Triumphs and Wonders of the 19th Century: The True Mirror of a Phenomenal Era / A volume of original, entertaining and instructive historic and descriptive writings, showing the many and marvellous achievements which distinguish an hundred years of material, intellectual, social and moral progress

by James P. Boyd

V. THE BANQUET.

It is customary for the directors of these societies, at their own expense, to celebrate the closing of a successful year, and have as their guests representatives from other societies. “The banquet” includes officers from fully fifty companies, some being directors of four or five associations. At these gatherings experiences are related and subjects for the advancement of the cause are discussed. Every individual present on these occasions volunteers the information that he owed all he possessed to the building society and its teachings.

What the bottles on the table may have contained, it matters not now, for they are empty and are not capable of doing any harm.

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EPOCH-MAKERS OF THE CENTURY
By REV. A. LEFFINGWELL,
Rector of Trinity Church, Toledo, Ohio.

Every century has had its epoch-making characters,—men and women who dominated and directed the thoughts, purposes, activities, and achievements of their times. The nineteenth century is distinguished above all others by the number and quality of those who came to stand for the inception, advance, and culmination of the world’s great movements and who highly exemplified in their careers the enterprise and genius of their day.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

The object here is to designate, and make brief mention of, some of those who have fairly earned the title of epoch-maker, with the hope of providing a delightful historic study, and further enhancing the instructive value of a volume addressed to the triumphs and wonders of the century.

Statesmen, Orators, and Jurists.—Abraham Lincoln (b. February 12, 1809; d. April 14, 1865) sprang from the masses, and grew up with their institutions rather than with the learning of the schools. He grew into leadership because he was one of the “million,” had hard sense and was true. As a forcible exponent of the sentiment of his party he was elected President in 1861. His election was the signal for secession and war. His mastery of the most delicate situation in the history of his country was superb. His patience, his perseverance amid hard trials, his wisdom of administration, his adaptation to the march of events, his striking and educative speech, his determination to preserve a union of States, all led grandly and inevitably to the crowning act of his noble career,—the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1863.

There is no sadder chapter in history, and no greater loss for any nation or time, than that of his taking off (after being a second time honored by the presidency) at the hands of an assassin, on the night of April 14, 1865.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.

Jefferson Davis (b. June 3, 1808; d. December 6, 1889) stood for the cause of the South against the Union, as it took concrete political form in the shape of the Confederacy, of which he became the only President. Though, perhaps, lacking the ability of such leaders as Calhoun and Stephens, he was a conscientious and persistent advocate of the doctrines which culminated in war, and as chief executive ruled with energy and firmness.

Henry Clay (b. April 12, 1777; d. July 29, 1852) was a born orator and natural party leader. In statesmanship he was intensely patriotic and always able, being highly informed and skillful in debate. He came to stand as the champion of those doctrines which the Whig party supported, such as protection to home industries, internal improvements, and reciprocity. Upon the question of slavery which agitated Congress during most of his career he generally assumed an attitude of compromise, and fathered so many measures of a pacifying nature that he was called “the great pacificator.”

Daniel Webster (b. January 18, 1782; d. October 24, 1852) typifies the gigantic and imposing in New England intellect and physique. As early as 1820 he stood at the very head of American orators, a fame soon to be followed in the ranks of law and statesmanship. At first he opposed the doctrine of protection, but subsequently gave his support to Henry Clay’s “American policy.” In the United States Senate, he won the titles of “expounder of the Constitution” and “supporter and defender of the Union,” by his masterly denunciations of the doctrine of nullification.

James Monroe (b. April 28, 1758; d. July 4, 1831) reached the presidency twice, once in 1817, and again in 1820. His last administration was characterized as “the era of good feeling,” during which new States were admitted, Florida was acquired, the Louisiana boundary defined, slavery prohibited north of certain lines, and many provoking controversies with England were settled. In 1823 he signalized his administration by promulgating the now famous “Monroe Doctrine,” which was a warning to Europe that monarchical governments would not be allowed to interfere in the affairs of either North or South America.

WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE.

John Quincy Adams (b. July 11, 1767; d. February 23, 1848) typed the Federalism of the early part of the nineteenth century, and won the highest place in scholarly statesmanship. In diplomacy he filled many prominent and difficult positions at home and abroad. As sixth President of the United States, he was opposed by a majority in Congress, and consequently failed to distinguish his administration. He was the forerunner of those sentiments which culminated in organized opposition to the doctrine of human slavery.

John C. Calhoun (b. March 18, 1782; d. March 31, 1850) was twice Vice-President of the United States, and as Senator became the leading exponent of the doctrine of States’ rights and nullification of federal tariff laws. He ranked with Clay and Webster as a debater and constitutional expounder, and the three were known as “the Great Trio.” In him the pro-slavery cause found its subtlest, ablest, and most logical defender. With a fully stored mind of highly metaphysical turn, a fearlessness and persistency that were matchless, and a character above reproach, he greatly endeared himself in the South, and his writings are held in high esteem by men of his school of politics.

Rufus Choate (b. October 1, 1799; d. July 13, 1859) was probably the best-equipped scholar of the public men of the century, and was unusually brilliant as orator, lawyer, and publicist. Next to Mr. Webster he was the greatest member of the Massachusetts bar. He may be called the American Lord Erskine.

Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, of Italy (b. August 10, 1810; d. June 6, 1861), found a life-work in the unification of the Italian States. By pursuing a masterly course in European diplomacy he brought the states of North Italy into unity, and finally, through the efforts of Garibaldi, those of Southern Italy became united with them in one kingdom under the rule of Victor Emmanuel in 1860. Though not a man of “blood and iron,” like Bismarck, he was the equal of his great German contemporary in diplomacy.

William Ewart Gladstone (b. December 29, 1809; d. May 19, 1898) was four times premier of England. As orator, political leader and statesman, and critic in the immense range of subjects he covered, his genius was without parallel. It may be said that his was the mightiest personality and most catholic and powerful intellect of any Englishman. He championed the cause of Christianity among all nations, sounded the first trumpet call of Italian liberty, opposed Turkey as a Mohammedan power, raised England’s commercial prosperity to the highest notch, unraveled the entanglements of Beaconsfield’s ministry, inaugurated the most astonishing reforms in all directions, but especially in the church, education, army, and among the labor unions. It is almost impossible to name any matter of national or international importance in which his personality and genius were not felt for good.

Alexander Hamilton (b. January 11, 1757; d. July 11, 1804) was by all odds the ablest jurist and statesman of the early constitutional era of the United States. He became the first Secretary of the Treasury, and lifted the finances of the government from utter prostration to high prosperity. As fiscal organizer his success was unparalleled, and all after administrations of the Treasury have been practically along the lines he first laid down. He was easily the leader of that party which looked with disfavor on “States’ Rights,” and favored a strong central government.

Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield (b. December 21, 1804; d. April 19, 1881), stood, as premier, for English “territorial aristocracy” and for that “territorial expansion” which fixed the wide boundaries of the Indian Empire, made Queen Victoria Empress of India, taught both Russia and India to refrain from meddling with England’s possessions, made the English voice preëminent in the disposition of Continental territory, and completely defeated the schemes of Russia against Turkey. Under him the middle classes lost, and the laboring classes gained, political power. His career greatly heightened the national institutions and character, as well as the international reputation and power, of his country.

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Thomas Jefferson (b. April 2, 1743; d. July 4, 1826) stood in the past century as an able exponent of American rights, and his views were incorporated into the Declaration of Independence, of which he was the acknowledged author. He equally stood as the leading exponent of that political school of thought which favored decentralization, or limitation of the powers of the central government. After his election to the presidency in 1800, he signalized his administration by what is known as the Louisiana purchase, for $15,000,000. In thus enlarging the area of the country by boundaries of vast extent, he became one of the earliest and most enthusiastic of expansionists, and that without reference to the modernly mooted question of “government without the consent of the governed.”

Richard Cobden, of England (1804–1865), was a humanitarian of great native breadth and liberality, largely increased by travel and constant observation. He was a powerful leader in the famous Manchester School of English statesmen. His share in modern progress was fourfold; first, in securing the repeal of the odious tax on corn in 1846; second, in urging arbitration rather than arms as a final resort to settle international disputes; third, in negotiating with France the Commercial Treaty of 1860, which Mr. Gladstone said no other living man could have secured; fourth, in his vigorous and successful opposition of all efforts to enforce England’s recognition of the Southern Confederacy during the late civil war.

Prince Otto E. L. Bismarck, of Germany (b. April 1, 1815; d. July 30, 1898), blended the unerring instinct, great far-sightedness, fertility in invention and expedients, and adroit diplomacy of a statesman, with absolute fearlessness, inflexible purpose, indomitable energy, and resistless force. Thoroughly German, he was preëminently and always Prussian, and his great life-work was the accomplishment of German unity with Prussia at the head. This he achieved by the humiliation of Austria and France, and the gradual accession of all the distinctively German states.

Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) exemplified the wonderful power of the skillfully colloquial in public speech, and is a type of the American orator who devotes his ability to correct public abuses, right public wrongs, and educate the public mind and taste. Chiefly as an avowed abolitionist, as advocate of the temperance cause, as champion of the Indians and of woman’s rights to the ballot, and as untiring mover in improving the nation’s penal institutions, Mr. Phillips most largely contributed to public weal and progress.

James Gillespie Blaine (b. June 31, 1830; d. January 27, 1893), whether serving in the House, Senate, or Cabinet, had few equals as a statesman, debater, parliamentarian, or enthusiastic political leader. Though often disappointed in his aspirations for the presidency, he lost none of that wonderful power which he had acquired by reason of his energy, tact, skill, personal magnetism, and knowledge of public men and measures. He became the special champion of the doctrine of reciprocity, and by its practical application during Mr. Harrison’s administration proved its benefits to commerce and international trade relations.

By his splendid series of decisions and opinions, Joseph Story (September 18, 1779; September 10, 1845) shares with John Marshall the merit of determining and of developing towards its fullest capacity the power of the United States Supreme Court, as set forth in the Constitution, over state courts and state legislation. He also practically constructed the United States Admiralty Law and, even to-day, his “Commentaries on the American Constitution,” in connection with both of his foregoing services, is a standard work. He represents the broad and powerful American judicial mind, which has contributed so largely to the integrity of the Union.

James Kent (b. July 31, 1763; d. December 12, 1847) was professor, judge of chancery, justice and chief justice of the N. Y. Supreme Court, and chancellor of New York. He possessed immense legal learning, and to him is primarily due the creation of New York courts of equity. His exhaustive “Commentaries upon American Law” is accepted at home and abroad as one of the great classics of American law literature.

Francis Wharton was born March 7, 1820, and died February 21, 1884. Although at the age of forty-three he exchanged law for the ministry, he still showed the legal tendency of his mind in a long career as professor of ecclesiastical and international law in Boston institutions. He enriched the literature of his profession by many valuable and standard works on law, municipal, state, national, and international, and, under Mr. Cleveland, was of great service to the administration as United States Examiner of International Claims in the Department of State.

OTTO E. L. VON BISMARCK.

Louis Adolphe Thiers, of France (b. April 16, 1797; d. September 3, 1877), was editor, historian, and statesman, and in the latter role became a distinguished leader of French thought and polity. His greatest service to his country was after the Franco-Prussian war, when the Assembly elected him chief of the executive, with the title of “President of the Republic.” In this capacity he was particularly successful in negotiating the terms of peace with Germany, and in fulfilling all the conditions of peace.

HON. WILLIAM M^cKINLEY.

(Copyright, 1896, by F. Gutekunst.)

William McKinley (b. January 29, 1843) became a leading champion of the doctrine of industrial protection at an early period in his congressional career. In 1883 Hon. W. D. Kelley said of him: “He has distanced all his colleagues in mastering the details of the tariff.” The Tariff Act of 1890 came to be popularly known as the “McKinley Bill.” Elected President in 1896, his administration was signalized by that humanitarian interference in behalf of struggling Cuban patriots, which culminated in the Spanish-American war, and the most unprecedented triumph of modern times. It had the added distinction of rounding out the nineteenth and introducing the twentieth century.

Warriors.—Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleon I.), soldier, statesman, and Emperor of the French (b. August 15, 1769; d. May 5, 1821), was the greatest of the world’s masters in the art of war. His numerous campaigns, conducted with a brilliancy never before equaled, had for their object the humiliation of the countries of Europe, and the establishment of an imperial policy in which France should be supreme. This he came very near to effecting, in spite of closely combined and persistent opposition. None of the frequent coalitions formed to thwart his ambitions and stay his martial progress proved absolutely effective till that of March 25, 1815, was formed, which put an army of 700,000 men in the field against him. It was a part of this army that he met at Waterloo, June 18, 1815, where defeat awaited him, together with the eclipse of his gigantic influence and phenomenal genius.

GRANT’S TOMB, RIVERSIDE DRIVE, NEW YORK CITY.

Ulysses Simpson Grant (b. April 27, 1822; d. July 23, 1885), graduated at West Point and had a brief military experience in the Mexican war. On the breaking out of the Civil War he reëntered the Federal service from civil life, and by exceptional fertility of resource achieved a series of victories in the West which led to his command of all the Union forces, with the specially conferred title of lieutenant-general, a title subsequently raised to that of general. By the brilliant, persistent, and simultaneous campaigns he carried through in the East and West, he further clinched his title as one of the world’s greatest generals, and ended the conflict with honorable peace. He was honored twice with the presidency of the nation, and through the trying period of reconstruction his wise statesmanship cemented the Union his sword had preserved.

Arthur Wellesley Wellington of England (b. May 1, 1769; d. September 22, 1852), attained his first real military distinction in the campaigns of the English in India. He further added to his fame in the campaign against France in the Spanish peninsula. But his greatest glory as a warrior was reached in 1814, when, with the aid of the Prussian marshal Blücher, he defeated Napoleon at the decisive battle of Waterloo. He was afterwards honored with a seat in the House of Lords, and as Prime Minister of the Tory party, but his statesmanship proved to be of an inferior and unpopular order.

DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

Helmuth Karl Bernhard von Moltke, of Germany (b. October 26, 1800; d. April 24, 1891), was the world’s greatest exponent of strictly scientific warfare. He made the Prussian army a most powerful and dangerous machine, and led it triumphantly against Denmark and Austria. By dint of strict organization and drill he made the armies of the German Confederation equally effective, as was shown in the Franco-German war (1870–71), which was a series of brilliant victories, ending with the capitulation of Paris and the downfall of Napoleon III. and his empire. His greatness lay in the fact that cool, sober calculation always dominated his greatest audacity of plan.

Simon Bolivar, or Bolivar y Ponte (b. July 25, 1785; d. December 17, 1830), justly earned the surname of “The Liberator.” The first and greatest of those South American patriots who struck against the tyrannical colonial system of Spain, he achieved the independence of the three States of Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru, secured their recognition by the civilized world, and lived to govern them with the wisdom and moderation of a wise executive.

COUNT VON MOLTKE.

Robert E. Lee (b. January 19, 1807; d. October 12, 1870), graduated at West Point, and was in the constant military service of the United States till the breaking out of the Civil War. He then transferred his services to the Confederacy, and speedily became the highest exponent of its military powers. Honorable, just, energetic, persistent, skillful in offensive or defensive warfare, schooled in strategy, full of devices and combinations to overcome desperate situations, he prolonged a hopeless struggle to an astounding degree, and met defeat and surrender without dishonor. He readily ranks as one of the world’s greatest generals.

Lajos (Louis) Kossuth of Hungary (b. April 27, 1802; d. March 20, 1894), as writer, lawyer, and statesman, came to stand for Hungarian freedom. After the declaration of independence of his country in 1849, he became its military and political ruler, but was forced by Russian intervention and domestic rivalry from his high place, and escaped to foreign lands to pass the balance of his life in eloquent but fruitless appeals in behalf of his cause and people.

Giuseppe Garibaldi, of Italy (b. July 4, 1807; d. June 2, 1882), typed the restless, daring soldier, the impulsive statesman, and the energetic defender of freedom. He shared Count Cavour’s desire for a free and united Italy, and grew to be a great popular hero. Upon his capture of the two Sicilies, he presented them to Victor Emmanuel, thus consummating his life dream of unification, and his desire for a government in which the wishes of the people were, to some extent, recognized.

Naval Heroes.—Stephen Decatur (b. January 5, 1771; d. March 22, 1820) attained the rank of captain in the U. S. Navy for his gallant exploit of burning the frigate Philadelphia in the harbor of Tripoli, after she had been captured by the Tripolitans. He won further fame as commodore in the war of 1812, and again in the war with Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. Quick to comprehend emergencies and prompt in action, he was a type of the dashing and absolutely fearless American seaman. True to his fiery nature, he found his death in a duel with Commodore Barron.

Oliver Hazard Perry (b. August 23, 1785; d. August 23, 1819) was rewarded with the rank of captain in the U. S. Navy for the remarkable courage and dash which eventuated in the memorable victory over the British fleet in Lake Erie, September 10, 1813. This victory gave the Americans control of the Great Lakes and hastened, more than any single event, the conquest of the Northwest and the end of the War of 1812. He saw further honorable service as commander of the Mediterranean squadron, and died at Port Spain, on the island of Trinidad, of yellow fever.

David Dixon Porter (b. June 8, 1813; d. February 13, 1891) grew and ripened gradually into one of the great naval captains of the nineteenth century. His courage and energy, large experience, and intimate knowledge of the rivers and seacoasts of the country fitted him for the great emergencies of the Civil War. Many of the victories of the Union armies in the West were due to his cöoperation with gunboats. He greatly aided in the initial success of Farragut’s expedition up the Mississippi, the reduction of Vicksburg, and other strongholds upon Western waters. The greatest victory of his life was the capture of Fort Fisher. He wrote a history of the U. S. Navy during the war, a work commended by all naval nations. On the death of Farragut, 1870, he reached the high rank of admiral.

