in Philadelphia in 1824, is the most important. It is a book of value, a personal narrative originally written in letters to a friend, and in its description of manners and customs, one of the best of the period when it was written, particularly in its study of the national character. In these respects it remained a valuable authority till its interest was diminished by the shifting relations of the country.

In 1846, a somewhat similar work of sound political judgment appeared from the pen of Waddy Thompson of the same state, the Recollections of Mexico, which is of historical importance for its sober representation of the estimate in which Mexico was held by intelligent citizens of the United States, on the eve of the war which resulted in the annexation of the vast territory on the Pacific.

Poinsett was also the author of several essays and orations on topics of manufacturing and agricultural industry. He had also considerable taste for art, and was the founder of an Academy of the Fine Arts at Charleston, which existed for several years.

CLEMENT C. MOORE

Was born in New York July 15, 1779. He re'ceived his early education in Latin and Greek from his father, the Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York, and in 1798 became a graduate of Columbia College. After leaving college Mr. Moore devoted himself with much success to the study of Hebrew, the result of which was subsequently made public in his Hebrew and English Lexicon, published in 1809, 2 vols. To Dr. Moore, therefore, belongs the high merit of having been the pioneer in this country in the department of Hebrew Lexicography. When the work was prepared for the press a difficulty arose from the want of Hebrew type. After some delay a fount was obtained from Philadelphia. The first volume contains a complete vocabulary to the Psalms, with an appendix of notes; the second a brief general lexicon, arranged in alphabetical order, with a grammar of the language annexed. Though now superseded by more ample and critical productions this little work was, as the "compiler hopes" for it, "of some service to his young countrymen in breaking down the impediments which present themselves at the entrance of the study of Hebrew," and establishes for the city of St. Nicholas the earlier title to successful efforts for the study of the venerable language of the older dispensation. In 1821 he accepted the appointment of "Professor of Biblical Learning, the department of the interpretation of Scripture being added," in the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church. When that institution was united with the Diocesan State Seminary his Professorship was entitled that of "Hebrew and Greek Literature," and was not long afterwards altered to that of "Oriental and Greek Literature." From his family inheritance he made a most important gift to the seminary of the body of land in the city of New York on which it is located, comprehending the entire space between Ninth and Tenth avenues and Twentieth and Twenty-first streets, with the water-right on the Hudson belonging to it.

Professor Moore has lightened his learned la

bors in the seminary by the composition of numerous poems from time to time, chiefly expres

Element E. Moore

sions of home thoughts and affections, with a turn for humor as well as sentiment, the reflections of a genial, amiable nature. They were collected by the author in a volume in 1844, which he dedicated to his children. Though occasional compositions they are polished in style, the author declaring in his preface that he does not pay his readers "so ill a compliment as to offer the contents of this volume to their view as the mere amusements of my idle hours; effusions thrown off without care or meditation, as though the refuse of my thoughts were good enough for them. On the contrary, some of the pieces have cost me much time and thought; and I have composed them all as carefully and correctly as I could." The longest of these poems is entitled A Trip to Saratoga, a pleasant narrative and sentimental account of a family journey. Others are very agreeable vers de societé, commonly associated with some amusing theme. One, a sketch of an old Dutch legend greatly cherished in all genuine New York families, has become a general favorite wherever it is known. It is

A VISIT FROM ST. NICHOLAS.

"Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that ST. NICHOLAS SOON would be there;
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And Mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap;
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by

name;

"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer, and Vixen!

On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof,
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof-
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and

soot;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedlar just opening his pack.
His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how
merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose ;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night."

66

F. S KEY.

FRANCIS SCOTT KEY was born in Frederick County, Maryland, August 1, 1779. His father, John Ross Key, an officer in the army in the Revolutionary war, was a descendant from some of the earliest settlers of the province.

Way

The son was educated at St. John's College, Annapolis, and, after completing his course, studied law in the office of his uncle, Philip B. Key, at Annapolis, and, in 1801, commenced the practice of the profession at Fredericktown, in his native county. Some years after he removed to Washington, where he became District Attorney of the city, and there remained until his death, January 11, 1843.

