Volume 4 / Book 8 — Recent Deaths.
Reading edition
Archibald Alexander, D.D., LL. D., late Professor of Theology in the Seminary of the Presbyterian Church at Princeton, in New Jersey, was born on the 17th of April, 1772, on the banks of a small tributary of the James River, called South River, and near the western foot of the Blue Ridge, in that part of Augusta County, Virginia, which has since, from the great natural curiosity it contains, been named Rockbridge. He was descended by both parents from Presbyterians of Scotland, who emigrated first to Ireland, and thence to America. He was educated at Liberty Hall Academy, which has since become Washington College, under the instructions of the founder of that institution, Rev. William Graham, an able and eminent preacher and professor. Besides Mr. Graham, his classical teachers were James Priestly, afterward President of Cumberland College, Tennessee, and Archibald Roane, afterward Governor of Tennessee. In the summer of 1789, he joined in the full communion of the church, and commenced the study of theology under Mr. Graham, who had a class of six or eight students. He was licensed to preach by this Presbytery of Lexington, October 1, 1791, and was ordained on the 5th of May, 1795. Part of the intervening years he spent in itinerant labors in Virginia, and in that region which is now Ohio. In the spring of 1797 he became President of Hampden Sydney College, in the County of Prince Edward, at the same time being pastor of the churches of Briery and Cumberland. He was now but twenty-five years old, and it may safely be alleged that there was never won in this country, at so early an age, a more brilliant or a purer reputation. His arduous and responsible duties were discharged with industry and energy, equal to his abilities, until health gave way, and, in the spring of 1801, he resigned these charges, in well-grounded apprehension of a settled pulmonary consumption. The summer of 1802 was spent by Mr. Alexander in travelling on horseback through New England, and by this means he so far recovered his health as to resume the Presidency of the College and the charge of his parishes. About the same time he was married to Janette Waddell, second daughter of Rev. Jonas Waddell, D.D., that remarkable preacher whose blindness and eloquence have been celebrated by Mr. Wirt in The British Spy. In the Autumn of 1806 he received a call from the Third Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Pine and Fourth-sts., in Philadelphia. Though he had declined an invitation to the same church ten years before, he accepted this, and thus became a second time the successor of the Rev. John Blair Smith, D.D. He continued at this post until, in the spring of 1812, he was summoned by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to be the first Professor in the Theological Seminary then just founded at Princeton. This chair, we believe, he occupied until his death—until within a few weeks, at least, discharging all its honorable duties. It is a pleasing fact that the first two Professors in this Institution were associated in its service nearly forty years. During this period a large number of clergymen have proceeded from the seminary, and it has now not far from one hundred and fifty students. It is important to observe that it has no connection with the College of New Jersey, at the same place. The eminent usefulness of Dr. Alexander is not to be measured by the long and wise discharge of his duties as a professor. He was a voluminous, very able and popular writer. In addition to occasional sermons and discourses, and numerous smaller treatises, he wrote constantly for The Princeton Review, a quarterly miscellany of literature, and theological and general learning, of the highest character, which is now in the twenty-seventh year of its publication. His work on The Evidences of the Christian Religion has passed through numerous editions in Great Britain as well as in America, and this, as well as his Treatise on the Canon of Scripture, which has also been republished abroad, we believe, has appeared in two or three other languages. The substance of the latter has, however, been incorporated with more recent editions of the former, under the title of Evidences of the Authenticity, Inspiration and Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures, of which a fifth edition—the last we have seen—was published in Philadelphia in 1847. Among his other works are Thoughts on Religion; a Compend of Bible Truth; and a History of Colonization on the Western Coast of Africa—the last an octavo volume of more than six hundred pages, published in Philadelphia in 1846. His principal writings, however, have been on practical religion and on the History and Biography of the Church, and these for the most part have been published anonymously. Dr. Alexander was the father of six sons, of whom three are clergymen. The eldest, James W. Alexander, D.D., for several years Professor in the College of New Jersey, and sometime Pastor of the Duane-street Church in this city, is a fine scholar and an able preacher, and has enrolled himself among the benefactors of the people by many writings of the highest practical value designed to elevate the condition of the laboring classes to the true dignity of citizenship and a Christian life. Another is Rev. Joseph Addison Alexander, D.D., Professor of Oriental Literature in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, and author of the well-known works on the Earlier and the Later Prophecies of Isaiah. He is generally regarded as one of the most profound and sagacious scholars of the present age. The late venerable Professor was undoubtedly one of those who, by the union of a most Christian spirit and a faultless life to great abilities, have been deserving of the praise of doing most for the advancement of true religion.
