Whose skilful hand could almost life create, At length fatigu'd with life, he bravely fell, And health with Boerhaave bade the world farewell. Ah doubly blest! on native verdure laid, I'd have a handsome seat not far from town, Southward the verdure of a broad champaign; Where gamesome flocks, and rampant herds might play, To the warm sunshine of the vernal day; In midst of this should stand a cherry grove, Whose blossom'd boughs the tuneful choir should cheer, And pour regalement on the eye and ear: Rapt in the soft retreat, my anxious breast Grant me, kind heav'n, the nymph still form'd to please, Impassionate as infants when at ease; Not talkative, nor apt to take offence. Then, blest is he who takes a calm survey, O! teach me patience when oppos'd to wrong, All slander, rage, and bitterness of soul: O let me not maliciously comply, Whatever station be for me design'd, May virtue be the mistress of my mind: ELIZABETH FERGUSON. ELIZABETH, the youngest child of Dr. Thomas Graeme, a distinguished physician of Philadelphia, and a grand-daughter on the mother's side of Sir William Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania, was born in the year 1739. Her early years were passed at Graeme Park, the country seat of her father, about twenty miles from Philadelphia, a place celebrated alike for its cultivated beauties and the hospitalities of its host; where she enjoyed the society of a numerous and refined circle of persons. In her seventeenth year she became engaged to a young gentleman. The marriage was to be celebrated after his return from a residence in London, for the completion of his legal studies. The match was for unexplained reasons broken off, an event productive of much mental suffering to Miss Graeme. To divert her mind by occupation, she commenced and completed a translation of Fenelon's Telemaque in English blank verse. It has never been published, but the MS. has been deposited in the Philadelphia Library. She devoted herself so closely to this task that her health was impaired, and a voyage to Europe became necessary, as a means of restoration. Her mother urged her departure not only from solicitude for the daughter's health, but from a strange wish that her mind might not be distracted from spiritual contemplation by her daughter's presence at her anticipated speedy dissolution. The daughter departed, and the mother died, as she had anticipated, during her absence. Miss Graeme was accompanied in her visit to England by the Rev. Dr. Richard Peters, of Philadelphia, by whom she was introduced to many of the leading literary men of the day. Accidentally taking a seat at the York races, next to Lawrence Sterne, her remark on betting a sinall sum on one of the horses in the rear at the outset, that "the race was not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong," attracted his notice, and turning to her he requested the honor of her acquaintance. The incident was followed by a long aud agreeable conversation. She was much visited on her return, and a Journal which she had prepared of her travels, was much sought after. She was urged to publish it, but declined. Her society was eagerly sought, and on Saturday evenings, when she remained at home to receive her friends, her father's house was thronged by delighted guests. One of these Saturday evening visitors was Mr. Hugh Henry Ferguson, a handsome young Scotchman, who was so charmed by his hostess, that, though ten years her junior, he offered her his hand. He was accepted, and in a few months married. They settled at Graeme Park, which, by the death of her father, had become Mrs. Ferguson's property, where they resided until the outbreak of the Revolution in 1775; when the husband took the side of the Crown, and the pair separated, and were not again united. Mrs. Ferguson remained at her country residence, where she performed in an unostentatious manner many acts of benevolence, among which are recorded the gift of a large quantity of linen to the American prisoners taken at the battle of Germantown, and the gift of twenty dollars, the eighth part of her income at the time, to a ruined merchant thrown into jail by his creditors. She refused to give her name to the beneficiary, and the good deed was only discovered by his description of her person being identified. Mrs. Ferguson figures in the history of the Revolution as the bearer, immediately after the British occupation of Philadelphia, of an offensive letter from the Rev. Mr. Duché to Washington. The General sent the letter to Congress, and hinted to Mrs. Ferguson, that he "highly disapproved the intercourse she seemed to have been carrying on, and expected it would be discontinued." She does not seem to have profited by this, as we soon after find her mixed up in the proposal of Governor Johnstone to offer Joseph Reed "ten thousand guineas and the best post in the government" to exert his influence with Washington, and in other directions, "to settle the contest," the only result of which was the memorable reply of Reed reported by Mrs. Ferguson in a narrative of the transaction, which she afterwards published in her own defence. "My influence is but small, but were it as great as Governor Johnstone would insinuate, the king of Great Britain has nothing within his gift that would tempt me."