Mr. Key was the author, in addition to the StarSpangled Banner, of a few other songs and devotional pieces. His poems were written without any view to publication, on some passing topic for his own and the gratification of his friends. They were noted down on odd scraps of paper, backs of letters, &c., a piece of several verses being often on as many separate slips of paper, and were seldom revised by the author.

We are indebted for a copy of the Star-Spangled Banner from the author's manuscript, and for the Hymn for the Fourth of July, and the Song written on the return of Decatur, both of which are now for the first time printed, to the poet's son-in-law, Mr. Charles Howard, of Baltimore.

SONG.

When the warrior returns from the battle afar,
To the home and the country he nobly defended,
Oh! warm be the welcome to gladden his ear,
And loud be the joy that his perils are ended.
In the full tide of song let his name roll along,
To the feast flowing board let us gratefully throng,
Where mixed with the olive the laurel shall wave,
And form a bright wreath for the brows of the brave.

Columbians! a band of thy brothers behold,

Who claim the reward of thy hearts' warm emotion, When thy cause, when thine honor urged onward the bold,

In vain frowned the desert, in vain raged the

ocean.

To a far distant shore, to the battle's wild roar,
They rushed, thy fair fame and thy rights to secure;
Then mixed with the olive the laurel shall wave,
And form a bright wreath for the brows of the brave.
In the conflict resistless each toil they endured,
"Till their foes fled dismayed from the war's desolation;
And pale beamed the crescent, its splendor obscured
By the light of the star-spangled flag of our nation.
Where each radiant star gleamed a meteor of war,
And the turbaned heads bowed to its terrible glare,
Now mixed with the olive the laurel shall wave,
And form a bright wreath for the brow of the brave.
Our fathers who stand on the summit of fame,
Shall exultingly hear of their sons the proud story,
How their young bosoms glowed with the patriot
flame,

How they fought, how they fell, in the blaze of their glory.

How triumphant they rode o'er the wondering flood,
And stained the blue waters with Infidel blood;
How mixed with the olive the laurel did wave,
And formed a bright wreath for the brows of the brave.
Then welcome the warrior returned from afar
To the home and the country he nobly defended,
Let the thanks due to valor now gladden his ear,
And loud be the joys that his perils are ended.
In the full tide of song let his fame roll along,
To the feast flowing board let us gratefully throng,
Where mixed with the olive the laurel shall wave,
And form a bright wreath for the brows of the brave.

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER.*

Oh! say can you see by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming!

And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave! On that shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,

Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence

*This song was composed under the following circumstances: -A gentleman had left Baltimore, with a flag of truce, for the purpose of getting released from the British fleet a friend of his, who had been captured at Marlborough. He went as far as the mouth of the Patuxent, and was not permitted to return, lest the intended attack on Baltimore should be disclosed. He was therefore brought up the bay to the mouth of the Patapsco, where the flag-vessel was kept under the guns of a frigate; and he was compelled to witness the bombardment of Fort M'Henry, which the Admiral had boasted he would carry in a few hours, and that the city must fall. He watched the flag at the fort through the whole day, with an anxiety that can be better felt than described, until the night prevented him from seeing it. In the night he watched the bomb-shells, and at early dawn his eye was again greeted by the flag of his country.-M'Carty's National Songs, iii. 225.

'Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave. And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion A home and a country should leave us no more? Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution.

No refuge could save the hireling and slave

From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave; And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and the war's desolation, Blest with victory and peace, may the heavenrescued land

Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto-"In God is our trust"-
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

HYMN FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY.

Before the Lord we bow,

The God who reigns above,
And rules the world below,
Boundless in power and love.
Our thanks we bring,
In joy and praise,
Our hearts we raise,
To Heaven's bright King.

The nation thou hast blest
May well thy love declare,
From foes and fears at rest,
Protected by thy care.

For this fair land,
For this bright day,
Our thanks we pay,
Gifts of thy hand.

Our fathers sought thee, Lord,
And on thy help relied;

Thou heardest, and gavest the word,
And all their needs supplied.