Dr. J. Kearney Rogers, for a long time one of the most able and respected physicians and surgeons of New-York, died on the 9th of November. He was born in New-York in 1793, graduated at Princeton in 1811, studied medicine in Edinburgh, London, and Paris, and returning to New York was the friend and associate of Dr. Post, Dr. Hossack, Dr. Francis, Dr. Delafield, and other eminent members of his profession, in establishing medical and surgical institutions, &c. He has left no writings in print or MS. for the public.
The Rev. William Croswell, D.D., Rector of the Church of the Advent, in Boston, died in that city very suddenly, on the evening of Sunday, November 9, having preached and administered the sacrament of baptism during the day. Dr. Croswell was born in New-Haven, Connecticut, on the 7th of November, 1804, was the son of the Rev. Dr. Croswell of that city, and was educated at Yale College, where he was graduated in the summer of 1824. He was subsequently, for two years, associated with Dr. Doane, now Bishop of New Jersey, in the editorship of the Episcopal Watchman at Hartford, after which he removed to Boston, and was for several years minister of Christ's Church, in that city. He then became rector of St. Peter's, in Auburn, New York, and at length returned to Boston, where his numerous warm friends gladly welcomed his settlement as minister of the Church of the Advent. Dr. Croswell was a scholar, and possessed a fine taste in literature, with very unusual powers as a writer. Among his poems, are many of remarkable grace and sweetness, and a few evincing a happy vein of satire. His poems are nearly all religious, and Bishop Doane, in a note to his edition of Keble's "Christian Year," remarks that "he has more unwritten poetry in him" than any man he knows. We hope Bishop Doane will commemorate his friendship, and the genius and virtues of Dr. Croswell, in a memoir, and collection of his works.
Dr. Granville Sharpe Pattison, an eminent teacher of anatomy, died in New York, after a short illness, on the 12th of November, in the sixty-first year of his age. He was born near Glasgow, in Scotland, where his father was a cotton spinner, and was educated in that city, studying surgery under the late eminent Professor John Burns. On obtaining his degree, he commenced the practice of his profession in Glasgow, with prospects of eminent success, and soon became one of the surgeons of the Andersonian Institution, and a lecturer on anatomy. An unfortunate domestic affair, of which the details may be learned from the report of a trial which resulted in the divorce of Prof. Andrew Ure from his wife, in 1819, caused Dr. Pattison to come to the United States. He settled in Baltimore, where he resumed his profession as a lecturer on anatomy; and, going afterwards to England, he became a professor in the medical school connected with the London University. He continued but a short time in England, and on returning to this country he accepted the place of Professor of Anatomy in the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, which he filled successfully until 1840, when he was made Professor of Anatomy in the Medical School connected with the New-York University—an office which he held until his death, having delivered his last lecture but a week before that event. Dr. Pattison was a man of fine social qualities, and was one of the best lecturers in this country. His published writings display the best capacities for his vocation—are shrewd, judicious, and happily delivered—but for the most part fragmentary. His editions of Cruveilhier's Anatomy of the Human Body, Mase's Anatomical Atlas, and other works, are well known, and he wrote many important papers in the American Medical Recorder, besides several pamphlets of a personal character.
