He then turned dramatic writer, in which he was more fortunate, some of his plays being very popular at the time. Besides these productions, he wrote several novels, and translated a number of works from the French and German languages. At the commencement of the French revolution, he espoused the cause of the republicans, and was committed for high treason; but when Hardy, Tooke, and Thelwall, were acquitted, he was discharged, without trial. His last speculation was a publication of his travels in Germany and France, in two volumes quarto. Many of his works exhibit high talents, and have an established popularity in England. He died in 1809.
REV. WILLIAM CAREY, D. D.
This eminent Christian missionary, and distinguished oriental scholar, was born at Paulerspury, Northamptonshire, England, in 1761. He followed the business of shoemaking in early life, during which time, he learned several languages, studying with his books by his side while at work. A gentleman in New York, has preserved in his library, among the works of Dr. Carey, a pair of shoes made by him.
Dr. Carey commenced preaching as a baptist minister in 1783; in 1793 he embarked as a missionary to India, and in 1799, he took up his residence at the Danish settlement of Serampore, which became celebrated for being the seat of this mission which was sustained by Carey, Ward, and Marshman.
Dr. Carey’s philological labors in preparing grammars and dictionaries of different languages, and in making versions of the Scriptures, were immense. He lived to see the sacred Text, chiefly by his instrumentality, translated into the vernacular dialects of more than forty different tribes, and thus made accessible to nearly two hundred millions of human beings. In addition to his extensive philological learning, Dr. Carey was well versed in natural history and botany, and made valuable communications to the Asiatic society, of which he was for twenty-eight years a member. He died at Serampore, in Hindostan, June 9, 1834, in his seventy-third year.
GEORGE FOX.
George Fox, the founder and first preacher of the Christian sect of Friends, or Quakers, was born at Drayton, Leicestershire, England, in 1624. He was bound by his father, who was a weaver, to a shoemaker and grazier; and the occupation of his youth was divided between shoemaking and the tending of sheep. He did not, however, long follow either of these occupations, as, in 1643, he began his wandering life; and, after retiring to solitude, and at other times frequenting the company of religious and devout persons, he became a public preacher in 1647 or 1648. In his pious zeal, Fox visited, not only England, Ireland, and Scotland, but he extended his travels to Holland and Germany, to the American colonies and the West India islands. He died in London, in 1690. His journal was printed in 1694, his epistles in 1698, his doctrinal pieces, about one hundred and fifty in number, in 1706. The name of quakers was first given to him and his followers, at Derby, in England.
REV. JAMES NICHOL.
James Nichol, of Traquair, Selkirkshire, Scotland, was the son of a shoemaker, and he also learned the same trade of his father, and continued to labor at it, in the summer vacations, after he had entered college. With the manners of a gentleman, Mr. Nichol possessed uncommon talents. He was a most able and eloquent pulpit orator; an eminent scholar; and an acute, ingenious, and liberal theologian. In early life he published two or three volumes of poems, of considerable celebrity. He wrote several articles in one of the encyclopedias, and in various periodicals; and left a number of theological and literary works for publication.