Archibald Alexander, D.D., LL. D., late Professor of Theology in the Seminary of the Presbyterian Church at Princeton, in New Jersey, was born on the 17th of April, 1772, on the banks of a small tributary of the James River, called South River, and near the western foot of the Blue Ridge, in that part of Augusta County, Virginia, which has since, from the great natural curiosity it contains, been named Rockbridge. He was descended by both parents from Presbyterians of Scotland, who emigrated first to Ireland, and thence to America. He was educated at Liberty Hall Academy, which has since become Washington College, under the instructions of the founder of that institution, Rev. William Graham, an able and eminent preacher and professor. Besides Mr. Graham, his classical teachers were James Priestly, afterward President of Cumberland College, Tennessee, and Archibald Roane, afterward Governor of Tennessee. In the summer of 1789, he joined in the full communion of the church, and commenced the study of theology under Mr. Graham, who had a class of six or eight students. He was licensed to preach by this Presbytery of Lexington, October 1, 1791, and was ordained on the 5th of May, 1795. Part of the intervening years he spent in itinerant labors in Virginia, and in that region which is now Ohio. In the spring of 1797 he became President of Hampden Sydney College, in the County of Prince Edward, at the same time being pastor of the churches of Briery and Cumberland. He was now but twenty-five years old, and it may safely be alleged that there was never won in this country, at so early an age, a more brilliant or a purer reputation. His arduous and responsible duties were discharged with industry and energy, equal to his abilities, until health gave way, and, in the spring of 1801, he resigned these charges, in well-grounded apprehension of a settled pulmonary consumption. The summer of 1802 was spent by Mr. Alexander in travelling on horseback through New England, and by this means he so far recovered his health as to resume the Presidency of the College and the charge of his parishes. About the same time he was married to Janette Waddell, second daughter of Rev. Jonas Waddell, D.D., that remarkable preacher whose blindness and eloquence have been celebrated by Mr. Wirt in The British Spy. In the Autumn of 1806 he received a call from the Third Presbyterian Church, at the corner of Pine and Fourth-sts., in Philadelphia. Though he had declined an invitation to the same church ten years before, he accepted this, and thus became a second time the successor of the Rev. John Blair Smith, D.D. He continued at this post until, in the spring of 1812, he was summoned by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church to be the first Professor in the Theological Seminary then just founded at Princeton. This chair, we believe, he occupied until his death—until within a few weeks, at least, discharging all its honorable duties. It is a pleasing fact that the first two Professors in this Institution were associated in its service nearly forty years. During this period a large number of clergymen have proceeded from the seminary, and it has now not far from one hundred and fifty students. It is important to observe that it has no connection with the College of New Jersey, at the same place. The eminent usefulness of Dr. Alexander is not to be measured by the long and wise discharge of his duties as a professor. He was a voluminous, very able and popular writer. In addition to occasional sermons and discourses, and numerous smaller treatises, he wrote constantly for The Princeton Review, a quarterly miscellany of literature, and theological and general learning, of the highest character, which is now in the twenty-seventh year of its publication. His work on The Evidences of the Christian Religion has passed through numerous editions in Great Britain as well as in America, and this, as well as his Treatise on the Canon of Scripture, which has also been republished abroad, we believe, has appeared in two or three other languages. The substance of the latter has, however, been incorporated with more recent editions of the former, under the title of Evidences of the Authenticity, Inspiration and Canonical Authority of the Holy Scriptures, of which a fifth edition—the last we have seen—was published in Philadelphia in 1847. Among his other works are Thoughts on Religion; a Compend of Bible Truth; and a History of Colonization on the Western Coast of Africa—the last an octavo volume of more than six hundred pages, published in Philadelphia in 1846. His principal writings, however, have been on practical religion and on the History and Biography of the Church, and these for the most part have been published anonymously. Dr. Alexander was the father of six sons, of whom three are clergymen. The eldest, James W. Alexander, D.D., for several years Professor in the College of New Jersey, and sometime Pastor of the Duane-street Church in this city, is a fine scholar and an able preacher, and has enrolled himself among the benefactors of the people by many writings of the highest practical value designed to elevate the condition of the laboring classes to the true dignity of citizenship and a Christian life. Another is Rev. Joseph Addison Alexander, D.D., Professor of Oriental Literature in the Theological Seminary at Princeton, and author of the well-known works on the Earlier and the Later Prophecies of Isaiah. He is generally regarded as one of the most profound and sagacious scholars of the present age. The late venerable Professor was undoubtedly one of those who, by the union of a most Christian spirit and a faultless life to great abilities, have been deserving of the praise of doing most for the advancement of true religion.