Led by thy hand

To victory,

They hailed a free
And rescued land.

God of our lives! that hand
Be now as then displayed,
To give this favored land
Thy never-failing aid.
Still may it be
Thy fixed abode !
Be thou our God,
Thy people we.

May every mountain height,
Each vale and forest green,
Shine in thy word's pure light,
And its rich fruits be seen!

May every tongue
Be tuned to praise,
And join to raise
A grateful song.

Earth! hear thy Maker's voice,
The great Redeemer own;
Believe, obey, rejoice,
Bright is the promised crown.
Cast down thy pride,
Thy sin deplore,
And bow before

The Crucified.

And when in power He comes,
O may our native land,
From all its rending tombs,
Send forth a glorious band.
A countless throng,
Ever to sing,

To Heaven's high King,
Salvation's song.

AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS.

THE American Academy of Arts and Sciences was founded at Boston, 1780, and was the second institution of its class in the country. Its objects, as expressed in its charter, are "to promote and encourage the knowledge of the antiquities of America, and of the natural history of the country, and to determine the uses to which the various natural productions of the country may be applied, to promote and encourage medical discoveries, mathematical disquisitions, philosophical inquiries and experiments, meteorological and geographical observations and improvements in agriculture, arts, manufactures, and commerce; and, in fine, to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people.'

The number of members cannot be less than forty or more than two hundred, and four stated meetings are to be held every year.

The Presidency of the institution has been held in succession by the following eminent gentlemen: James Bowdoin, John Adams, Edward A. Holyoke, John Q. Adams, Nathaniel Bowditch, and John Pickering, all of whom have been already noticed in these pages. We have also spoken of Count Rumford,* whose foundation by bequest of a fund, in the control of the Academy, for the encouragement of researches in heat and light, has been of material service in advancing its objects. The first volume of Memoirs was published in 1785. Four volumes have since appeared, all of a uniform quarto size. Among the contributors we meet with the names of President Kirkland, J. E. Worcester, Nuttall the ornithologist, Dr. Holyoke, James Bowdoin, President Willard, and Professor Williams of Harvard, James Winthrop, Jeremy Belknap, Caleb Gannett, Edward Wigglesworth, Noah Webster, Theophilus Parsons, the Rev. Joseph M'Kean, President of Bowdoin College, Dr. Bowditch, Professor John Farrar, Thaddeus Mason Harris, Benjamin Pierce, John Pickering, and David H. Storer. Dr. Jacob Bigelow is at present the presiding officer of the society. donation of $10,000 has been recently received from the executors of the late Samuel Appleton, being part of a fund bequeathed by that gentleman to public objects.

SIMON GREENLEAF.

A

THIS eminent legal writer was born in Newburyport, Mass., December 5, 1783. His father was a captain in the Revolutionary army, and on his mother's side he was connected with the family of the late Chief Justice Parsons. While he was yet quite young, his father removed to Maine, and when he was eighteen years old, he entered as a law student the office of Ezekiel Whitman, Esq.,

* Ante, p. 871.

of New Gloucester-since Chief Justice of Maine -where he remained three years. In 1806 he married, and began the practice of the law in Standish, Maine, whence, after a residence of six months, he removed to Gray, where he remained twelve years. In 1818 he removed to Portland. In 1820, upon Maine becoming a state, and the establishment of the Supreme Court, he was appointed Reporter of its decisions. He held that office until 1832, when he was superseded by a political opponent. His reports, and especially the later volumes, are considered by the profession models of judicial reports. He was at this time one of the foremost of the Maine bar, and had an extensive practice. He remained in Portland one year afterwards, and in 1833, upon the death of Professor Ashmun, he was appointed Royal Professor of Law in the Dane Law School, which office he held until 1846, when he was transferred to the Dane Professorship, then vacant by the death of Judge Story. He held this professorship but two years, when, in 1848, his failing strength becoming wholly unequal to its accumulated and poorly requited labors, he resigned the place. His release from care and toil was followed by an immediate amendment of his health; and he was enabled to devote himself to the preparation of his law books.

