' Magazine, where he has published several descriptive articles on southern life and products, and a sketch, "The Case of Lady Macbeth Medically Considered." **Mr. Thorpe is an illustration of how entirely absorbing are the claims of the periodical literature of the country on a popular author; for he finds from its publishers a demand for all the literary labor he can perform. Independent of his contributions to the magazines and the daily press, he has had in his study for years, yet still incomplete, a work intended to illustrate the sacrifices, triumphs, and romance in the Southwest. TOM OWEN, THE BEE-HUNTER. As a country becomes cleared up and settled, beehunters disappear, consequently they are seldom or never noticed beyond the immediate vicinity of their homes. Among this backwoods fraternity, have flourished men of genius in their way, who have died unwept and unnoticed, while the heroes of the turf, and of the chase, have been lauded to the skies for every trivial superiority they may have displayed in their respective pursuits. To chronicle the exploits of sportsmen is commendable the custom began as early as the days of the antediluvians, for we read, that "Nimrod was a mighty hunter before the Lord.” Familiar, however, as Nimrod's name may be-or even Davy Crockett's-how unsatisfactory their records, when we reflect that Tom OWEN, the bee-hunter, is comparatively unknown? Yes, the mighty Tom Owen has "hunted," from the time that he could stand alone until the present time, and not a pen has inked paper to record his exploits. Solitary and alone" has he traced his game through the mazy labyrinth of air; marked, I hunted;-I found;-I conquered;-upon the carcasses of his victims, and then marched homeward with his spoils; quietly and satisfiedly, sweetening his path through life; and, by its very obscurity, adding the principal element of the sublime. It was on a beautiful southern October morning, at the hospitable mansion of a friend, where I was staying to drown dull care, that I first had the pleasure of seeing Tom Owen, He was, on this occasion, straggling up the rising ground that led to the hospitable mansion of mine host, and the difference between him and ordinary men was visible at a glance; perhaps it showed itself as much in the perfect contempt of fashion that he displayed in the adornment of his outward man, as it did in the more elevated qualities of his mind, which were visible in his face. His head was adorned with an outlandish pattern of a hat-his nether limbs were encased by a pair of inexpressibles, beautifully fringed by the brier-bushes through which they were often drawn; coats and vests, he considered as superfluities; hanging upon his back were a couple of pails, and an axe in his right hand, formed the varieties that represented the corpus of Tom Owen. As is usual with great men, he had his followers, who, with a courtier-like humility, depended upon the expression of his face for all their hopes of success. The usual salutations of meeting were sufficient to draw me within the circle of his influence, and I at once became one of his most ready followers. "See yonder!" said Tom, stretching his long arm into infinite space, "see yonder-there's a bee." We all looked in the direction he pointed, but that was the extent of our observations. It was a fine bee," continued Tom, "black body, yellow legs, and went into that tree,"-pointing to a towering oak blue in the distance. "In a clear day I can see a bee over a mile, easy!' When did Coleridge talk" like that? And yet Tom Owen uttered such a saying with perfect ease. After a variety of meanderings through the thick woods, and clambering over fences, we came to our place of destination, as pointed out by Tom, who selected a mighty tree containing sweets, the possession of which the poets have likened to other sweets that leave a sting behind. The felling of a mighty tree is a sight that calls up a variety of emotions; and Tom's game was lodged in one of the finest in the forest. But "the axe was laid at the root of the tree," which in Tom's mind was made expressly for bees to build their nests in, that he might cut them down, and obtain possession of their honeyed treasure. The sharp axe, as it played in the hands of Tom, was replied to by a stout negro from the opposite side of the tree, and their united strokes fast gained upon the heart of their lordly victim. There was little poetry in the thought, that long before this mighty empire of States was formed, Tom Owen's "bee-hive had stretched its brawny arms to the winter's blast, and grown green in the summer's sun. Yet such was the case, and how long I might have moralized I know not, had not the enraged buzzing about my ears satisfied me that the occupants of the tree were not going to give up their home and treasure, without showing considerable practical fight. No sooner had the little insects satisfied themselves that they were about to be invaded, than they began, one after another, to descend from their airy abode, and fiercely pitch into our faces; anon a small company, headed by an old veteran, would charge with its entire force upon all parts of our body at once. It need not be said that the better part of valor was displayed by a precipitate retreat from such attacks. In the midst of this warfare, the tree began to tremble with the fast repeated strokes of the axe, and then might have been seen a "bee-line" of stingers precipitating themselves from above, on the unfortunate hunter beneath. Now it was that Tom shone forth in his glory, for his partisans-like many ha gers-on about great men, began to desert him on the first symptoms of danger; and when the trouble thickened, they, one and all, took to their heels, and left only our hero and Sambo to fight the adversaries. Sambo, however, soon dropped his axe, and fell into all kinds of contortions; first he would seize the back of his neck with his hands, then his legs, and yell with pain. Never holler till you get out of the woods," said the sublime Tom, consolingly; but writhe the negro did, until he broke, and left Tom "alone in his glory." Cut,-thwack! sounded through the confused hum at the foot of the tree, marvellously reminding me of the interruptions that occasionally broke in upon the otherwise monotonous hours of my schoolboy days. A sharp cracking finally told me the chopping was done, and, looking aloft, I saw the mighty tree balancing in the air. Slowly, and majestically, it bowed for the first time towards its mother earth,gaining velocity as it descended, it shivered the trees that interrupted its downward course, and falling with thundering sounds, splintered its mighty limbs, and buried them deeply in the ground. The sun for the first time in at least two centuries, broke uninterruptedly through the chasm made in the forest and shone with splendor upon the magnificent Tom, standing a conqueror among his spoils. As might be expected, the bees were very much |