David Glascoe Farragut (b. July 5, 1801; d. August 14, 1870) supplies the highest type of the skillful, cautious American naval commander, backed up by extraordinary dash and boldness. His signal achievements during the Civil War were the destruction of the Confederate fleet in the Mississippi, the capture of New Orleans, the passage of the forts at Port Hudson and the batteries at Vicksburg, and the capture of Mobile. For his brilliant and successful services the rank of vice-admiral was especially created for him by the government, and afterwards that of admiral.

John Adolf Dahlgren (b. November 13, 1809; d. July 12, 1870) was a prime agent in developing the Naval Ordnance Department and its works at Washington. He invented and made the well-known Dahlgren guns. During the Civil War he commanded the South Atlantic blockading squadron, of some ninety vessels, and did splendid service for the Union cause. He was author of many naval articles and books, some of the latter being used as text books by the government.

GEN. GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI.

Raphael Semmes (b. September 27, 1809; d. August 30, 1877) types more fully than any other the naval dash and efficiency of the Confederacy. In him, as commander of the Sumter and Alabama, the merchant marine of the United States found its direst enemy, and his exploits upon the ocean won for him a fame which overshadowed those of even higher rank, but whose services were limited to narrower fields of naval activity.

Admiral George Dewey (b. December 26, 1837) acquired considerable naval experience in the Civil War. At the breaking out of hostilities with Spain (1898) he was in command of the U. S. squadron in Eastern waters, and was ordered to destroy the Spanish fleet in the harbor of Manila. His attack was prompt and daring, and it ended in one of the most notable victories in the history of naval warfare. In a few hours the entire fleet of Spain in the Orient was swept away, together with her power, and the United States was placed in possession of a new and magnificent island empire whose maintenance and government may change the whole history of the Orient, if not of the world.

Admiral Sampson’s contribution to the century’s progress lies in the line of skillful preparation for emergencies, and promptitude in meeting them. He became an epoch-maker in the history of the United States by means of the great and decisive victory over the Spaniards, won by the fleet under his command in the waters off Santiago.

Preachers and Teachers.—The Rev. James McCosh (b. April 1, 1811; d. November 6, 1894) was an able leader of that great school of literary men, scholars, educators, and aggesssive practical thinkers which this century chiefly seems to have produced.

His contribution to modern progress lies mainly along three lines:—

First, in his efforts to obtain the Free Church of Scotland, and establish it.

Second, in his most successful administration of the affairs of Princeton College while he was president of that institution.

Third, by his numerous, original, and powerful writings, chiefly controversial and philosophical.

The Rev. Charles Hodge (b. December 28, 1797; d. June 19, 1878) was a fine example of the modern expositor of the dogmas of Calvinism. Strong in conviction and persistent in purpose, a clear, logical thinker and writer, he naturally became a very powerful leader, his influence being particularly felt in establishing the present exalted position of the Presbyterians, especially of the old school division. This influence was wielded partly from his chair as Professor of Didactic, Exegetic, and Polemic Theology, and especially in the famous Princeton Review, which owes its greatness chiefly to his editorship and contributions.

Philip Schaff (b. 1819; d. October 20, 1893) is a type of the scholar who, through profound research and interpretation, has created an epoch in theology by his contributions to the nineteenth century, mainly in historical and exegetical branches.

Henry Ward Beecher (b. June 24, 1813; d. March 8, 1887) easily earned the reputation of the greatest pulpit orator of his day. As pastor of Plymouth (Congregational) Church in New York, his genius and remarkable eloquence attracted and held one of the largest congregations in the United States. Spontaneity, tact, emotion were elements of his oratory, and these were always supplemented by force, depth, subtilty, and quick grasp of intellect and heart. His versatility was phenomenal. Journalism, literature, politics, social life, philanthropy, parochial organization, and even agriculture and many other branches were touched upon by him, and all with results varying from excellent to extraordinary.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (b. May 25, 1803; d. April 27, 1882) passed through the career of teacher and preacher to that of general writer, lecturer, and poet. He should probably be classed with the metaphysicians or philosophers. His publication of “Nature” in 1835 marked a new era in American thought. From subsequent addresses and works may be dated the intellectual movement which was called Transcendentalism, and which was a reaction against formalism and tradition. He lacked the method essential to the foundation of a new philosophy, but his works form a permanent addition to the highest literature of the human race.

Phillips Brooks (b. December 13, 1835; d. January 23, 1893) was one of those phenomenal preachers of the century who won the hearing and hearts of his auditors by largeness and liberality of thought; spirituality, earnestness, self-sacrifice, and great love; and by beauty and poise of character. He seldom preached doctrine, but relied on the efficacy of ardent exhortation, and the finding and kindling of the good in each auditor.

CHARLES H. SPURGEON.

Charles H. Spurgeon (b. June 19, 1834; d. January 31, 1892) stands as a type of the great popular preacher and leader in charitable work. With Baptist view’s, he revived his own denomination and exerted a helpful influence on all others. No divine of his time swayed so resistlessly the immense audiences he attracted. His plain sermons were always lightened with happy illustrations and delivered with rare power and personal magnetism, and they had the exceptional quality of retaining much of their charm and persuasiveness when in print.

Friedrich Froebel of Thuringia, Germany (b. April 21, 1782; d. June 2, 1852), was a born educator, and his great life-work lay wholly in that direction. He studied not so much to get knowledge of particular branches as to discover their natural unity and hidden connection. He was the advocate of the new education, and pushed the system of Pestalozzi far beyond its author’s dreams. According to Froebel, man and nature are governed by the same laws; and, by his observation of both, he reached his idea of what man’s development should be, and how to accomplish it. True development must of course proceed from within, from self activity. And as every age of man is complete in itself, its perfect development can come from only such development in the preceding age. Hence, the necessity of properly training and educating young children. This course of reasoning resulted in his invention of the kindergarten system, together with his self-sacrificing devotion in training teachers, and in his heroic perseverance notwithstanding bitter opposition, or indifference.

Victor Cousin, of France (b. November 28, 1792; d. June 15, 1867), was a renowned epoch-maker of the century in founding the school of systematic eclecticism in philosophy. His system sets forth a doctrine of catholic comprehension and toleration of others. Few men did more in official and private life to advance the cause of general education in France.

William Wilberforce, of England (b. August 24, 1759; d. July 29, 1833), with Pitt and Clarkson, led in the cause of freeing the slaves, being himself the greatest type of the English abolitionist. For forty-six years he maintained unceasing and relentless warfare against slavery, and his priceless gift to the present century was the final and complete extinction of slavery and of the slave-trade in the British possessions.

Historians.—William H. Prescott (b. May 14, 1796; d. January 27, 1859) proved himself to be an epoch-maker in the sense that he combined the worth of history with the brilliance and fascination of the novel, and developed the entirely new field of Spain’s career at home and in her colonies. His “Ferdinand and Isabella,” “Conquest of Mexico,” “Conquest of Peru,” and “History of Philip II,” all obtained a world-wide circulation, and both placed and kept their author in the highest rank of modern American historians.

WILLIAM WILBERFORCE.

François P. G. Guizot, of France (b. October 4, 1784; d. September 13, 1874), was both statesman and historian. In the former capacity he held several important public positions, and from 1840 to 1847 was, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, really at the head of the government. His many proposed reforms brought on the revolution of 1848 and the dethronement of Louis Philippe. Though ranking as one of the greatest of French statesmen, his highest and most enduring reputation rests on his historical writings, which are very numerous, and the chief of which is his “General History of Civilization in Europe.” His works are classics of historical research, and inspiring forerunners of the modern method of treating history.

James Anthony Froude (b. October 23, 1818; d. October 20, 1894) ranks as one of the brightest of England’s writers and historians, though not one of the most reliable. His writings are characterized, in the main, by ultra-Protestantism; and in his two most important works, “The English in Ireland in the 18th Century,” and “The History of England,” he endeavors to justify his country’s severe treatment of the Irish Romanists, to establish Henry VIII. as the chief champion of English independence, and also to bestow upon her ministers much of the credit popularly supposed to belong to Queen Elizabeth.

John L. Motley (b. Massachusetts, April 15, 1814; d. England, May 29, 1877) typifies the patient and painstaking searcher for truth in the development of national history; and also the sympathetic, graphic, and spirited painter of the scenes, events, and characters which he presents. His “Rise of the Dutch Republic,” “History of the United Netherlands,” and “Life and Death of John of Barneveld” are all undeniably great contributions to the historical literature of the present century, besides being monuments to the exacting toil and research of years.

THOMAS B. MACAULAY.

Henry Thomas Buckle, of England (b. November 24, 1822; d. May 29, 1862) is a conspicuous type of the patient and learned historian. His principal donation to modern progress is “The History of Civilization in England,” a work whose novel theories created an epoch in the philosophy of history, and called forth much controversy. According to him, civilization was due not so much to moral or religious influence as to material causes,—soil, climate, food, atmosphere, etc.