* Mrs. Ferguson's correspondence is spoken of as exerting a wide influence, and evidencing high intellectual power. Several of her letters have been printed in the Port Folio. Her social influence was also great and beneficial: under her care her nephew, John Young, when a boy of twelve, is said to have been strangely imbued with a taste for literature by being locked up for twenty-four hours for some offence by his aunt in her father's library, where he, to relieve his imprisonment, took up a book and became so interested in its contents that he not only read other books under more favorable circumstances, but in due time made a contribution to literature by translating D'Argent's Ancient Geography. He died a Lieutenant in the British army. The copy of his translation in the Philadelphia library contains a tribute to his memory by Mrs. Ferguson. Although nearly ruined in consequence of the war, Mrs. Ferguson steadily refused to receive any of the pecuniary aid pressed upon her by her friends; her simple mode of life rendering her independent. She took much interest in theology; and to impress the Bible more firmly on her memory, transcribed its entire contents. During the latter part of her life, she suffered severe pain from sickness. She died on the twenty-third day of February, 1801, at the house of a Quaker, Seneca Lukens, near Graeme Park, and was interred, in accordance with her previously *Life of Joseph Reed, by Wm. B. Reed. i. 387. expressed request, beside her parents in the graveyard of Christ Church, Philadelphia.* The poems of Evans contain a poetical correspondence between Miss Graeme, under the name of Laura, and himself, growing out of a passage in Pope, which presents a pleasant specimen of the lady's early versification. We extract the whole, as the individual portions mutually illustrate each other; and the Rev. Nathaniel Evans being but a few years the lady's junior, is soon to be in due course presented to the reader. SOME LINES OUT OF MR. POPE'S ELOISE TO ABELARD. How happy is the blameless vestal's lot? A PARODY ON THE FOREGOING LINES BY A LADY ASSUMING THE How happy is the country Parson's lot? And, while his clerk sings psalms, he-soundly sleeps. N. B. The foregoing Parody occasioned the following epistolary contest, and poetical Railery, between our Author and Laura. AN EPISTLE TO LAURA, ON HER PARODY. I lately saw, no matter where, A parody by Laura fair; In which beyond dispute, 'tis clear, Tobacco vile, I never smoak, But, change the word from clerk to priest, As for the table of Back-gammon, The Portfolio, quoted in Hazard's Pennsylvania Register, iii. 394. "How happy is my lot," you say, O Laura! when I think of this, That sooths me in the silent shade, LAURA'S ANSWER. LAURA to Damon health doth send, Because you would exert your wit, Truly, because you do inherit Some portion of the Dean's queer spirit, You want to prove, in wondrous haste, That Laura too has Stella's taste; As if it must directly follow, Since you are favour'd by Apollo, To ev'ry scribbling female friend. I thank you, sir-you're wond'rous kind! But think me not so vain or blind, As to believe the pretty things, Your muse, with ease, at Laura flings. "Tis true, the moments I beguil❜d, And at a country parson smil'd; Unhappy me! who ne'er could dream, That you should think yourself the theme: Unless my muse, thro' rank ill-nature, Had turn'd what follows into satyr "A manner frank and debonnair, A heart that's open and sincere, A sprightly vein of humour too, Had Madam Muse, in spleen or spight, I, like my namesake without* guile, Or sugar o'er a little smart, And close the bleedings of a heart- Kind mamma gives them aught that's handy, Fair Laura hints-the hint I take, And now, farewell!-may ev'ry hour * Nathaniel. JAMES ALLEN. JAMES ALLEN, the son of a wealthy merchant of Boston, was born in that city, July 24th, 1739. He entered Harvard College, but owing to his indolent habits and a supposed want of orthodoxy, left the institution at the end of the third year of his course. He resided, after this, in Boston, occasionally amusing himself by writing essays or verses, but without any serious devotion to literary or professional pursuits. He died, a bachelor, in 1808. The publication of his chief production, Lines on the Massacre, is due more to accident than design. It was written at the request of Dr. Warren, to accompany the oration on the same subject, which the doctor had been appointed to deliver. The poem was submitted to the committee having the matter in hand, who decided that it should be printed with the oration, but afterwards, owing to suspicions as to the writer's political faith, it was suppressed. Allen, with his usual indolence, gave himself no trouble about the matter, but his friends, indignant at the treatment the poet had received, procured a copy from him, and published it, with extracts from The Retrospect, another poem by the same hand, which they accompanied by a commentary by themselves, exhibiting the author's political soundness and poetical merits.