Studies in Mediæval Life and Literature

Copyright, 1894 by SARAH B. McLAUGHLIN Entered at Stationers' Hall, London By G. P. Putnam's Sons


Edward Tompkins McLaughlin, the writer of the essays contained in this volume, was born at Sharon, Connecticut, on May 28, 1860. He was the son of the Reverend D. D. T. McLaughlin, a graduate of Yale College of the class of 1834. His mother's maiden name was Mary Whittlesey Brownell. She was the daughter of the Reverend Grove L. Brownell, who was settled for many years over the Congregational church of Cromwell, Connecticut. Thus it will be seen that the author of this work belonged on both sides to what Oliver Wendell Holmes has aptly called the Brahman caste of New England.
At the time of his birth his father was pastor of the Congregational church of Sharon, Connecticut, but in 1866 left that place for Morris in the same county. There he remained until 1872 when he gave up parish duties entirely, and retired to Litchfield, which he thenceforward made his permanent home.
With the exception of a short time spent in the Litchfield Academy, the son was fitted for college almost wholly by his father, who was himself a finished scholar in Latin and Greek. He entered Yale in the autumn of 1879, and received the degree of A.B. in 1883. From the very beginning of his university life he was distinguished for his interest in English literature, and during the entire course of it displayed remarkable proficiency in the pursuit of that study. To him, before his graduation, fell the highest honors which the college has to bestow in that department.
After receiving his bachelor's degree he remained another year in New Haven as a graduate student. During that time he devoted himself with increased ardor to the special branches of study in which from the outset he had been interested. In the following year he was made tutor in English. This position he held until 1890, when he was appointed assistant professor of the same subject. At the meeting of the Corporation of the University in May, 1893, he was elected by it to the chair of Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres. Happily married to a wife of congenial tastes, who speedily learned to sympathize with him in the studies which he had made peculiarly his own, he had every reason to expect a long career of usefulness, which would be attended with distinction to himself and would confer distinction upon the institution with which he was connected. But his health had never been vigorous, and in the very summer vacation following his appointment a fever, which came upon him almost without warning, and which seemed at first of slight importance, carried him off after an illness that lasted little more than a week. He died on the 25th of July, 1893, at the age of thirty-three. He lies buried at Litchfield.