Mr. Stephens, the author of "Martinuzzi," and the "Manuscripts of Erdely," died on the 8th of October, in Camden-town. He was in his fifty-first year, and, in early life, had produced several tragic dramas that commanded the attention of critics, both foreign and native. Schlegel abroad, and "minor Beddoes" at home, praised his tragedies of "Montezuma" and the "Vampire;" and, at a later period, his "Gertrude and Beatrice" excited, among the few who take an interest in dramatic poetry, great admiration. His last work consisted of "Dramas for the Stage," in two volumes, but it was only privately circulated. Mr. Stephens' dramatic poetry was distinguished by intense passion and fervor; but at the early part of his career, he lacked the constructive power. Finding that the stage monopoly, so long existing, was an effectual bar to the higher original drama being produced, he joined, about the year 1841, a guild of zealous literary young men, who were bent on doing something towards theatrical reform. Mrs. Warner and Mr. Phelps united themselves to these dramatic aspirants; and the result was, that the Lyceum Theatre was taken for a month, for the performance of a new five-act tragedy, notwithstanding the existing law to the contrary. The tragedy was licensed as an opera in three acts, and was at length acted with some of the songs retained. This retention of musical irrelevancies, in obedience to the law, while it made the law itself absurd, could not fail of injuring the drama in which they were introduced; and, had its merits not been extraordinary, "Martinuzzi," under such circumstances, could not have lived a single night. As it was, it struggled through the month, making partisans to the experiment, though at the sacrifice of the author's means and feelings. Mr. Stephens accepted the martyrdom freely, and went through it nobly, for the sake of the cause which to his death he held sacred. Moreover, he would have continued the contest, but that he was strongly advised to the contrary by Mr. Sheridan Knowles, and Mr. John A. Heraud, the latter of whom had been actively engaged in getting up "Martinuzzi," but thought that sufficient demonstration had been made. In this he was right, as it subsequently proved; for, shortly after, in conjunction with Mr. Edward Mayhew and some other gentlemen, he was a party to the drawing up, in committee, of a bill for the liberation of the stage, the draft of which was forwarded to Sir Robert Peel, who placed it in the hands of Lord Mahon, by whom it was carried through Parliament; and thus every theatre was enabled legally to perform the Shakspearian and five-act drama. Mr. George Stephens himself, sick of dramatic disappointment, turned his ardent mind into a new channel, and became involved in railway speculations, and in them lost his fortune. His latter days were accordingly passed in narrow circumstances, accompanied with physical prostration quite deplorable. They who had benefited by his exertions, neglected him. His love for the drama and power of composition remained uninjured, but encouragement attached itself to younger candidates. His high principle, determined courage, personal pride and fortitude, however, continued with him to the last; and as he was a pious and religious man, he bore suffering and neglect not only with patience, but with confidence that the good cause in which he had labored would ultimately prosper.
The celebrated missionary Charles Gutzlaff, of whom we gave an interesting account in the International last year (vol. i. 317), died at Canton on the 9th of August, in the forty-eighth year of his age. He was born on the 8th of July, 1803, at Pyritz, in the Prussian province of Pomerania, of parents whose very moderate circumstances prevented them from affording him the education requisite for a Christian missionary, to become which was his most anxious desire. After attending for some time the schools of his native town, he was sent to Stettin as an apprentice to a belt-maker. There he composed a short poem, in which he expressed his strong religious feelings, with his hitherto unavailing wishes respecting his career in life, and which he presented to the king of Prussia, on occasion of a visit paid by the latter to Stettin, in 1821. The effect of this step was to procure his admission as a pupil into the missionary institution at Berlin. Such was the progress which he made in his studies, that only two years afterwards, in the spring of the year 1823, he was judged to be sufficiently qualified for the object he had in view. He was sent to the Dutch Missionary Society at Rotterdam, which appointed him to be one of their missionaries to the East. But becoming more than ever sensible of the arduousness of the functions he had undertaken to perform, he did not venture to embark for his destination until the month of August, 1826, having devoted himself, in the mean time, to a further diligent preparation for future usefulness. The first missionary ground assigned him was in the island of Java. He took up his residence at Batavia, where he married an English woman who was possessed