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He was prominently connected with the early annals of Vermont, of which, in 1798, he published a history, and, was always a zealous advocate of the interests of the College. His gift of land was liberal, and his selection of the position of the University clear-sighted. President Wheeler, in his College Historical Discourse in 1854, speaks of "his comprehensive mind and highly creative and philosophical spirit."

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There was much agitation, as usual, respecting a site for the institution, but the various local claims were finally overcome in favor of Burlington, which, from its fine position on Lake Champlain, on the high road of travel, offered the most distinguished inducements. The University was chartered in 1791, but its officers were not appointed nor its building commenced till 1800. The Rev. Daniel C. Sanders, a graduate of Harvard of 1788, was elected the first president; of decided personal traits, in a stalwart figure, and mingled courage and courtesy, he was an efficient director of the youth under his charge. He performed his onerous duties for the first three years without an assistant. The class of 1804, we read, received all their instructions from him; and as the classes increased he often employed six, eight, and ten hours of the day in personal recitations. He was not profound as a thinker," adds Dr. Wheeler, "nor severely logical as a reasoner, nor of a high form of classical elegance and accuracy as a writer; but he was lucid, fresh, and original in forms of expression, full of benignity and kindness in his sentiments, and was listened to with general admiration." By the year 1807 a college building, including a chapel and a president's house, had been erected, and the commencement of a library and philosephical apparatus secured. The course of study embraced the usual topics, with the aldition of anatomy; the Rev. Samuel Williams, the author of the Natural and Civil History of Vermont, first published in 1794, having delivered, for two years, lectures on astronomy and natural philosophy. As an illustration of the simple habits of the time and place, a calculation was made by the president, that a poor scholar, by keeping school four months each winter, at the average price of sixteen dollars a month, could pay all his college bills and his board, and leave college with thirty-two dollars in his pocket.' The college asked only twelve dollars a year from each student. There was a moderate income from public lands, from which the president received a salary of six hundred dollars; a professor of mathematics less than three hundred and fifty, and a tutor three hundred. These simple receipts and expenditure required constant vigilance and self-denial in the management of the institution, which was shortly affected from without by the stoppage of the commerce of the town with Canada in consequence of the non-intercourse policy of Jefferson, by the rivalry of Middlebury College, which was chartered in 1800, and by

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the interference of the legislature with the vested rights under the charter. The University outgrew these several difficulties. The war ended; it became strong enough to hold its own against all diversions; and the Dartmouth College legal decision having led to a better understanding of the rights of college property, the old charter was restored in its integrity. While under the more immediate control of the legislature the wants of the University were at least clearly indicated by a committee composed of the Hon. Royal Tyler and the Hon. W. C. Bradley, who reported in favor of the appointment of new professor-hips of the learned languages, of law, belles lettres, chemistry, and mineralogy. During the war the college exercises were suspended and the faculty broken up.

After the establishment of peace, the Rev. Samuel Austin was elected president in 1815. He was a native of Connecticut, born in 1760, a graduate of Yale, subsequently teacher of a grammar-school in New Haven, while he studied theology with the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Edwards then settled there, next a valued clergyman in Connecticut, and at the time of his call to the college settled in Worcester, Mass., where he had preached since 1790. He was a man of earnest religious devotion; and his reputation in this particular, no less than his especial labors, served the institution, which was thought in danger of lay influences, from the immediate control of the legislature of its affairs.

Dr. Austin resigned in 1821, despairing of reviving the college, which was now greatly pressed by financial embarrassments. The suspension of the college appeared at hand, when new vigor was infused, chiefly through the activity of Professor Arthur L. Porter, whose services were soon again required, on the destruction of the original college building by fire. The Rev. Daniel Haskell, a man of energy, was elected president, and was shortly succeeded, in 1825, by the Rev. Willard Preston, of an amiable character, who again, in the next year, gave place to the Rev. James Marsh, under whose auspices the fame of the institution was to be largely increased.

Par Masst.

