His mortal life a narrow space confines,
But glory with unbounded lustre shines.
Those virtuous souls, who shed their noble blood
A willing off'ring to the public good,
Who to their country's welfare freely give
The sacrifice of life, forever live
As bright examples to the unborn brave,
To shew how virtue rescues from the grave.
The noblest act the patriot's fame can tell,
Is, that he bravely for his country fell.
Thus sung the missionary bard, and paid
This mournful tribute to the mighty dead.
[DR. CHARLES CALDWELL]
Dr. Charles Caldwell, versatile and voluminous writer of prose, was born at Caswell, North Carolina, May 14, 1772. He entered the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania, in 1792; and he won the city's gratitude in the following year by his medical services during the yellow fever epidemic. In 1810 Dr. Caldwell became professor of natural history in the University of Pennsylvania; and four years later he succeeded Nicholas Biddle (1786-1844) as editor of The Port-Folio, a Philadelphia magazine of high character. In 1819 Dr. Caldwell came to Lexington, Kentucky, to accept the chair of materia medica in Transylvania University. Some months later he was sent to Europe to purchase books and apparatus for his department. He returned to Transylvania and continued there until 1837, when he removed to Louisville and established a medical institute. Some years later he and the trustees disagreed and he left. After leaving the institute, Dr. Caldwell continued to reside at Louisville, in which city he died, July 9, 1853. Dr. Caldwell was the first distinguished American practitioner of phrenology, if he did not actually discover this alleged science. From 1794 until his death, Dr. Caldwell was an indefatigable literary worker. He was the author of more than two hundred pamphlets, essays, and books. He translated Blumenbach's Elements of Physiology (1795); Bachtiar Nameh (1813), a Persian tale which he translated from the Arabic; edited Cullen's Practice of Physic (1816); Memoirs of the Life and Campaigns of the Hon. [General] Greene (Philadelphia, 1819); Elements of Phrenology (1824); A Discourse on the Genius and Character of the Rev. Horace Holley, LL.D., late President of Transylvania University (Boston, 1828); and Thoughts and Experiments on Mesmerism (1842).
Bibliography. His Autobiography (Philadelphia, 1855), published posthumously, has been regarded by many as an unfortunate work, as in it he made some rather severe pictures of his contemporaries. That the work contains much excellent writing, and is often very happy in the descriptions of the country through which the author passed, no one has arisen to gainsay; Autobiography of Samuel D. Gross, M. D. (Philadelphia, 1887, v. ii).
GENERAL GREENE'S EARLY LIFE
[From Memoirs of the Life and Campaigns of the Hon. Nathaniel Greene (Philadelphia, 1819)]
Nathaniel Greene, although descended from ancestors of elevated standing, was not indebted to the condition of his family for any part of the real lustre and reputation he possessed. As truly as is the case with any individual, he was the founder of his own fortune, and the author of his own fame. He was the second son of Nathaniel Greene, an anchor-smith, of considerable note, who is believed to have had the earliest establishment of the kind erected in America, and, by persevering industry in the line of his profession, an extensive and lucrative concern in iron-works, and some success in commercial transactions, had acquired a sufficiency to render him comfortable, if not wealthy.
He was born in the year 1741, in the town of Warwick, and county of Kent, in the province of Rhode Island. As far as is known, his childhood passed without any peculiar or unequivocal indications of future greatness. But this is a point of little moment. The size of the oak it is destined to produce, can rarely be foretold from an examination of the acorn. Nor is it often that any well defined marks of genius in the child afford a premonition of the eminence of the man.