of considerable property, and where, by mingling with the Chinese inhabitants, in the course of two years he acquired so skilful a use of their language, and became so intimately acquainted with their modes of life and intercourse with each other, as to be adopted by them into one of their families, and to have a Chinese name assigned to him. The circumstances just mentioned produced an important change in his plans. In the possession, as he now was, of a pecuniary independence, he resolved to break off his connection with the Dutch missionary society, and to proceed to China, to preach the gospel to the Chinese in their own country, to the extent that he might be allowed to do so. In the first place, however, he accompanied an English missionary, named Tomlin, to Siam, in the summer of 1828. This journey occupied Gutzlaff for a period of upwards of three years. Besides laboring diligently in his vocation as a Christian minister, he composed, while residing at Bankok, a Siamese grammar, and, in conjunction with Tomlin, translated the New Testament into the Siamese language. He next proceeded to China, where, associating himself with Morrison, Medhurst, and other European missionaries, he selected Macao for his principal station. He established schools, distributed religious tracts among the people, assisted in a new translation of the Bible into Chinese, co-operated with Morrison in founding a society for the diffusion of useful knowledge in China, published a Chinese Monthly Magazine, and yet did not neglect, at Macao, and in various excursions made from that place, the preaching of Christianity to the inhabitants. All this went on without any hindrance, until Gutzlaff excited the suspicion of the Chinese authorities of his labors being in some way connected with the interested views of the English traders; and, in consequence, an attempt made by him in May, 1835, to penetrate into the province of Fokien, proved altogether unsuccessful. The printing of Chinese books of a Christian character was now forbidden; the distribution of such books was obliged to be suspended; and it became necessary to remove the printing presses from Macao to Singapore. Thus restricted in his missionary sphere, Gutzlaff felt himself the more at liberty to accompany the British expedition against China, and to be exceedingly serviceable to it by his intimate acquaintance with the language and customs of the Chinese. He was also an active agent in bringing about the treaty of peace, concluded between the contending parties in 1842.
His literary labors have had an almost incredible extent and variety. He himself gives the following enumeration of his writings: "In Dutch I have written: a History of our Mission and of Distinguished Missionaries, and an appeal for support of the Missionary Work; in German: Sketches of the Minor Prophets; in Latin: the Life of our Savior; in English: Sketches of Chinese History; China Opened; Life of Kanghe, together with a great number of articles on the Religion, History, Philosophy, Literature and Laws of the Chinese; in Siamese: a Translation of the New Testament, with the Psalms, and an English-Siamese Dictionary, English Cambodian Dictionary and English-Laos Dictionary. These works I left to my successors to finish, but with the exception of the Siamese Dictionary they have added nothing to them. In Cochin-Chinese: a Complete Dictionary of Cochin-Chinese-English and English-Cochin-Chinese; this work is not yet printed. In Chinese: Forty Tracts, along with three editions of the Life of our Savior; a Translation of the New Testament, the third edition of which I have carried through the press. Of the Translations of the Old Testament, the Prophets and the two first books of Moses are completed. In this language I have also written The Chinese Scientific Monthly Review, a History of England, a History of the Jews, a Universal History and Geography, on Commerce, a Short Account of the British Empire and its Inhabitants, as well as a number of smaller articles. In Japanese: a Translation of the New Testament, and of the first book of Moses, two tracts, and several scientific pamphlets. The only paper to which I now send communications is the Hong-Kong Gazette, the whole Chinese department of which I have undertaken. Till 1842 I wrote for the Chinese Archives."
The last year Mr. Gutzlaff spent in Europe, and he had recently completed some important works, to be added to the above list, respecting Chinese affairs and civilization, one of which is a life of the late Chinese Emperor, with whom the missionary appears to have had a more intimate personal acquaintance than was ever yielded to any other European. The family of Mr. Gutzlaff lately travelled some time in the United States, where they were well received in religious circles, and Mr. Gutzlaff himself felt some disappointment that unlooked-for duties in Germany prevented him from extending his tour to the Churches and Universities of this country. A careful investigation will show that his long and faithful labors have had a powerful influence in favor of Christianity in China.