James Marsh, the scholar and philosopher, was born in Hartford, Vermont, July 19, 1794. His grandfather was one of the early settlers in the state, and its first lieutenant-governor. His father was a farmer; and it was amongst rural occupations, for which he ever after entertained a longing, that the first eighteen years of the life of the future professor were passed. He was brought up to the hardy labor of the farm, and it was only upon the withdrawal of his elder brother from

sixteen graduates. Henry Davis, who had been professor of languages in Union College, succeeded to Atwater in 1810, and held the office till 1817. The Rev. Joshua Bates, of Dedham, Mass., was next chosen. He has since been succeeded by the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Labaree. The Institution has been well attended and has become enriched, from time to time, by various important donations and bequests.-Historical Sketch by Professor Fowler. Am. Quar. Reg. ix. 220–229.

the college opportunities tendered to him, that he turned his studies in that direction. He was admitted at Dartmouth in 1813, where he pursued the ancient languages and literature with diligence; and where, under the influence of a religious excitement which took place at the college, he became deeply devotional, which led to his entrance at the theological school at Andover. He passed a year there, and became a tutor in 1818 at Dartmouth. After two years profitably spent in this way he returned to Andover, taking a visit to Cambridge by the way, for the sake of a candid view of the studies he was prosecuting. His course at Andover was laborious. Abstemious in diet, and frugal of his physical resources and the claims of society, he devoted all his powers to learning. One of the first fruits of these studies was an article on Ancient and Modern Poetry, published in the North American Review for July, 1822, in which he exhibits the influences of Christianity upon the later literature. German literaturs had occupied much of his attention, and he prepared a translation of the work of Bellerman on the Geography of the Scriptures, as he afterwards employed himself upon a version of Hedgewisch on the Elements of Chronology. His most important work in this way was his translation of Herder's Spirit of Hebrev Poetry, published in two volumes at Burlington, in 1833.

From Andover he passed for awhile to the South, where he was engaged in the business of tuition in Hampden Sidney College, in Virginia, with Dr. Rice. He sometimes preached, though he had little fondness or aptitude for this "acting in public," as he called it at the time. Turning his thoughts to the North, an editorial connexion was planned with the Christian Spectator, a theological review at New Haven, a position for which he was well qualified, but it was not carried out. In 1824 he was formally appointed to a professorship in Hampden Sidney, and the same year was ordained a minister. His entire connexion with this college lasted but three years, when he was appointed to the presidency of the University of Vermont in 1826, a position which he entered upon and occupied till 1833, when he exchanged its duties for the professorship of Moral and Intellectual Philosophy in the same institution. He held this till his death, July 3, 1842, in the fifty-eighth year of his age.

It is by his college labors and the philosophical publications which they elicited, as well as by his noble personal influence upon his pupils, that Dr. Marsh is best known. He was one of the first to revive attention in the country to the sound Christian philosophy advocated by Coleridge, and illustrated in the writings of the old English divines, as contradistinguished to the school of Locke. In the words of his faithful biographer, Professor Torrey, "the prevailing doctrine of the day was, Understand, and then believe; while that which Mr. Marsh would set forth, not as anything new, but as the old doctrine of the church from the earliest times, was, "Believe, that ye may understand." views," said Marsh, "may not indeed be learned from the superficial philosophy of the Paleian and

*

* Memoir prefixed to the Remains, p. 91.

"Such

Caledonian schools; but the higher and more spiritual philosophy of the great English divines of the seventeenth century abundantly teaches them, both by precept and practice." In accordance with these views he published in 1829 the first American edition of Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, as a book which answered his purpose, for which he wrote an able Preliminary Essay, addressed to "the earnest, single-hearted lovers" of Christian, spiritual, and moral truth. With the same view he edited a volume of Selections from the Old English Writers on Practical Theology, which contained Howe's Blessedness of the Righteous, and Bates's Four Last Things.