George Bancroft (b. October 3, 1800; d. January 17, 1891) was equally renowned as statesman and historian. As a member of President Polk’s cabinet, he was instrumental in founding the Naval Academy at Annapolis and the Naval Observatory at Washington. As minister to Prussia he negotiated several foreign treaties, and ably conducted the settlement of the “Northwest Boundary” question. But his great life-work was his “History of the United States,” on which he labored untiringly till his death. It is the most exhaustive, philosophic, and inspiring of our national histories.

Richard Hildreth (b. June 28, 1807; d. June 11, 1865) was one of the century’s valuable contributors to the welfare of the United States by his “History of Banks,” his many works on morals and politics, and chiefly by his great life-work, “The History of the United States,” a production of great labor and masterly detail, but somewhat heavily written.

Thomas Babington Macaulay, of England (b. October 25, 1800; d. December 28, 1859), was noted as essayist and statesman. But his genius lay especially in history, in which line he was enabled to furnish the world with his great life-work, that most remarkable and valuable “History of England,” which quickly attained a circulation never before equaled by any similar publication. Though at times partisan and partial, he was still fortunate in throwing his great strength on the side of right.

Editors.—Horace Greeley (b. February 3, 1811; d. November 29, 1872) was founder of the “New York Tribune.” He took rank as one of the ablest editors of his day, and stood the foremost political advocate and controversialist of his time in America. He made of his paper a splendid property, and through it exercised an influence that reached far down among the masses. He lost much of his popularity by his advocacy of universal amnesty and impartial suffrage, after the close of the Civil War, and gradually drifted into the Liberal Republican party. This party, in alliance with the Democrats, placed him on the presidential ticket in 1872. He was disastrously defeated, and died from the effects of hard campaign work and grief.

James Gordon Bennett (b. September 1, 1795; d. June 1, 1872), founder of the “New York Herald,” was the most spirited and daring of those pioneers who revolutionized the journalism of the century. In his paper he broke away from high prices and prosaic methods, and inaugurated the era of cheap prices, racy news, and independent expression. He practically developed the present organization of newsboys, the use of the telegraph in securing news, and the American system of European and war correspondence.

William Cullen Bryant (b. November 3, 1794; d. June 12, 1878) united the scholarship of the general literature and the grace of a poet with the genius of a high-toned and brilliant editor. He gave to his paper, the “New York Evening Post,” a rank and influence seldom attained in journalism, especially when it is considered that its patrons were chiefly of the educated and higher business classes. He represented the cleanest and most intellectual journalism of the century.

John W. Forney (b. September 20, 1817; d. December 9, 1881) was founder and owner of “The Philadelphia Press.” The journalism of the century can boast no more indefatigable and brilliant pen than his, nor did any journal of his day occupy a more commanding place amid the discussions incident to the Civil War and subsequent periods of reconstruction. He was also editor and owner of the Washington, D. C., “Chronicle.”

Charles Anderson Dana (b. August 8, 1819; d. October 17, 1897) is an instance of a scholar and publicist who found a true, though late, outlet for his genius in the realm of independent journalism. Under his editorship and management the “New York Sun” became the model news medium of the country, and its editorial, financial, and other departments were conducted with an ability and conscientiousness that commanded the widest confidence. He was associate editor of “The New American Cyclopædia,” and compiler of the admirable “Household Book of Poetry.”

Joseph Medill (b. April 6, 1823; d. March 16, 1899) rose to the high rank of editor-in-chief and principal owner of “The Chicago Tribune,” through the schooling afforded by connection with several minor papers. No man of the century was more thoroughly imbued with the true editorial instinct. Of dignified and prudent expression, broad and keen thought, ever alive to the privileges and power of the press, he made his journal a model of excellence in all its varied departments as well as a colossal property.

Joseph Pulitzer (b. 1847) was founder and editor of “The St. Louis Post-Dispatch,” and afterwards became owner and editor of “The New York World.” Like the elder Bennett he ranks as one of the dashing, daring editors of the century, whose aim is to gain notoriety and extraordinary circulation for his journal by strong, and often vituperative, attack upon public men and things, and by tireless efforts to secure general news of a unique and sensational character, at whatever cost.

Murat Halstead (b. 1829) rose to editorial distinction, and became a strong factor in the life of the middle West, through his connection with the “Cincinnati Commercial,” which he raised to a flourishing financial condition, with immense power in municipal, state, and national politics. In 1890 he became editor of “The Standard-Union,” Brooklyn, N. Y.

Whitelaw Reid (b. October 27, 1837) is a type of the highest class of American political editors, and represents the best in that kind of American journalism which aims to be both alert and catholic in its efforts, without the sensationalism of personality, exaggeration, or the horrible. Next to Mr. Greeley, whom he succeeded as editor, he will best be remembered in connection with “The New York Tribune,” and has made his journal a great power along nearly all lines, particularly those political.

Scientists.—Sir Charles Bell, of Scotland (b. November 17, 1774; d. April 29, 1842), is a shining example of patience and genius for investigation, discovery, and deduction in medical science. The nervous system was his particular forte; and he discovered the most important principle that the brain is divided into two parts, each having its corresponding division in the spinal marrow, and that one set of nerves conveys sensations from the body to the brain, another carrying back to the body and its muscles the command of the brain, and finally that nerves conveying different sensations are connected with different parts of the brain. He was a remarkable surgeon, a brilliant lecturer, and a medical author of universal fame.

Samuel D. Gross (b. July 8, 1805; d. May 6, 1884) ranked as one of the epoch-makers in his profession. As physician, surgeon, and medical author he showed a lofty aim, strict devotion, marked originality, and powerful intellect. His numerous works commanded world-wide attention and became accepted standards. Two of them, at least, were the first of their kind ever published in America.

George C. L. F. D. Cuvier, of France (b. August 23, 1769; d. May 13, 1832), exhibited in his career the immense reformation and advance in natural history during the first three decades of the nineteenth century. He expanded the system of comparative anatomy as the only true basis of natural history, and from an utterly chaotic and unintelligible heap of dry facts concerning animal structures he finally deduced the underlying, natural principles of unity, in their classification and division. He also established many positive laws of geology and paleontology and, by his vast discoveries and daring conceptions therein, developed the comparatively new science of fossil animal-life to an extent hitherto undreamed of.

Charles Robert Darwin, of England (b. February 13, 1809; d. April 18, 1893), was one of those well-equipped and persistent scientists whose investigations led to the modern doctrine of the origin and evolution of species by means of natural selection and preservation of favored races in the struggle for life. His conclusions were at first bitterly rejected, especially by religious scientists, but ere the end of the century came they met with wide acceptance. Only such a genius and patience as his could have collected, arranged, and interpreted the gigantic mass of facts out of which he slowly deduced his conclusions.

Louis J. R. Agassiz (b. May 28, 1807; d. December 14, 1873), was the premier of his day as a scientist and naturalist. Of wonderful physical and mental power, vast enthusiasm, untiring industry, and exceptional propensity for research and orderly arrangement, he developed the modern science of ichthyology, propounded new and accepted theories of geology and of glacial systems, and established the magnificent Museum of Natural History at Cambridge, Mass. Astonishingly prolific as a writer, he remains a constant source of inspiration to naturalists and scientists.

Samuel C. F. Hahnemann, of Germany (b. April 11, 1755; d. July 2, 1843), was an epoch-maker in the field of medicine. By 1820 his theories and publications had awakened universal interest, and the homœopathic system had become an established school. Despite the long and bitter war between allopathy and homœopathy, it is certain that the latter has contributed largely to render medicine free from many old-time methods of an indefensible, if not actually harmful or dangerous kind.

Horace Wells, of Hartford, Conn. (b. January 21, 1815; d. January 14, 1848), was a dentist. His use of nitrous oxide (laughing gas) to render the extraction of teeth painless led to its fuller application as an anæsthetic in surgery, and hence to the discovery of modern anæsthesia by ether and chloroform. Though robbed of the honor of his discovery by others, the dentist Wells is no less a contributor to mankind of one of the greatest boons of the century.

Louis Pasteur, of France (b. December 17, 1822; d. September 28, 1895), gave new direction and impulse to chemistry and pathology by the discovery that fermentation arose from micro-organisms, and also that disease was, in many instances, due to the presence of bacilli in blood or tissue. He followed this with his system of culture and inoculation, by means of which he performed most miraculous cures of even such a vicious disease as hydrophobia. The Pasteur Institute in Paris stands a monument to his genius and philanthropy.

Philanthropists.—Stephen Girard (b. May 24, 1750; d. December 26, 1831) was crabbed, unapproachable, penurious, irreligious, yet strangely liberal in large public or charitable affairs. Twice he helped the government with large loans. Public charities and improvements, hospitals, and paradoxically enough, even churches, were indebted to him for munificent gifts. The greatest monument to his philanthropy is Girard College, founded by a bequest of $8,000,000, for the education of poor white male orphans.

James Smithson, of England (b. about 1765; d. June 27, 1829), was possibly the first philanthropist to bestow a large endowment upon the United States. With the sum of $500,000 to $600,000, which came to it from this benevolent foreigner, the young republic founded and endowed the splendid Smithsonian Institute at Washington for the spread and increase of knowledge, thus putting Mr. Smithson in the highest rank of the world’s benefactors, and erecting an imperishable monument at another turning-point in the progress of civilization.