The once powerful and celebrated Don Manuel Godoy, Prince of the Peace, Duke of Alcudia, &c., died in Paris on the 4th of October. He was born at Badejoz, of a noble family, in 1767, at seventeen years of age he entered the Royal Guards, and being soon after taken into high favor by the queen Maria Louisa, of Parma, he became at the end of the last and beginning of the present century, a prominent actor in the most important political events of Spain, of which country, for a time, he was Minister and absolute ruler. His conduct was the proximate cause of the Spanish war with Napoleon. Prince Ferdinand (afterwards Ferdinand VII.), tired of the thraldom in which he was kept by his mother and her Minister, applied for protection to Napoleon; and Godoy, discovering that he had done so, accused him of a conspiracy to dethrone his father. This led to the most scandalous scenes. A revolt broke out at Aranjuez, and Godoy nearly lost his life. Charles IV. abdicated, and Ferdinand assumed the sceptre, but the Imperial ruler of France would not permit him to hold it. Napoleon took the crown of Spain for his own family, and the terrible Peninsular war was the result. The consequence, meanwhile, to Godoy, was the loss of his wealth and honors, and his residence in foreign lands for nearly the remainder of his life. In 1847 the Spanish Minister published a decree, authorizing Godoy, by his inferior title of Duke of Alcudia, to return to Spain; and ordering that a certain portion of his once vast property should be restored. The latter part of the decree was acted upon, however, in the same manner as such restitution's are generally made in Spain. The only income of Godoy continued to be an allowance by one of his children. Whatever may have been the conduct of this singular politician half a century ago, those who knew him in his old age could not but admire in him a fine specimen of the Castilian gentleman. To the very last he was remarkable for the elegance of his manners, and high-bred courtesy. In conversation he was most agreeable. The world, too, should be charitable to his memory. Years of embarrassment, exile, poverty, and obscurity, have done much to atone for the faults committed in a time of sudden and intoxicating exaltation, and of unbounded power by him who was then a Prince, Prime Minister, and despot of Spain, but who has died, with the weight of eighty-seven years upon him, a quiet, inoffensive, and forgotten man, in a retired lodging at Paris.
George Baker, the historian of Northamptonshire, was born and brought up at Northampton. To him and his gifted sister, Miss Baker, his native country is deeply indebted. Mr. Baker produced his learned and comprehensive History of Northamptonshire, at great expense of money and time, and at great loss to himself. The book ranks in the very first grade of topographical literature, and is remarkable for the perfection of its genealogical details. Unfortunately, the work is left unfinished, owing to the ill health of its author and his want of funds. This amiable and excellent author and man died at Northampton, on the 12th of October, in his seventy-first year.
M. de Savigny, member of the Academy of Sciences, and known for his works on zoology, died in October, at Versailles, at an advanced age.
Dr. Thomas Wingard, Archbishop of Upsal and Primate of Sweden, died at Upsal, on the 24th September, aged seventy. He had for nine years occupied the chair of Sacred Philology at Lund, when in 1819 he succeeded his father in the see of Götheborg. In 1839, he was promoted to the archbishopric of Upsal. In 1835, he assisted in the establishment of the Swedish Missionary Society, on which occasion he fraternized with the Methodists at Stockholm. He also addressed a letter to the Evangelical Alliance, at its last meeting, regretting his inability to attend. He has left to the University of Upsal his library, consisting of upwards of 34,000 volumes, and his rich collection of coins and medals, and of Scandinavian antiquities. This is the fourth library bequeathed to the University of Upsal within the space of a year, adding to its book-shelves no fewer than 115,000 volumes. The entire number of volumes possessed by the University is now said to be 288,000, 11,000 of these being in manuscript.
The theatrical architect, dramatic writer, and novelist, Samuel Beaseley, died suddenly, on the 23d of October, at his residence, Tonbridge Castle, Kent, in his sixty-sixth year, of apoplexy. He was born in London, and early attached himself to art, letters, and the stage. The private and public buildings which he was the architect of are numerous. Among his productions as an author may be mentioned his novels The Roué and The Oxonians, and his farces of Old Customs, Bachelors' Wives, Jealous on all Sides, and Is he Jealous? Mr. Beaseley's merits as an architect were generally acknowledged; and, although he lived with great generosity, his talents and industry enabled him to realize a considerable fortune.