* Allen also wrote a patriotic epic, entitled Bunker Hill, but after making arrangements for its publication, was too listless to proceed further, and the manuscript is now supposed to be lost. These, with the exception of a few slight magazine pieces, form the whole of his writings. FROM THE POEM ON THE MASSACRE. From realms of bondage, and a tyrant's reign, But lives so precious, such a sacred seed, A dreary desert, and a howling waste; *The Poem which the committee of the town of Boston had voted unanimously to be published with the late oration. ¡Boston, E. Russell, 1772. Pp. 30. And each, ingenuous, speaks in freedom's cause; ST. GEORGE TUCKER. JUDGE TUCKER, of Virginia, was born in the island of Bermuda, June 29, 1752 O. S., went to college at William and Mary, in Williamsburg, and in 1778 married Mrs. Randolph, the mother of John Randolph of Roanoke. He became By Juckss Judge of the Court of Appeals in 1803, on the death of Edmund Pendleton. He published an essay on the question, How far the Common Law of England is the Common Law of the United States; a treatise on Slavery, in 1796; a letter on the Alien and Sedition Laws, 1799, and an annotated edition of Blackstone. He died in Nelson county, Virginia, in November, 1827. He was a man of literary taste, great amiability, and thorough patriotism in the revolutionary struggle. These fugitive stanzas, attributed to his pen, are much admired: STANZAS. Days of my youth, ye have glided away; ELIAS BOUDINOT. ELIAS BOUDINOT, of one of the numerous Huguenot families which, taking refuge in America from persecutions in France, made its return in patriotic efforts when America was to be defended, was born in Philadelphia, May 2d, 1740. He studied law with Richard Stockton, and his first wife was a sister of that distinguished statesman. He married, afterwards, a lady of New York, of the Beekman family, who survived him. Boudinot became distinguished as a member of Congress, of which body he was President in 1782, and was rewarded by Washington with the appointment of Director of the Mint, as the successor of Rittenhouse, in 1796. He was the first president of the American Bible Society, on its creation in 1816. He took great interest in the cause of missions, particularly with reference to the Indians, the question of whose descent he endeavored to solve in his elaborate volume, A Star in the West; or a humble attempt to discover the long lost ten tribes of Israel, preparatory to their return to their beloved city, Jerusalem. This he published at Trenton, in New Jersey, in 1816. It is a curious work, which displays considerable diligence in the collection of facts and conjectures, and is written with an unaffected tone of sincerity, The writer evidently regarded the work as a religious duty. From his study of the sacred writings, his own observations of the Indian character, and the writings of Adair (who had taken this view), Colden, Brainerd, and others furnishing facts exhibiting similarity of customs, he established himself in the conclusion that the American Indians were the descendants of the lost tribes. He also published, in 1790, The Age of Revelation; or the Age of Reason an Age of Infidelity; an oration before the Society of Cincinnati, 1793; and The Second Advent of the Messiah, 1815. He was generous and public-spirited, giving the Bible Society on one occasion ten thousand dollars, and founding in his lifetime a costly cabinet of natural history at Princeton. He left numerous liberal legacies at his death, for charitable uses. THEODORIC BLAND. RICHARD BLAND. COL. THEODORIC BLAND was of an old Virginia family, and the uncle of John Randolph. He was born in 1742. He was educated in Great Britain, at Wakefield, in Yorkshire, at a school to which Richard Henry Lee had been sent, and at Edin Thesk Bland burgh, where he received his Doctor's degree. In 1764 or '5, he returned to America, and practised medicine in Virginia. At the outbreak of the Revolution he celebrated the Battle of Lexington, in some verses, and took part in the struggle as a captain of Virginia cavalry. Col. Bland was present at the Battle of Brandywine, and enjoyed the respect and confidence of Washington, who frequently corresponded with him. He was a member of Congress from 1779 to 1783, and was again elected to the new Congress, in attendance upon which, at New York, he died June 1, 1790. Col. Bland held a correspondence with the leading actors of the Revolution, which he preserved with care, but which was exposed to the |