George Peabody (b. February 18, 1795; d. November 14, 1869) ranks as one of the century’s greatest philanthropists. Among his noblest gifts were $3,500,000 for free education and the training of teachers in the Southern States, $1,000,000 for a scientific institute at Baltimore, large sums to Harvard University, and a great amount to his native town, Danvers, Mass., for educational purposes. Dying in England, he left $2,500,000 to London, to found workingmen’s homes.

John Jacob Astor (b. July 17, 1763; d. March 29, 1848) used much of his colossal fortune in philanthropy. Perhaps his largest single gift, at least that by which he is best known as a benefactor, was the sum of $400,000 to found the Astor Library of New York city. This noble institution is conducted on the public plan, and contains nearly 300,000 volumes.

James Lick (b. August 25, 1796; d. October 1, 1876) amassed a fortune in California, out of which he provided a trust fund for certain public and charitable purposes. This fund amounted to $5,000,000 at the time of his death. To him is due the famous Lick Telescope in the University of California, which cost $700,000; the California School of Mechanic Arts, costing $540,000; the free public baths of San Francisco, costing $150,000; and numerous other charities and benefactions.

Leland Stanford (b. March 9, 1824; d. June 20, 1893) acquired a great fortune in California. Inspired by a dream at the time of his little son’s death, he determined to found and endow an institution of learning in his State. The result was the Leland Stanford Junior University, whose direct endowment was princely, and whose indirect endowment is expected to amount to $20,000,000 or more.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

Florence Nightingale was born, May, 1823, in Florence, Italy, of English parents, and, prompted by philanthropic instincts, turned her attention to the relief of humanity. After study in various nursing schools, she was sent at the head of a corps of trained nurses to care for the sick and wounded soldiers of the Crimean war, in which position she displayed marvelous energy and ability. A grateful public subscribed for her a testimonial of $250,000, which she devoted to the founding of a training-school for nurses.

Clara Barton (b. about 1830) left a clerkship in Washington to engage in the work of alleviating the sufferings of the soldiers of the Civil War, on the battlefields and in hospitals, a work she performed with rare energy and self-sacrifice. She afterwards aided the Grand Duchess of Baden in establishing her hospitals during the Franco-Prussian war, and was decorated with the Golden Cross of Baden and the Iron Cross of Germany. In 1881 she organized the American Red Cross Society, for which she secured an international treaty giving it protection. She performed splendid service in camp and field during the Spanish-American war.

John D. Rockefeller (b. 1839) is a splendid example of those many and noble American millionaires who have responded with astonishing liberality to the promptings of their philanthropic natures. The reconstruction of the Chicago University, the founding or endowment of other public institutions, and of numerous charitable benefactions, together embracing the expenditure of many millions, are magnificent monuments to Mr. Rockefeller’s share in promoting the progress of his country during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Matthew Vassar (b. April 29, 1792; d. June 23, 1868) founded Vassar College, N. Y., in 1861. A brewer of large fortune, he conceived the idea of erecting and endowing a college for women, wherein education could be obtained either moderately or gratuitously, and which should be undenominational. To this end he gave land and $428,000 for buildings and equipment. Again he gave $360,000. Other members of his family added to his gifts, till $1,000,000 and more were expended in buildings, apparatus, etc., and the endowment amounted to over $1,000,000.

Inventors.—George Stephenson, of England (b. June 9, 1781; d. August 12, 1848), was the first (1814) to construct a satisfactory locomotive steam engine. In 1815 he introduced the steam blast into his second locomotive. In 1822 he built and operated his first railway, eight miles long. In 1829 his engine, named the Rocket, was driven at the rate of twenty-nine miles an hour. He invented a safety lamp, which is still in use in English collieries. A natural genius and self-taught mechanic, he refused knighthood, but has received by common consent the title of the father of railways.

Richard M. Hoe (b. September 12, 1812; d. June 7, 1886) completely revolutionized the art of printing by the invention of his “lightning” rotary press, in 1846. This marvel was capable of printing 20,000 impressions an hour. After many costly experiments, with a view to printing both sides of a sheet at once, he evolved his web-perfecting press, which drew the paper from a roll, perhaps miles in length, at the rate of 1000 feet a minute, printed both sides simultaneously, and cut and folded the sheets at the rate of 20,000 per hour. Subsequent improvements have given his machines a much larger hourly capacity.

CLARA BARTON.

Elias Howe (b. June 9, 1819; d. October 3, 1867) contributed the sewing-machine to the century’s triumphs and wonders, though it is alleged that the honor of inventing both the eye-pointed needle and the lock-stitch belongs to Walter Hunt, between whom and Howe long litigation prevailed, finally resulting in the recognition of the 1846 patent of the latter. Modifications and improvements by more recent inventors have made the sewing-machine the household boon of to-day.

Cyrus W. Field (b. November 30, 1819; d. July 12, 1892) made the problem of a telegraphic cable across the Atlantic an aim of his life. For thirteen years he labored with wonderful faith and perseverance, and at last, after a series of defeats and mortifying failures, succeeded (1866) in laying a cable that thoroughly solved the problem. Since then submarine telegraphy has become one of the most useful and powerful factors in the private and public life of the world.

Samuel F. B. Morse (b. April 27, 1791; d. April 2, 1872) contributed to the century’s triumphs and world’s civilization by that brilliant and persistent series of investigations, which resulted in the first practical telegraph. He brought his invention before the world in 1844, and with the aid of the government set up a line of forty miles between Washington and Baltimore, over which dispatches successfully passed, May 24, 1844. From this moment his triumph was complete, and he became the recipient of many flattering distinctions at home and abroad.

John Ericsson (b. July 31, 1803; d. March 8, 1899) either invented, or first made practical, the steam fire-engine, the artificial draught for locomotives, the reversible locomotive, the “link-motion,” the caloric engine, and the screw propeller. Discouraged in England, he came to the United States in 1839, where he revolutionized naval warfare by applying the screw propeller to the U. S. S. Princeton, and employing a range finder. In 1854 he invented the Monitor iron-clad on principles first applied in the Monitor which defeated the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, Virginia, March 9, 1862. His career was signalized by many other valuable inventions.

Alexander Graham Bell, born March 3, 1846, besides exploiting in America his father’s valuable system of instruction to deaf mutes, typifies the inventive spirit of his age by his contribution to public progress through the material side, as exemplified in that indispensable aid to modern life, the telephone, with the invention of which he is generally, but by no means undisputedly, credited.

Thomas Alva Edison (b. February 11, 1847) is a splendid example of the tireless, acute, and practical scientific inventor, and is well named the electrical “wizard.” Among the triumphs of his skill and genius are the automatic telegraphic repeater; the duplex telegraph, afterwards developed into the quadruplex and sextuplex transmitter; the printing telegraph for stock quotations; the carbon telephone transmitter; the aerophone; the megaphone and microphone; the phonograph and photometer; the incandescent lamp; and many other devices for electric lighting.

Nicola Tesla (born 1858), a former pupil and assistant of Edison, shares with his master the honor of representing the world’s greatest and most practical of scientific inventors and discoverers. His most noted investigations and discoveries have been along the line of arousing luminous vibrations in matter, without, at the same time, setting in action heat-vibrations. He has made the remarkable discovery that 200,000 volts may pass harmlessly through that body which 2000 would kill, and is experimenting to produce 3,000,000 vibrations a minute in matter. He has also shown that both motors and lights can be operated on one wire without a circuit. His rotary motor is used in conveying power from the great plant at Niagara Falls.

Novelists.—Sir Walter Scott, of Scotland (b. August 15, 1771; d. September 21, 1832), exerted a powerful influence on the literature of the century through the medium of his stirring poetry and delightful fiction, in both of which he was most ready and prolific. His numerous works, teeming with striking situations, strong and noble in style, are models of literary excellence, and are as captivating to readers of to-day as they were half a century ago.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

Charles Dickens, of England (b. February 7, 1812; d. June 9, 1870), ably exemplified that school of novelists who paint homely social life with all its innocent, clumsy efforts at humor; its sorrows, vanities, and weaknesses; its selfishness, malice, and vice; its wrongs, sufferings, and goodnesses. Though faulty in plot and style and ridiculous in their exaggerations, his novels marked a new era in literature, and no books ever so appealed to the sympathies and good impulses of readers.

James Fenimore Cooper (b. September 15, 1789; d. September 14, 1851) typifies a large and apparently enduring class of fiction writers of which he was a remarkable forerunner; that school of novelists who deal with stirring, bold, and healthful adventure, in which the Anglo-Saxon mind particularly seems to find unfailing delight. Both at home and abroad, his novels attained a wide, sudden, and well-deserved popularity. And to this day no library of fiction is complete without them.

CHARLES DICKENS.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (b. July 4, 1804; d. May 18, 1864) exhibits in his numerous fictional works a man’s breadth and strength of imagination and a woman’s quick perception and spiritual insight. Almost gloomy in color, overhung with impending fate, and often uncanny, his stories are yet always fascinating. As has been well said, one catches in them “gleaming wit, tender satire, exquisite natural description, subtle and strange analysis of human life, darkly passionate and weird.”