His views of college study and discipline were those of a liberal-minded reformer, and were to a considerable extent adopted by the institution over which he presided. He held that the admission to colleges might be extended with advantage to those who could avail themselves only of a partial course; that a paternal discipline, based on moral and social influence, might be employed; that the liberty of the powers of the individual might be preserved under a general system of training; that additional studies might be prosecuted by the enterprising: and that honors should be conferred on those only of real abilities and attainments. These were all liberal objects; and as they were pursued with warmth and candor by Dr. Marsh, they gained him the respect and affection of the best minds among his students, who have now carried his influence into the walks of active life.

In addition to the writings which we have mentioned, Dr. Marsh published in 1829 a series of papers in the Vermont Chronicle, signed "Philopolis," on Popular Education. He wrote also for the Christian Spectator a review of Professor Stuart's Commentary on the Hebrews, in which he did justice to the objects of the author. At the close of his life Dr. Marsh intrusted his manuscripts to Professor Torrey of the University of Vermont, by whom in 1843 a volume of Remains was published with a Memoir. It contains the author's college lectures on psychology, several philosophical essays, and theological discourses. He had projected and partially executed a System of Logic, and meditated a matured treatise on psychology.

In 1833, on the retirement of Dr. Marsh from the presidency, the Rev. John Wheeler, of Windsor, Vermont, was appointed president. A subscription which had been projected for the benefit of the college was now completed, and the sum of thirty thousand dollars obtained, which added largely to the practical efficiency of the institution. Other collections of funds have since been made, which have further secured its prosperity.

During the administration of Dr. Wheeler, Professor Torrey succeeded Dr. Marsh in his chair of moral and intellectual philosophy, the Rev. Calvin Pease was elected professor of the Latin and Greek languages, and the Rev. W. G. T. Shedd professor of English literature. In 1847 Professor George W. Benedict, a most active supporter of the college welfare, resigned his seat as professor of chemistry and natural history, after twenty-two years' services to the institution.

President Wheeler resigned in 1848, and was succeeded by the present incumbent, the Rev. Worthington Smith, D.D., of St. Alban's, Vt.

On the 1st of August, 1854, the semi-centennial anniversary of the University was celebrated at Burlington.

A historical discourse was delivered by the former president, Dr. Wheeler, from which the materials of this narrative have been mostly drawn. An oration, "Our Lesson and our Work, or Spiritual Philosophy and Material Politics," was pronounced by Mr. James R. Spalding; a poem by the Rev. Ö. G. Wheeler; while the associations of the Institution were recalled in the after dinner festivities, with an honest pride in the favorite philosophy of the University.

In the course of the Historical Address Dr. Wheeler gave the following sketch of the course of study projected by Dr. Marsh and his associates, for the institution.

"The principal divisions or departments of a course of collegiate study are set forth in the laws of the University. They are four: first, the department of English literature; second, the department of languages; third, that of the mathematics and physics; fourth, that of political, moral, and intellectual philosophy. Every year, during my personal connexion with the University, the synopsis was carefully examined, always in reference to its practical execution, and commonly in reference also to its theoretic excellence. How much this means and involves, few can understand, who were not members of the faculty, If this course of study is carefully examined, it will be found to contain, perhaps, what no other course of collegiate study in the United States has so fully attempted. It seeks to give a coherence to the various studies in each department, so that its several parts shall present more or less the unity, not of an aggregation, nor of a juxtaposition, nor of a merely logical arrangement, but of a natural development, and a growth; and therefore the study of it, rightly pursued, would be a growing and enlarging process to the mind of the student. It was intended also, that these departments of study should have a coherence of greater or less practical use with each other. The highest department, that of philosophy, it was intended, should be, now the oscillating nerve, that should connect the various studies together, during the analytical instruction in each; and now the embosoming atmosphere that should surround and interpenetrate the whole and each in its synthetical teachings. In philosophy the course began with crystallographythe lowest form of organization-and discussed the laws of all forms, that is, the geometry of all material existence. It proceeded to the laws of vegetable life, as the next highest; to the laws of animal life, that is to physiology, as the next; thence to psychology, and the connexion of the senses with the intellect;-thence to the science of logic-the laws of the intellect,-in the acquisition and in the communication of knowledge, that is, the laws of universal thought, as seen in language and grammar; and thence to metaphysics, as the highest and last form of speculative reasoning, or of contemplation. Within this pale it considered the spiritual characteristics of humanity, as distinguished from all other exi-t

ences. From this position moral science was seen to issue; the ground of the fine arts was examined and made intelligible; the principles of political science, as grounded in the truths of reason, but realized under the forms of the understanding, was unfolded, and natural and revealed religion was shown to open the path where reason had reached her termination, to glory, honor, and immortality."