Mr. H. P. Borrell, a numismatist of great practical experience and profound judgment, enjoyed for the last quarter of a century, deserved celebrity as a distinguished collector of medals and cultivator of the knowledge of them. He was the author of many of the most important contributions on unedited autonomous and imperial Greek coins which have appeared during his time in the transactions of most of the antiquarian societies in Europe, and especially in Great Britain. Many of Mr. Borrell's important coins have passed, at different times, into the collections of our British Museum, and of eminent private individuals. Mr. Borrell's work on the coins of the Kings of Cyprus affords an example of his laborious numismatical researches. Mr. Borrell died at Smyrna, on the 2d of October.
Rev. James Endell Tyler, B. D., of London, was a native of Monmouth, and became a distinguished student and a fellow of of Oriel College, Oxford. On a particular occasion, he happened to attract the attention of Lord Liverpool, then Premier, who, after inquiring, presented him with the living of St. Giles-in-the-fields. This cure he filled actively and ably. To the stall in St. Paul's he was, without his asking, presented by the late Sir Robert Peel, "to mark," as the Minister said, "his sense of Mr. Tyler's exertions in the cause of education at Oxford, and of his exemplary discharge of his onerous duties at St. Giles's." As an author, Mr. Tyler gained some celebrity. His Life of King Henry V. attracted much attention.
Emma Martin, a woman well known as a writer, and as an exemplar of Socialism, died on the 8th of October, at Finchley Common, near London, in the 39th year of her age. The London Leader, the organ of the British Socialists, says, that, "allied to a husband (found in the religious circle in which she was reared in Bristol) whose company it was a humiliation to endure, she ultimately, even when she was the mother of three children, refused to continue to submit to it. This, though afterwards made a reproach to her, was so justifiable, that even her religious friends found no fault with it. After much struggling to support her children unaided, she was united to another husband (Mr. Joshua Hopkins), her former one yet living. Though no marriage ceremony was performed, or could be performed (such is the moral state of our law, which denies divorce to all who are wronged, if they happen to be also indigent), yet no affection was ever purer, no union ever more honorable to both parties, and the whole range of priest-made marriages never included one to which happiness belonged more surely, and upon which respect could dwell more truly. Our first knowledge of Mrs. Martin," continues the Leader, "was as an opponent of Socialism, against which she delivered public lectures. But as soon as she saw intellectual truth in it, she paused in her opposition to it. Long and serious was the conflict the change in her convictions caused her; but her native love of truth prevailed, and she came over to the advocacy of that she had so resolutely and ably assailed. And none who ever offered us alliance, rendered us greater service, or did it at greater cost. Beautiful in expression, quick in wit, strong in will, eloquent in speech, coherent in conviction, and of stainless character, she was incomparable among public women. She was one of the few among the early advocates of English Socialism who saw that the conflict against religion could not be confined to an attack on forms of faith—to a mere comparison of creeds; and she attached only secondary importance to the abuses of Christianity, where she saw that the whole was an abuse of history, of reason, and of morality. Thus she was cut off from all hope or sympathy from her former connections, and she met with but limited friendships among her new allies. She saw further than any around her what the new communism would end in. She saw that it would establish the healthy despotism of the affections, in lieu of the factitious tyrannies of custom and Parliament. The nature of her opinions, which arose in conviction and not in antagonism, will best be seen in two passages from her writings, at two remarkable periods of her life. In 1835, she wrote in the Bristol Literary Magazine, which she edited:—
"'Infidelity is the effusion of weak minds, and the resource of guilty ones. Like the desolating Simoom of the desert, it withers every thing within its reach; and as soon as it has prostrated the morality of the individual, it invades the civil rights of society.'
"In 1844, in the seventh of her Weekly Addresses to the Inhabitants of London, of which it was the thirty-sixth thousand issued, she said:—
"'When Christianity arose, it gathered to its standard the polished Greek, the restless Roman, the barbarous Saxon; but it was suited only to the age in which it grew. It had anathemas for the bitter-hearted to hurl at those they chose to designate God's enemies. It had promises for the hopeful, cautions for the prudent, charity for the good. It was all things to all men. It became the grand leader of the ascetic to the convent—of the chivalrous to the crusade—of the cruel to the Star Chamber—of the scholar to the secret midnight cell, there to feed on knowledge, but not to impart it. But at length its contentional doctrines bade men look elsewhere for peace—for some less equivocal morality, some clearer doctrines, some surer truth.'