Count Leo (or Lyoff) Alekseevich Tolstoi (b. August 28, 1828) is a Russian aristocrat by birth, but has assumed the dress and life of a peasant, the better to exploit his doctrines respecting non-resistance, communism, labor, religion, politics, government, and society. His numerous writings show a combination of keenness of realistic insight and wealth of poetical imagination, of a wonderful breadth of view with perfect handling of minute detail, seldom rivaled in all literature. Whether or not he will prove to be the forerunner of a great revolution in the world’s national and social life, there is no disputing his genius and pertinacity.

Edward George Earle Bulwer (Baron Lytton), of England (b. May 25, 1803; d. January 18, 1873), was novelist, poet, dramatist, and essayist, and ranked as one of the most versatile and classical authors of the century. Through his plays, poetry, and novels he introduced a new literary era, and was the leader, if not actual founder, of the school of melodramatic romance.

Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe (b. June 14, 1811; d. July 1, 1896) acquired great fame as authoress of the epoch-making book, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” It proved to be a powerful contribution to the anti-slavery cause, and served to electrify readers in twenty different languages. In dramatized form it has delighted millions of auditors. The authoress represents woman’s efforts for the overthrow of slavery; efforts she put forth modestly, completely unconscious of their great power and future influence.

George Eliot, pseudonym of Marian Evans, afterwards Mrs. Lewes, then Mrs. Cross, of England (b. November 22, 1819; d. December 22, 1880), was one of the ablest of the world’s female novelists, and had but few equals among men. She was a leading epoch-maker in that introspective school which always with astonishing skill uses the “plot” in all its events, environments, and circumstances to develop each character in strict logical accord, whether for good or evil.

Victor Hugo, of France (b. February 20, 1802; d. May 22, 1885), was, in his day, the most popular author who has ever lived. Few poems, no drama, and absolutely no novel have ever produced the immediate and tremendous effect of his earlier poems, his “Hernani,” and his “Les Misérables.” Through “Hernani” he completely defeated the classic school and became the leader of the romantic school of revolutionary individualists, thus creating a new epoch in literature. He invented novelties in poetry and prose which produced strength, variety, delicacy, harmony, and richness of imagery and coloring, absolutely unparalleled and original.

LORD BYRON.

Poets.—Lord George Gordon Byron, of England (b. January 22, 1788; d. April 19, 1824), is a remarkable instance of a poet of marvelous natural powers, mingling good and evil in accordance with the whim that took him; yet exhibiting distinctly, through it all, evidences of a great soul and genius. He created an epoch in the world’s poetic literature. Skeptical, cynical, melancholy even to sentimentality, and skillfully manipulating the public side of his affairs to keep up a most fascinating air of romantic mystery about them all, he succeeded in affecting public thought with these characteristics to a wonderful extent. As a result, “Byronism,” for a time, was the absorbing rage in all prominent circles, literary and even social.

Henry W. Longfellow (b. February 27, 1807; d. March 24, 1882) is possibly the century’s finest type of the people’s poet. Though by no means a poet of great imaginative or creative powers, yet few reached his perfect skill as a painstaking and unerring artist; while none have ever surpassed him in creating that atmosphere of subtile beauty which always seems to surround and penetrate his verse. As an epoch-maker his influence extended even to Europe, and especially to England, securing him a fame wider and greater than that of any other American poet, and rarely failing to win the enduring affection of all kinds of readers.

John Greenleaf Whittier (b. December 17, 1807; d. September 7, 1892), as an editor and poet contributed no little to the cause of the abolitionists. Together with Longfellow, Holmes, Lowell, Hawthorne, and Emerson, he may be considered an epoch-maker in the development of American literature as guided by the spirit of New England. He types the sweet, simple, and absolutely sincere poet whose verse breathes forth a strong patriotism, and is redolent of the healthful home life of the Eastern States.

Sir Alfred Tennyson, of England (b. August 6, 1809; d. October 6, 1892), was by far the leading representative of those English poets who, while not wanting in the fire and spontaneity of true genius, nevertheless wrote carefully, after long reflection, with calculation and toil, as to diction, polish, and arrangement of sentences and thoughts. His highly-wrought “In Memoriam” and his exquisite, though somewhat sensuous “Idylls of the King” were absolutely novel, and mark an epoch in the history of the world’s poetry.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (b. 1809; d. June 29, 1861) is, without doubt, the greatest poetess of the present century and probably of any other. She presents an extraordinary instance of the grasp, comprehensiveness, and logic of man’s intellect, united with the intuitions, deep emotions, impulses, and visions of woman. Her especial contribution to the progress of this century is not only to the wealth of its poetry, but also to the careful and discriminating consideration of many of its social problems.

Robert Browning (b. in London, May 7, 1812; d. in Venice, December 12, 1889) was the foremost of psychological poets. Belonging to “The Romantic School,” he created an epoch in literature by carrying his high ideals and wonderful efforts of genius over into what became known as “The Spasmodic School.”

Actors.—Edmund Keene, of England (b. 1787; d. May 15, 1833), was one of the greatest and most popular actors of all time. He typified, and greatly contributed to the success of, that school of actors who rely almost solely on their own native genius and acquired powers, rather than on the aid of externals. He has been called both the “Byron” and the “Napoleon” of actors, and seemed to have the most extraordinary power both of catching and revealing the meaning of Shakespeare, with the quickness and vividness of the lightning flash.

Edwin Forrest (b. March 9, 1806; d. December 12, 1872) was a tragedian of the robust type. His success upon the stage was signal, owing to natural genius, superb form, and noble presence. For more than a generation he rendered effective and kept popular the leading tragedies of Shakespeare, and others suited to his powers. The Actors’ Home at Philadelphia was endowed by him, and stands as his monument.

Edwin Booth (b. November 13, 1833; d. June 7, 1893) stood as the exponent of the refined and lofty in drama. Through his rare histrionic powers he became a recognized interpreter of such characters as Richard III., Shylock, Lear, Iago, Othello, Brutus, etc., but he never appeared to better advantage than in Hamlet. His ability was as fully recognized abroad as at home. He expended $175,000 in establishing the Players’ House and Club in New York.

Charlotte S. Cushman (b. July 23, 1816; d. February 18, 1876) first won her histrionic honors in opera. Her voice failed, and then she began her memorable career as actress, her most famous personations being Lady Macbeth, Bianca, Julia, Beatrice, Lady Teazle, Queen Katharine, and Meg Merrilies. She readily ranked with the great dramatic artists of the century, and her skill, native and acquired, divided with her own splendid character the admiration of the general public.

Tommaso Salvini (b. January, 1830) demonstrates that now very rare and severely tragic school of the stage in which the actor appeals to the public through his genius and art, rather than through his environments and accessories. He thus belongs to an apparently closing era in the history of the stage. Powerful, passionate yet self-controlled, magnificent in physique, in elocution, in reading and in deportment, as an actor he really belongs to the world, although Italian in both spirit and training.

Sir Henry Irving (or really John Henry Broadrib), of England, was born in 1838, and is the leader of that modern school of actors, who depend not so much on good reading, acting and general elocution as upon careful attention to details in stage-setting and presentation. As an epoch-maker in the history of the modern drama, he marks that point where the actor begins to look away from his own personal art to that displayed in his surroundings and accessories.

Lyric Dramatists.—Ludwig van Beethoven, of Germany (b. December 17, 1770; d. March 26, 1827), is widely held to be the most colossal of musical geniuses, in breadth and grasp of intellect, in vastness and boldness of imagination, and in depth and tenderness of emotion. His one opera, “Fidelio,” is by many considered to be unrivaled in the realm of pure dramatic music. His sonatas and chamber music are generally conceded easily to lead in those two departments, while his symphonies are universally believed to have reached the utmost limit of development which is possible in the field of orchestral composition.

Charles F. Gounod, of France (b. June 17, 1818; d. October 18, 1893), is an instance of a composer whose permanent fame must rest on but one work, the opera of “Faust,” in which he reached the utmost height of his powers and success. No opera has ever had such instant, universal, and constant popularity. Eclectic in style, and faithful and enthusiastic in his art, he did much to advance the progress of religious and operatic music in France.

Robert Schumann, of Saxony (b. June 8, 1810; d. July 29, 1856) was one of the creators of the romantic school of music. He was not a piano player, but a teacher and composer. His symphonies have been accorded a rank next to those of Beethoven, and for their deep pathos, fine, intense passion and wild, mournful beauty many of his compositions are almost peerless.

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (b. February 5, 1809; d. November 4, 1847) was as lovely in character as in works. In symphony, song, piano-forte, organ, or oratorio, he showed himself worthy of being classed with the great musical masters. His compositions suffered eclipse for a time by those of a stronger school, but his true position in the musical world is once more becoming recognized.

Franz Schubert, of Austria (b. January 31, 1797; d. November 10, 1829), has been called “the immortal melodist.” His fecundity was marvelous, and he is best known by his songs, several hundred in number, and nearly half of which have immortal quality. He also composed many charming symphonies and operas. His chief characteristics are the freshness of his delightful melodies supported by harmonies of equal interest.