The Law School at Cambridge is indebted for its success to no one of its many able professors more than to Mr. Greenleaf. Before Judge Story and Mr. Greenleaf united their labors, it had been made a respectable school by the efforts of Stearns and Ashmun. The extended and well deserved reputation of Judge Story as a jurist and a profound lawyer, attracted large numbers of young men to the school, and by his glow and fervor, he awakened in them aspirations for the higher attainments of the profession; but it was the gentle and affectionate, yet decided and controlling, manner of Mr. Greenleaf, who had always the direction of the internal affairs of the school, and for many months in each year during the absence of Judge Story at Washington, and on his circuits, its entire control and management and instruction, which, connected with the respect which his extensive learning, his extraordinary aptness to teach, and his power of attracting and holding the attention of the students, kept the young men together, satisfied and harmonious. By all those who had the good fortune to be his pupils, his death is felt as a personal loss.

Before coming to Cambridge, Mr. Greenleaf was an author of law books. Besides his reports, nine volumes in number, he published in 1821 a volume of over-ruled cases; in 1842 the first volume of his work on Evidence; in 1846 the second volume; and in 1853 the third and concluding volume. The first volume has reached the seventh edition; the second, the fourth; and the third, the second edition. In 1846 he published an annotated edition of Cruise's Digest of Real Law. Of his position as a law writer, a distinguished judge has said: "Among those eminent lawyers who have never held judicial station, the name and opinion of Mr. Greenleaf stand highest as authority in all matters of law. He gained this high position by incessant and devoted labor in his profession." He also published in 1846 a volume entitled, An Examination of the Testi

mony of the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence administered in the Courts of Justice, with an Account of the Trial of Jesus. The preparation of this was begun as early as 1817, and it has been republished in England.

Besides these works, he published others of less size and importance, and of more temporary value, and he also contributed not unfrequently to periodical literature.

He was never a politician. He was once elected to the Maine legislature, but there devoted himself chiefly to amendments of the statute law of the state.

He was an upright man and a devout Christian. His death was sudden. He retired to rest in perfect health; was soon seen to be ailing; medical aid was called, but before it arrived he had gone to his long sleep. He left the wife of his youth a widow; and of a large family of children, two sons and two daughters survive him.*

BEVERLEY TUCKER,

THE son of the eminent jurist, St. George Tucker, was born at Matoax, Virginia, Sept. 6, 1784. He was educated at Williamsburgh, where his father took up his residence in the son's childhood. Having completed his course at William and Mary, he prosecuted the study of the law; married in 1809, and removed to Charlotte county, where he resided till his removal to Missouri in 1815, of which state he became a resident, and where he was appointed judge.

B. Tucker

He passed fifteen years in the West, when he returned to Virginia. On the Fourth of July, 1834, he was elected by the Board of Visitors to the professorship of law in William and Mary College, which he held till his death, which occurred on a summer tour in the state at Winchester, August 26, 1851.

The writings of Judge Tucker are, his work on Pleading, his lectures on Government, his three novels of George Balcombe, the Partisan Leader, and Gertrude, and his contributions to the Southern Review. He had begun shortly before his death a life of his relative, John Randolph, and also left among his unfinished MSS. parts of a dramatic production.

We are indebted to a letter from his intimate friend William Gilmore Simms, for the following familiar notices of his character and writings. "He was a brave old Virginia gentleman, a stern States Right Doctrinaire, intense of feeling, jealous of right, and with an eager sense of wrong and injury. He was jealous as a politician, like his brother John Randolph, and had many of the characteristics of that fiery politician, as his speech at the Nashville Convention witnesses, where his invective, more elaborate and polished than that of Randolph, was quite as terrible. His

*We are indebted for this notice to the obituary of the American Almanac for 1855. It is evidently prepared by one who knew Judge Greenleaf, and we have preserved its language entire.

political tenets are fully displayed in his Lectures on Government.

"In his style I regard him as one of the best prose writers in the United States, at once rich, flowing, and classical; ornate and copious, yet pure and chaste; full of energy, yet full of grace; intense, yet stately; passionate, yet never with a forfeiture of dignity.