CHARLES SPRAGUE

Was born in Boston, October 26, 1791. His father, a native of Hingham, Mass., where the family had lived for five generations, was one of those spirited Whigs of the Revolution who engaged in the adventure of throwing overboard the tea in Boston harbor. His mother, Joanna Thayer of Braintree, is spoken of for her original powers of mind and her influence in the development of her son's talents. The latter was educated at the Franklin school at Boston, where he had for one of his teachers, Lemuel Shaw, now the Chief-justice of Massachusetts. By an accident at this time he lost the use of his left eye. At thirteen, he entered a mercantile house engaged in the im portation of dry-goods; and in 1816, at the age of twenty-five, formed a partnership with his employers, Messrs. Thayer and Hunt, which was continued till 1820, when he became a teller in the State Bank. On the establishment of the Globe Bank in 1825, he was chosen its cashier, an office, the duties of which he has discharged with exemplary fidelity to the present day.

Halleck, another poetical cashier by the way, has sighed over this "bank note world" and the visions of the romantic past, now that

Noble name and cultured land,
Palace and park and vassal band,
Are powerless to the notes of hand
Of Rothschild or the Barings.

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"dares to acknowledge his homage to the Nine, in the very temple of the money changers; and enjoys, at the same time, the most favoring inspirations of the former, anl the unlimited confidence of the latter. The Globe Bank has never failel to make a dividend; and its cashier has never failed to be at his station on the very day when the books were opened for the purpose to this period."

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The poetical writings of Mr. Sprague, of which there has been a recent edition, published by Ticknor in 1850, consist of a series of theatrical prize addresses which first gave the poet celebrity; a "Shakespeare Ode" delivered at the Boston theatre in 1823, at the exhibition of a pageant in honor of the great dramatist; his chief poem, Curiosity, delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Harvard, in 1829; a centennial ode the following year on the celebration of the settlement of Boston, and a number of poems chiefly on occasional topics, which the author's care and ability have rendered of permanent interest.

The dramatic odes are elegant polished compositions, and possess a certain chaste eloquence which is a characteristic of all the author's productions.

Curiosity" is a succession of pleasing pictures illustrating this universal passion in the various means, low and elevated, taken for its gratification. The execution of the culprit, the pulpit, the fashionable preacher, the stage, the press, the learned pursuits of the antiquarian, the idle humors of the sick chamber, the scandal and gossip of social life; the incentives and delights of foreign travel; the earnest seeking of the eye of faith into the mysteries of the future world:these all pass in review before the reader, and are touched with a skilful hand.

The Centennial Ode is a warm tribute to the virtues of the Pilgrim Fathers, with an animated sketch of the progress of national life since.

A civic Fourth of July Oration delivered in Boston in 1825, and an address in 1827, before the Massachusetts Society for the suppression of intemperance, are two vigorous prose compositions, published with the author's poetical writings.

PRIZE PROLOGUE-RECITED AT THE OPENING OF THE PARK THEATRE, 1:21.

When mitred Zeal, in wild, unholy days, Bared his red arm, and bade the fagot blaze, Our patriot sires the pilgrim sail unfurled, And Freedom pointed to a rival world.