"In this belief she lived, worked, taught, and in this belief she died. And in passing to the kingdom of the inscrutable future, whose credentials could she better take than those she had won by her courage and truthfulness? Could she take Pagan, Buddhist, Mahommedan, Christian, or some morose sectarian shade; credentials soiled with age, torn in strifes, stained with blood?... Will any who calumniate the last hours of Freethinkers utter the pious fraud over this narrow bed, and the memory of Emma Martin be distorted, as have been those of Voltaire and our own Paine? Does the apparition of these outrages glare upon this grave—outrages too ignoble to notice, too painful to recognize? Heed them not—believe them not. Let not the Christian insult her whom only the grave has vanquished. Let him not utter the word of triumph over the dead, before whom living his coward tongue would falter. Let his manliness teach him truth if his creed has failed to teach him courtesy. As a worker for human improvement, Mrs. Martin was as indefatigable as efficient. From the time when she published her Exiles of Piedmont, to the issue of her essay on God's Gifts and Man's Duties, and later still, she wrote with ardor, always manifesting force of personal thought, and what is more unusual in the writings of women—strength and brevity of expression. Her lectures were always distinguished by the instruction they conveyed, and the earnestness with which they were delivered. In courage of advocacy and thoroughness of view, no woman except Frances Wright is to be compared with her; and only one, whose name is an affectionate household word in our land (greater, indeed, in order of power), resembles Mrs. Martin in largeness and sameness of speculation, and the capacity to treat womanly and social questions. Mrs. Martin had a strength of will which rules in all spheres, but ever chastened by womanly feeling. Her affectionate nature as much astonished those who knew her in private, as her resolution often astonished those who knew her in public. Indeed, she was the most womanly woman of all the advocates of "Woman's Rights." Her assertion of her claim to interfere in public affairs was but a means of winning security from outrage for the domestic affections. She would send the mother into the world—not in the desertion of motherly duties, but to learn there what motherly duties are—not to submit in ignorance to suckle slaves, but to learn how to rear free men and intelligent and pure women."
We have copied thus much of the Leader's obituary of Mrs. Martin, because a certain unpremeditated boldness in it admits the reader to instructive facts in the theory and practice of the party to which she belonged.
Yar Mohammed, the celebrated Vizier of Herat, is reported to have died on the 4th June last. He was one of the most intriguing princes in Asia. Everybody must remember him during the few years which preceded the occupation of Affghanistan by the English. He always managed to keep on the friendliest terms with them and more than one mission was sent to his court from India.
The well-known composer of ballads, &c., Alexander Lee, died near London, suddenly on the 8th of October. He was a son of the once notorious boxer, Henry Lee, and was married to the late popular singer, Mrs. Waylett. He at one period was lessee of Drury Lane Theatre, in partnership with Captain Polhill. He had been Musical Director of the Olympic and Strand Theatres, of Vauxhall Gardens, &c. He wrote the music for the Invincibles, which had such a run, with Madame Vestris in the chief part, at Covent Garden, and afterwards at the American Theatres. To name his ballads would occupy a large space, for a more prolific song-writer never existed. We may mention, however, amongst his works, The Soldier's Tear; Away, away to the mountain's brow; Come where the aspens quiver; I'll be no submissive wife; Rise, gentle moon; Kate Kearney; Come dwell with me; Pretty star of night; I've plucked the fairest flower; Bird of love; Meet me in the willow glen; I'm o'er young to marry yet; Wha wad na fight for Charlie; When the dew is on the grass; Down where the blue bells, &c. Many of these compositions will perpetuate the name of Alexander Lee as a composer of the English school of simple and unaffected melody. We are inclined to believe, more of his songs than those of any other composer are known in the United States.
Prince Frederick William Charles, of Prussia, died at Berlin on the 28th September. He was a brother of the late Frederick William the Third, uncle of the present King, and the youngest legitimate son of Frederick William the Second. He was born at Potsdam on the 3d of July, 1783. He served actively in the army during the war with France, which terminated so disastrously at the battle of Jena. He was also present at the battles of Katzbach and Leipsic, and subsequently at Waterloo commanded the reserve cavalry of the fourth corps of the Prussians.