"His novel of George Balcombe is a bold, highly spirited, and very graceful border story, true to the life, a fine picture of society and manners on the frontier-animated and full of interest. It lacked color or warmth of tone, wanting the softening effects of fancy, though not without imagination. Reason was his predominant faculty. There was a sternness in his writings, a directness and an intensity, which show the author disdainful in the pursuit of his object of all the flowers of the wayside. When he deals with the pathetic, he rather sports with it. This is the one chief qualification of the merits of the book, which is one of the most vigorous of American novels as a narrative of action and the delineation of mental power."

The Partisan Leader is a curious anticipative political history, published in 1837; the scene is laid in Virginia in 1849, twelve years ahead. Van Buren is represented in his third presidential term at the head of a consolidated government, with the forms of a republic and the powers of a monarchy. The Southern states, with the exception of Virginia, have seceded. Its design was to show what the novelist thought fit to suppose the probable effects of the Van Buren party continuing in power, in the destruction of the Constitution, the dissolution of the Union, and the conflict of small Republics which would follow.

Gertrude, an original novel, appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger, for 1844-45.

Of Professor Tucker's discharge of his college duties at William and Mary, we learn from Professor Totten that his force of character "made a strong impression on the minds of his pupils. The greater part adopted his views on all subjects in which he instructed them. He had an original and what might be called an executive mind. He was exceedingly happy in his illustrations, and seldom presented the most common idea in the same form with others. His conversation had in consequence an unusual attraction. He had a warm heart, was cordially loved by his friends, and as cordially hated by his enemies.

"Christianity occupied his attention greatly in his later years. He wrote down his seasonings as he advanced in the investigation. He gave me these papers to read, and I was much interested in tracing the progress of a powerful and original intellect in its course from doubt to the most child-like confiding faith. For many years preceding his death, he was a devout and exemplary Christian."+

mouth in 1805, he studied theology, and was ordained June 17, 1807, minister of a Congregational church at Hingham, where he was also engaged as the teacher of a school. In 1820 he resigned his charge and removed to Boston, where he remained, principally employed as a teacher, until February, 1825, when he removed to Salem to take charge of a new Unitarian church and congregation formed for the express purpose of securing his services. He remained in this place, performing its functions with great acceptability, and increasing his already extensive reputation as a preacher, until his resignation in consequence of ill health, December, 1831.

Henry Cornam

Mr. Colman now established himself on a farm on the banks of the Connecticut, and gave his whole attention to his favorite pursuit of agriculture. The reputation of his experiments and successful culture, and of his contributions to agricultural journals, became extended, and on the establishment of an agricultural commissioner by the state of Massachusetts, he was appointed to the office by Governor Everett.

Mr. Colman pursued the duties of this trust with unwearied energy and industry, and after an extensive tour throughout the state, and the publication of several Reports, in the autumn of 1842 sailed for Europe to continue his investigations. The ensuing six years were passed in a tour through Great Britain and the continent, the results of which were given to the public on his return in 1848 in his Agriculture and Rural Economy of France, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland; European Agriculture and Rural Economy, two volumes; and European Life and Manners in Letters to Friends, two volumes, works which exhibit to advantage his powers as a writer as well as observer.

In 1849 Mr. Colman returned to Europe in the hope of restoring his health, which had now become much impaired. The result was unsuccessful, as his death occurred soon after his arrival, at Islington, on the 14th of August.

In addition to his agricultural works Mr. Colman was the author of two volumes of sermons, published during the period of his active ministerial labors.

HENRY LEE.

HENRY LEE, the author of a spirited work on Napoleon, and of a pungent volume on Jefferson, was the son of General Henry Lee of the Revolution, by his first wife Matilda, daughter of Colonel Philip Tredwell Lee, who was long a member of the King's Council, and the elder brother of the two signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee, of Dr. Arthur Lee, who served his country during the Revolution in several diplomatic appointments, and of William Lee, who was an alderman of London when that struggle commenced, but who heartily joined his brothers in maintaining it, and afterwards became the American Minister at the Hague.