Where prowled the wolf, and where the hunter roved,

Faith raised her altars to the God she loved;
Toil, linked with Art, explored each savage wild,
The lofty forest bowed, the desert smiled;
The startled Indian o'er the mountains flew,
The wigwam vanished, and the village grew;
Taste reared her domes, fair Science spread her page,
And Wit and Genius gathered round the Stage!
The Stage! where Fancy sits, creative queen,
And waves her sceptre o'er life's mimic scene;
Where young-eyed Wonder comes to feast his sight,
And quaff instruction while he drinks delight.-
The Stage!-that threads each labyrinth of the soul,
Wakes laughter's peal and bids the tear-drop roll;

Hundred Boston Orators, p. 413.

That shoots at Folly, mocks proud Fashion's slave, Uncloaks the hypocrite, and brands the knave.

The child of Genius, catering for the Stage,
Rifles the wealth of every clime and age.
He speaks! the sepulchre resigns her prey,
And crimson life runs through the sleeping clay.
The wave, the gibbet, and the battle-field,
At his command, their festering te.uts yield.
Pale, bleeding Love comes weeping from the tom
That kindred softness may bewail her doom;
Murder's dry bones, reclothed, desert the dust,
That after times may own his sentence just;
Forgotten Wisdom, freed from death's embrace,
Reads awful lessons to another race;

And the mal tyrant of some ancient shore
Here warns a world that he can curse no more.

By Worth be honore l, and by Vice be feared;
May this fair dome, in classic beauty rearel,
May chastened Wit here be..d to Virtue's cause,
Reflect her image, and repeat her laws;
And Guilt, that slumbers o'er the sacred page
Hate his ow. like.ess, shadowed from the Stage!

Here let the Guardian of the Drama sit,
In righteous judg nent o'er the realms of wit.
Not his the shame, with servile pea to wait
On private friendship, or on private hate;
To flatter fools, or Satire's javelin dart,
Tipped with a lie, at proud Ambition's heart:
His be the nobler task to herald forth

Young, blushing Merit, and neglected Worth;
To brand the page where Goodness finds a sneer,
And lasu the wretch that breathes the treason here!

Here shall bright Genius wing his eagle flight,
Rich dew-drops shaking from his plumes of light,
Till high in mental worlds, from vulgir ken
He soars, the wonder and the pride of men.
Cold Censure here to decent Mirth shall bow,
And Bigotry unbend his moakish brow.

Here Toil shall pause, his ponderous sledge throwa by,

And Beauty bless each strain with melting eye;
Grief, too, in fiction lost, shall cease to weep
And all the world's rude cares be laid to sleep.
Each polished scene shall Taste and Truth approve,
And the Stage triumph in the people's love.

ART.

An Ode written for the Sixth Triennial Festival of the Massa-
chusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, 1824.
When, from the sacred garlen driven,
Man fled before his Maker's wrath,

An angel left her place in heaven,

And crossed the wanderer's sunless path.
"Twas Art! sweet Art! new radiance broke
Where her light foot flew o'er the ground,
And thus with seraph voice she spoke-
"The Curse a Blessing shall be found."
She led him through the trackless wild,
Where noontide sunbeam never blazed;
The thistle shrunk, the harvest smiled,
And Nature gladdened as she gazed.
Earth's thousand tribes of living things,
At Art's command, to him are given;
The village grows, the city springs,
And point their spires of faith to heaven.
He rends the oak-and bids it ride,

To guard the shores its beauty graced;
He smites the rock-upheaved in pride,

See towers of strength and domes of taste.
Earth's teeming caves their wealth reveal,
Fire bears his banner on the wave,
He bids the mortal poison heal,

And leaps triumphant o'er the grave.

He plucks the pearls that stud the deep,
Admiring Beauty's lap to fill;
He breaks the stubborn marble's sleep,
And now mocks his Creator's skill.
With thoughts that swell his glowing soul,
Ile bids the ore illume the page,
And, proudly scorning Time's control,
Commerces with an unborn age.

In fields of air he writes his name,

And treads the chambers of the sky; IIe reads the stars, and grasps the flame That quivers round the Throne on high. It war renowned, in peace sublime,

He moves in greatness and in grace; His power, subduing space and time, Links realm to real, and race to race.

THE TRAVELLER-FROM CURIOSITY.