Anton Gregor Rubinstein, of Russia (b. November 30, 1830; d. November 20, 1894), combined the brilliant pianist with the composer of genius. Had he not been preceded by Liszt as an epoch maker, he would undoubtedly have had the honor of being first of all great pianists.

Frederic F. Chopin, of Poland (b. March 1, 1809; d. October 17, 1849), was one of the first of pianists and musical composers. His playing, like his music, was marked by a strange and ravishing grace, and he was the great interpreter of the music of his native country. He composed concertos, waltzes, nocturnes, preludes, and mazurkas abounding in poetic fancy and subtle harmonic effects.

Jacques Offenbach, of France (b. June 21, 1819; d. October 4, 1880), was the chief creator of the opera bouffe, and was an astonishingly prolific composer. He stands for the clever, tactful musician, shrewd to perceive and quick to seize what catches the public ear for the time being.

Franz Liszt, of Hungary (b. October 22, 1811; d. July 31, 1886), ranks as one of the world’s phenomenal pianists. His strength and technique were prodigious, his magnetism irresistible, and his power over audiences unequaled. By his free, fantastic compositions he created a new school of composers. He gave extraordinary aid and inspiration to other musicians, and in reality brought Richard Wagner into prominence before the musical world.

Richard Wagner, of Germany (b. May 22, 1813; d. February 13, 1883), early abandoned Beethoven as an operatic model, and felt that a new era in music was about to dawn. His musical theories first found full swing in his famous opera of the “Nibelungen Ring,” with which, and kindred productions, he practically created the modern music-drama. In his operas he was sole author of their wonderful wealth of true poetry, stage effects, dramatic action, and endless melody. No musician has ever made such bitter foes and warm friends, and none ever had to fight his way so stubbornly to recognition.

Giuseppe Verdi, of Italy (b. October 9, 1813), is one of the most remarkable musical composers of the century, in the respect that his talent has not failed with age, but has kept pace with the great changes which have affected the dramatic stage since his youth. In the beauty of his melodies and the intensity of his dramatic powers he is unsurpassed. Very few, indeed, of his numerous productions have failed to hold exalted place in public estimation. His best-known works are “Il Trovatore,” “La Traviata,” “Rigoletto,” “Ballo in Maschera,” “Aïda,” “Otello,” and “Falstaff,” the latter written in 1893, when the author had reached the age of eighty.

Sovereigns.—William I., King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany, was the epoch-maker of the 19th century for his realm. He was son of Frederick William III., and born March 22, 1797. In 1849 he was made commander-in-chief of the Prussian army. He succeeded to the throne of Prussia in 1861, and immediately under the guidance of Bismarck set about those measures which were to end in the unification of the German states. These involved the war of 1866 with Austria, after which, in 1867 he became head of the powerful North German confederation, comprising 22 states, and a population of 29,000,000. Then followed the successful war with France, in 1871, which resulted in the complete realization of his idea of a united Germany, and on January 28, 1871, King William of Prussia was proclaimed Emperor of Germany, in the palace of the French kings, at Marseilles. He died March 9, 1888.

Victor Emmanuel. At the birth of Victor Emmanuel in 1820, Italy was a segregation of states or provinces, owned and played against one another by the chess-players of Europe. The policy of ambitious sovereigns to the north was to keep it divided and discordant. Victor Emmanuel became king of Sardinia at a time when Austria’s power was well-nigh supreme in the belligerent Italian states. His plea with Austria that the Sardinian constitution should be protected, and its success, aroused for him the confidence of the Italian people, and paved his way to the Italian crown. In 1852 he secured the services of the masterly Count Cavour, the Bismarck and Gladstone of Italy, for his premier and guide. Through Cavour’s influence France united with Sardinia against Austria. The war which followed and the peace of Villafranca completed Emmanuel’s task, and made him king of a united Italy, over which he reigned successfully for eight years, dying on January 9, 1878.

Czar Alexander II. The epoch-maker of Russia during the 19th century was Alexander II., born April 29, 1818. Of the many important events of his reign, which began in 1855, the most illustrious was the abolition of serfdom in his dominions, which gave freedom to 23,000,000 subjects. He was killed by anarchists in 1881.

Francis Joseph. This emperor of Austria-Hungary was born August 18, 1830, and succeeded to the throne of Austria in 1848, and of Hungary in 1867. Though defeated in wars with France, by which he lost Italian provinces, and with Germany by which he lost Schleswig-Holstein, he managed through an unprecedently long reign, in some part of which he was both emperor and legislature, to hold together an empire composed of heterogeneous Germans and Slavs, a task that would have proved impossible with a less wise and respected ruler. He survived the century, and the question also lived, what of the empire after his death?

Victoria, Queen and Empress. Alexandrina Victoria Guelph, whose reign was the longest in English annals, and covered the epoch-making time of Great Britain during the nineteenth century, was born in London, May 24, 1819. She was the daughter of the Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III. She became next in succession to the throne on the death of her uncle, King William IV., which occurred June 20, 1837. Her ancestry dated back to Egbert, A. D. 827. To the wisdom of her mother she owed a well-ordered, peaceful, and happy childhood, with a view to the possibility of the English throne. Special teachers were employed as her instructors, and she became proficient in music and drawing, as well as in the classic and modern languages. She became equally proficient in the English constitution and general history. In 1831, when, at the age of twelve, it was deemed necessary to acquaint her with the fact that she was heir presumptive to the throne, the genealogical table of the royal family was placed in her book of history. After a study of it, she remarked that she was nearer the throne than she had thought, and that the reasons for her course of mental training had become obvious.

About this time the young princess made her first appearance at court, and Parliament voted her an additional appropriation of $50,000 a year for her expenses. But as a rule her mother made use of the fast vanishing possibility of the birth of other heirs who would take precedence of her, to keep the child, as long as propriety would permit, out of the whirl of court life, and to allow her education to proceed without interruption. The consequence of this maternal discretion was that Victoria came to the throne in excellent physical and mental health.

She attained her legal majority—eighteen years—on May 24, 1837, and her birthday was celebrated throughout the country. On June 20, 1837, King William died childless. It became the immediate duty of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham to inform the young princess of her uncle’s death and her own right of accession. She held out her hand to the Archbishop to be kissed, and said, “I ask your prayers on my behalf.” A meeting of the privy council was called for eleven o’clock. The princess was known to but few of the members, and there was a universal desire to ascertain what manner of person she might be. She appeared before this august body of a hundred leading nobles and statesmen with modest composure, bowed to the lords, took her seat, and read her declaration. The members of the council were then sworn to allegiance, kneeling and kissing her hand. The foreign ambassadors were then received one by one. All were captivated by the easy dignity of their girl-queen. Her speech was generally remarked upon for its perfect elocution. Of her speech a few months after, upon the dissolution of Parliament, Charles Sumner, who heard it, said, “I was astonished and delighted. I think I never heard anything better read.” And of the same speech Fanny Kemble said: “I think it is impossible to hear a more excellent utterance than that of the Queen’s English by the English queen.”

Victoria promptly reformed her court, which was sadly in need of correction, and removed the royal residence to Windsor Castle. Public admiration for her ability and grace of manner grew into enthusiasm, so that on the day of her coronation at Westminster Abbey, June 28, 1838, the pageant was not only one of unsurpassed splendor, but the populace were described as “coronation mad.” This was the manifestation of a radically changed public sentiment as to royalty, for the eclipse of monarchy under the four Georges had long been accepted as a humiliating fact, and respect for the throne had been well-nigh lost during William’s reign. Altogether it was a bad time for a girlish queen to assume power; yet her guiding hand was soon favorably and powerfully felt, and it has been said by more than one good authority that her accession at that special crisis was the salvation of monarchy in Great Britain.

QUEEN VICTORIA IN 1840.

(After a painting by Wm. Fowler.)

Her prime minister, Lord Melbourne, received at an early date a touch of her quality, when, after vainly urging her to sign a certain document, he testily withdrew it with the remark that it was not of paramount importance. “Sir,” replied the queen instantly, “it is with me a matter of the most paramount importance whether or not I attach my signature to a document with which I am not thoroughly acquainted.” And on another occasion, when her signature was asked to a document on the ground of “expediency,” she replied, “I have been taught, My Lord, to judge between what is right and what is wrong, but expediency is a word I neither wish to hear nor to understand.” The beginning of her reign was coincident with the inauguration of transatlantic steam navigation. In the second year of her reign the Whig ministry, at whose head stood Lord Melbourne, lost its working majority in Parliament. The queen immediately summoned the Tory leader, Duke of Wellington, to form a new government. Wellington suggested Sir Robert Peel as better qualified for the task. He accepted, but when the queen found that the change would affect all the ladies of her Bedchamber and household she repudiated Peel, and recommissioned Melbourne. For this she and her premier were taunted as being at the head of what was called the “Bedchamber Plot.” Subsequently, when Peel succeeded Melbourne, the queen found in him and Wellington warm friends and trusted advisers. Among the other notable events of this year (1839) of her reign, were the formation of the Anti-Corn Law League, and the occupation of Cabul and Aden by the British forces.

