[Nathan Covington Brooks, A.M., LL.D.]
The following sketch is principally from the Third Volume of Biographical Sketches of Eminent Americans.
“Nathan Covington Brooks, the youngest son of John and Mary Brooks, was born in West Nottingham, Cecil county, Maryland, on the 12th of August, 1809. His education was commenced at the West Nottingham Academy, then under the charge of Rev. James Magraw, D.D., and subsequently he graduated as Master of Arts, at St. John’s College, Annapolis, Md. His thesis was a poem on the World’s Changes. Diligent and persevering in his studies, his rapid progress and high attainments won the regard of his teachers, while his amiable manners endeared him to his classmates. While his principal delight was in the study of the Classics, he devoted much attention to mathematics and other studies. Like many other writers, some of his earliest efforts were in verse. Indeed it may be said of him, as of Pope, that he ‘lisped in rhyme.’
Though we have no Shakespeares, or Miltons, or Byrons, there is no scarcity of literary amateurs who, in their hours of recreation and dalliance with letters, betake themselves to poetry as an amusement for their leisure hours or a solace amid the rude trials of life. High in the rank of these writers of occasional poetry stands Dr. Brooks. Nature, in all her forms, he has made the subject of close observation and profound reflection, and in looking at Nature, he has used his own eyes and not the spectacles of other writers. He has a keen relish for the beautiful, and a deep sympathy with the truthful and the good. His taste, formed on the finest models, has been ripened and chastened by a patient study of the great monuments of antiquity. His thoughts seem to be the natural development of his mind; and his words the unstudied expression of his thoughts. The music of his verse reminds us sometimes of the soft cadences of Hemans, and not unfrequently of the mournful harp of Byron.”
In his eighteenth year he was a contributor of prose and poetry to the Minerva and Emerald, and Saturday Post, of Baltimore; subsequently contributed to The Wreath, Monument, Athenæum, and Protestant, of the same city. In 1830 he edited The Amethyst, an annual and soon after became a contributor of prose and poetry to Atkinson’s Casket, and The Lady’s Book, of which latter he was the first paid contributor; wrote for Burton’s Magazine, and Graham’s, The New York Mirror, The Ladies’ Companion, and the Home Journal; and the following annuals, The Gift, The Christian Keepsake, and The Religious Souvenir. He contributed also prose and poetry to The Southern Literary Messenger, The Southern Quarterly of New Orleans, The London Literary Gazette, and The London Court Journal.
In 1837 Marshall, of Philadelphia, published a volume of his religious poems, entitled “Scriptural Anthology.” In 1840, Kay Brothers, of Philadelphia, published a volume of his prose and poetry, under the name of “The Literary Amaranth.” Besides these Dr. Brooks has edited a series of Greek and Latin classics, has written four volumes on religious subjects, one on “Holy Week,” just issued from the press, “The History of the Mexican War,” which was translated into German, “Battles of the Revolution,” etc.
In his literary career he has won three prizes that will be cherished as heirlooms in the family, a silver pitcher, for the best prose tale, entitled “The Power of Truth,” and two silver goblets, one a prize for the poem entitled “The Fall of Superstition,” the other a prize for a poem, “The South-sea Islander,” for which fifteen of our leading poets were competitors.
Though in his leisure moments Dr. Brooks has achieved so much in literature, his profession has been that of an educator, in which he has had the mental training of males and females to the number of five or six thousand. In 1824, he was appointed to the village school in Charlestown, Cecil county, in 1826, established a private school in Baltimore city; in 1831 was elected principal of the Franklin Academy, Reistertown, and in 1834 principal of the Brookesville Academy, Montgomery county, both endowed by the State; in 1839, he was unanimously elected over forty-five applicants as principal of the Baltimore City High School which position he held for nine years, until asked by the Trustees of the Baltimore Female College, in 1848, to accept the organization of the institution. The College is chartered and endowed by the State of Maryland, has graduated over three hundred young ladies, and trained and sent forth two hundred teachers. Emory College, Oxford, Georgia, conferred the degree of LL.D., on Professor Brooks in 1859, and in 1863 his name was presented, with others, for the presidency of Girard College. Though Major Smith, a Philadelphian of an influential family, was elected president, Professor Brooks received more votes than any of the other competitors. In 1827, he married Mary Elizabeth, eldest daughter of William Gobright, a lady of great beauty and excellence, and in 1867, married Christiana Octavia, youngest daughter of Dr. William Crump, of Virginia. Of the former union four sons and two daughters are living; of the latter union a son. The following poems are selected as specimens of his style.
[The Mother to Her Dead Boy.]
The flowers you reared repose in sleep
With folded bells where the night-dews weep,
And the passing wind, like a spirit, grieves
In a gentle dirge through the sighing leaves.
The sun will kiss the dew from the rose,
Its crimson petals again unclose,
And the violet ope the soft blue ray
Of its modest eye to the gaze of day;
But when will the dews and shades that lie
So cold and damp on thy shrouded eye,
Be chased from the folded lids, my child,
And thy glance break forth so sweetly wild?