Withdraw yon curtain, look within that room,
Where all is splendor, yet where all is gloom:
Why weeps
that mother? why, ia pensive mood,
Group noiseless round, that little, lovely brood?
The battledoor is still, laid by each book,
And the harp slumbers in is customed nook.
Who hath done this? what cold, unpitying foe
Hath made this house the dwelling-place of woe?
'Tis he, the husband, father, lost in care,
O'er that sweet fellow in his cradle there:
The gallant bark that rides by yonder strand
Bears him to-morrow from his native land.
Why turns he, half unwilling, from his home,
To tempt the ocean, and the earth to roam?
Wealth he can boast a miser's sigh would hush,
And health is laughing in that ruddy blush;
Friends spring to greet him, and he has no foe-
So honored and so blessed, what bids him go?-
His eye must see, his foot each spot must tread,
Where sleeps the dust of earth's recorded dead;
Where rise the monuments of ancient time,
Pillar and pyramid in age sublime;

The Pagan's temple and the Churchman's tower,
War's bloodiest plain and Wisdom's greenest bower;
All that his wonder woke in school-boy themes,
All that his fancy fired in youthful dreams:
Where Socrates once taught he thirsts to stray,
Where Homer poured his everlasting lay;
From Virgil's tomb he longs to pluck one flower,
By Avon's stream to live one moonlight hour;
To pause where England" garners up" her great,
And drop a patriot's tear to Milton's fate;
Fame's living masters, too, he must behold,
Whose deeds shall blazon with the best of old;
Nations compare, their laws and customs scan,
And read, wherever spread, the book of Man;
For these he goes, self-banished from his hearth,
And wrings the hearts of all he loves on earth.
Yet say, shall not new joy those hearts inspire,
When, grouping round the future winter fire,
To hear the wonders of the world they burn,
And lose his absence in his glad return?-
Return?-alas! he shall return no more,

To bless his own sweet home, his own proud shore.
Look once again-cold in his cabin now,
Death's finger-mark is on his pallid brow;
No wife stood by, her patient watch to keep,
To smile on him, then turn away to weep;
Kind woman's place rough mariners supplied,
And shared the wanderer's blessing when he died.
Wrapped in the raiment that it long must wear,
His body to the deck they slowly bear;
Even there the spirit that I sing is true,.
The crew look on with sad, but curious view;
The setting sun flings round his farewell rays,

O'er the broad ocean not a ripple plays;
How eloquent, how awful, in its power,
The silent lecture of death's sabbath-hour
One voice that silence breaks the prayer is said,
And the last rite man pays to man is paid;
The plashing waters mark his resting-place,
And fold him round in one long, cold embrace;
Bright bubbles for a moment sparkle o'er,
Then break, to be, like him, beheld no more;
Down, countless fathoms down, he sinks to sleep,
With all the nameless shapes that haunt the deep.

THE BROTHERS.

We are but two-the others sleep
Through Death's untroubled night;
We are but two-O, let us keep
The link that binds us bright!
Heart leaps to heart-the sacred dood
That warms us is the same;
That good old man-his honest blood
Alike we fondly claim.

We in one mother's arms were locked-
Long be her love repaid;

In the same cradle we were rocked,

Round the same hearth we played.
Our boyish sports were all the same,
Each little joy and woe;-
Let manhood keep alive the flame,
Lit up so long ago.

We are but two-be that the band
To hold us till we die;
Shoulder to shoulder let us stand,
Till side by side we lie.

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To you 't is given

To wake sweet Nature's untaught lays;
Beneath the arch of heavea
To chirp away a life of praise.

Then spread each wing,
Far, far above, o'er the lakes and lands,
And join the choirs that sing

In yon blue dome not reared with hands.
Or, if ye stay,

To note the consecrated hour,
Teach me the airy way,
And let me try your envied power.
Above the crowd,

On upward wings could I but fly,
I'd bathe in you bright cloud,
And seek the stars that gem the sky.

"Twere Heaven indeed Through fields of trackless light to soar, On Nature's charms to feed,

And Nature's own great God adore.

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