The queen’s hand was sought in marriage by many kings, dukes, and princes of Europe. Her choice fell upon her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. It was a love-match, mingled with not a little diplomacy on the part of her aunt, the Duchess of Gloucester, and Albert’s uncle, King Leopold. The wedding was celebrated with stately splendor at the Chapel Royal in St. James’s Palace, on February 10, 1840. The marriage proved a happy one. All that the most affectionate and unselfish wife could be, she was to her husband. And the Prince Consort not only returned her affection in full, but became her faithful, laborious, vigilant, discreet adviser and helper, lifting from her shoulders the crushing load of state affairs, and opening a new era in her life. Careful and well informed observers have ranked Prince Albert among the statesmen of his day, and some have said that for the greater part of his twenty-one years of married life he was practically King of England.

On November 21, 1840, their first child, afterwards Empress Frederick of Germany, was born. An economic triumph of the year was the introduction of cheap postage in England. In 1841 Sir Robert Peel succeeded Lord Melbourne as premier. British arms greatly extended political and commercial influence in the Orient by the taking of Canton and Amoy. On November 9 the Prince of Wales, who, January 23, 1901, succeeded to his mother’s throne, was born. In 1842 two attempts were made to assassinate the queen. It became the foreign policy of the government not to further complicate the Indian question by pushing conquest in Afghanistan, so the British forces were withdrawn. The commercial prestige of England was greatly advanced in the Orient by the acquisition of Hong Kong as a port, and the general opening of all the Chinese ports to foreign trade. This year also witnessed the permanent foothold of Great Britain in South Africa, by absorbing the Boer republic of Natal.

On April 25, 1843, Princess Alice was born. British possessions in India were enlarged by the annexation of Scinde. The queen and her husband paid a friendly visit to Louis Philippe of France, and received a return visit. In 1845 Mr. Gladstone became premier. England and France joined in war against the Argentine republic. The year witnessed the outbreak of the formidable Sikh rebellion. In the following year, 1846, this rebellion was suppressed and the Sikh territory was ceded to the East India Company. The aggravated question of the Northwest boundary of the United States was settled by treaty. The great famine in Ireland, and a somewhat indignant public sentiment in England, conduced to the repeal of the Corn-laws. For several years the Irish situation was serious, famine and insurrection going hand in hand. In 1848 Princess Louise was born. The Sikh rebellion was renewed. The Boer territory in South Africa was further trenched upon, and the farmers trekt across the Vaal River to establish the Transvaal republic. In 1849 the queen paid her first visit to Ireland, the Sikh rebellion was suppressed, and the Punjaub was annexed to British India. 1850 witnessed the conclusion of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty with the United States. In 1851 the queen opened the great Exposition in London. In 1852 the first Derby ministry came into power. In 1854 Great Britain participated with France in the Crimean War against Russia. For several years the vigorous foreign policy of the government led to serious complications. In 1860 the Prince of Wales visited America. During the Civil War in the United States, the queen’s sympathies were with the Union cause, and the very last public act of the Prince Consort was to sign in the name of the queen the paper which modified the demand of the ministry upon the United States with reference to seizure of the Confederate envoys Mason and Slidell. The paper in its unmodified form would have been equivalent to a declaration of war by England.

Toward the end of 1861 Prince Albert’s strength began to fail, and on December 14 he passed away. His death was a severe blow to the queen and to the nation. Two years afterwards she wrote in a letter to Dean Stanley, “I can never be sufficiently thankful that I passed safely through those two years [the two first years of her reign] to my marriage. Then I was in a safe haven, and there I remained for twenty years. Now, that is over, and I am again at sea, always wishing to consult one who is not here, groping by myself, with a constant sense of desolation.”

In 1863 the Prince of Wales was married. For several years the government had serious trouble with the Fenian uprisings in Ireland and America. In 1867 the Dominion of Canada was constituted. 1868 witnessed a cabinet change from Derby to Disraeli, and from him to Gladstone; and the passage of a reform act for Scotland and Ireland. In 1874 Disraeli succeeded Gladstone as premier. In 1875 Great Britain acquired control of the Suez canal, and in 1876 the queen was proclaimed Empress of India. In 1879 Great Britain was carrying on war in India against revolting tribes, and in South Africa against the Zulus. Two years later (1881) she attacked the Boers of the Transvaal, but met with defeat. In 1885 there was a further loss of military prestige by withdrawal from the Soudan campaign. In 1887 the queen celebrated her semi-centennial jubilee, and ten years later (1897) her diamond jubilee. In 1900 she witnessed the consolidation of her Australasian colonies, and in 1901 the establishment of the Commonwealth of Australia. The closing years of her life were clouded by the attitude of her country in South Africa, and the losses of life and treasure entailed by the war with the Boers. It was said by many that her anxiety and grief over this situation hastened her death. Her last illness was brief and painless, and her death took place at Osborne, Isle of Wight, surrounded by her family, at 6.55 P.M. on January 22, 1901, in the eighty-second year of her age, and sixty-fourth of her reign.

Her death occasioned sincere mourning throughout the civilized world. She was succeeded by her oldest son, the Prince of Wales, who ascended the throne on January 23, 1901, and assumed the title of Edward VII. The queen and Prince Consort were ever anxious as to the education of their children. They were trained to industry and economy. The daughters were taught accomplishments as well as sewing and cooking, and were given to understand that they were not to marry without affection, nor for mere money or reasons of state. Victoria was herself a careful manager in pecuniary affairs. By thirty she had saved enough from her income to provide for the whole expense of her new place at Osborne, where she died,—about $1,000,000,—while for the Prince she had already saved from the revenues of her Cornwall estate, $500,000. The Prince left her a valuable estate which at her death had come to be estimated at $25,000,000. This, added to her own judicious investments through the sixty-four years of her reign, gave her rank as one of the wealthiest of sovereigns, as well as of the world’s persons.

Already the “Victorian era” is being celebrated as the greatest period of progress that Britain ever knew, as the golden age of England. And this with much propriety and truth, for her reign teemed with instances of the exercise of power in the form of moral influence, with results important and far reaching. Some of these instances showed statesmanship of a high order. She never took sides in partisan politics, nor antagonized the policy of her responsible ministers, though often advising them and even at times correcting their serious mistakes, never cheapening her advice by offering it in affairs of little moment, always straightforward, self-reliant, vigilant for the rights of the people, yet strenuous of law, neither misled by flattery, nor coerced by fear, a hater of evil, a maker of peace. More than once, in hours of crisis, did she exercise a moral influence whose weight turned the course of events in both Europe and America. As an instance of this, the modification of Lord Palmerston’s action in the Trent affair, already mentioned, may be referred to. And when Bismarck, surprised at the rapid recovery of France from the effects of the Franco-Prussian War, had resolved on a second invasion and humiliation, it was through Victoria’s intervention that the aged German emperor was influenced to refuse a renewal of hostilities.

If her reign pass into history as the “Victorian Era,” then it will truly have many interesting chapters, some grandly inspiring, others—for such there must be—widely open to the criticism and judgment of posterity. It witnessed the greatest achievement in invention, the greatest advancement in science and art, and the most remarkable evolution in the relations of capital and labor that the world has ever seen. No equal period of world-history has seen such unparalleled growth of a people, and such unexampled expansion of national territory. At the beginning of her reign the population of the Empire was 127,000,000. At her death it embraced 11,334,000 square miles and 384,000,000 people. The United Kingdom itself grew from 16,000,000 to 40,000,000 besides sending out its swarms of emigrants to people continents and isles. Commerce kept even pace with this advancement. British ships sailed every sea. England’s flag was known in every port of the world. During Victoria’s reign the foreign trade of Great Britain increased 420 per cent. The great cloud on the Victorian era was England’s wars,—the questionable Crimean War of 1853–55; the Indian mutiny of 1857, which ran a frightful course of rapine and bloodshed; the Soudanese campaign; the Boer War in South Africa.

Transcriber’s Notes

Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced quotation marks retained.

Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.

Many of the original illustrations were grainy and faded. In this eBook, the graininess has been reduced, when possible, and the contrast has been increased, when necessary.

Text frequently uses either “De” or “de” in people’s names.

The List of Illustrations had “Christmas Chimes” and “Whispers of Love” in the wrong sequence; corrected here.

The List of Illustrations omitted the portrait of Queen Victoria. It has been added by the Transcriber.

“Van’t Hoff” is consistently printed that way in the original book, and is shown that way here. It should be “Van ’t Hoff” with a space. There may be similar misprints of other names.

Page [109]: “growth—force” may be a misprint for “growth-force”.

Page [192]: Most of the illustration’s handwriting on this page is illegible.

Page [403]: “Bauken” was printed that way; probably refers to “Bautzen.”

Page [527]: The illustrated examples of the letters of the alphabet in the “Child’s Guide” were not in alphabetic order, and there was no example for “J”. In this eBook, the text accompanying those examples is presented in alphabetic sequence.