Dr. J. Kearney Rogers, for a long time one of the most able and respected physicians and surgeons of New-York, died on the 9th of November. He was born in New-York in 1793, graduated at Princeton in 1811, studied medicine in Edinburgh, London, and Paris, and returning to New York was the friend and associate of Dr. Post, Dr. Hossack, Dr. Francis, Dr. Delafield, and other eminent members of his profession, in establishing medical and surgical institutions, &c. He has left no writings in print or MS. for the public.
The Rev. William Croswell, D.D., Rector of the Church of the Advent, in Boston, died in that city very suddenly, on the evening of Sunday, November 9, having preached and administered the sacrament of baptism during the day. Dr. Croswell was born in New-Haven, Connecticut, on the 7th of November, 1804, was the son of the Rev. Dr. Croswell of that city, and was educated at Yale College, where he was graduated in the summer of 1824. He was subsequently, for two years, associated with Dr. Doane, now Bishop of New Jersey, in the editorship of the Episcopal Watchman at Hartford, after which he removed to Boston, and was for several years minister of Christ's Church, in that city. He then became rector of St. Peter's, in Auburn, New York, and at length returned to Boston, where his numerous warm friends gladly welcomed his settlement as minister of the Church of the Advent. Dr. Croswell was a scholar, and possessed a fine taste in literature, with very unusual powers as a writer. Among his poems, are many of remarkable grace and sweetness, and a few evincing a happy vein of satire. His poems are nearly all religious, and Bishop Doane, in a note to his edition of Keble's "Christian Year," remarks that "he has more unwritten poetry in him" than any man he knows. We hope Bishop Doane will commemorate his friendship, and the genius and virtues of Dr. Croswell, in a memoir, and collection of his works.
Dr. Granville Sharpe Pattison, an eminent teacher of anatomy, died in New York, after a short illness, on the 12th of November, in the sixty-first year of his age. He was born near Glasgow, in Scotland, where his father was a cotton spinner, and was educated in that city, studying surgery under the late eminent Professor John Burns. On obtaining his degree, he commenced the practice of his profession in Glasgow, with prospects of eminent success, and soon became one of the surgeons of the Andersonian Institution, and a lecturer on anatomy. An unfortunate domestic affair, of which the details may be learned from the report of a trial which resulted in the divorce of Prof. Andrew Ure from his wife, in 1819, caused Dr. Pattison to come to the United States. He settled in Baltimore, where he resumed his profession as a lecturer on anatomy; and, going afterwards to England, he became a professor in the medical school connected with the London University. He continued but a short time in England, and on returning to this country he accepted the place of Professor of Anatomy in the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, which he filled successfully until 1840, when he was made Professor of Anatomy in the Medical School connected with the New-York University—an office which he held until his death, having delivered his last lecture but a week before that event. Dr. Pattison was a man of fine social qualities, and was one of the best lecturers in this country. His published writings display the best capacities for his vocation—are shrewd, judicious, and happily delivered—but for the most part fragmentary. His editions of Cruveilhier's Anatomy of the Human Body, Mase's Anatomical Atlas, and other works, are well known, and he wrote many important papers in the American Medical Recorder, besides several pamphlets of a personal character.
Mr. Stephens, the author of "Martinuzzi," and the "Manuscripts of Erdely," died on the 8th of October, in Camden-town. He was in his fifty-first year, and, in early life, had produced several tragic dramas that commanded the attention of critics, both foreign and native. Schlegel abroad, and "minor Beddoes" at home, praised his tragedies of "Montezuma" and the "Vampire;" and, at a later period, his "Gertrude and Beatrice" excited, among the few who take an interest in dramatic poetry, great admiration. His last work consisted of "Dramas for the Stage," in two volumes, but it was only privately circulated. Mr. Stephens' dramatic poetry was distinguished by intense passion and fervor; but at the early part of his career, he lacked the constructive power. Finding that the stage monopoly, so long existing, was an effectual bar to the higher original drama being produced, he joined, about the year 1841, a guild of zealous literary young men, who were bent on doing something towards theatrical reform. Mrs. Warner and Mr. Phelps united themselves to these dramatic aspirants; and the result was, that the Lyceum Theatre was taken for a month, for the performance of a new five-act tragedy, notwithstanding the existing law to the contrary. The tragedy was licensed as an opera in three acts, and was at length acted with some of the songs retained. This retention of musical irrelevancies, in obedience to the law, while it made the law itself absurd, could not fail of injuring the drama in which they were introduced; and, had its merits not been extraordinary, "Martinuzzi," under such circumstances, could not have lived a single night. As it was, it struggled through the month, making partisans to the experiment, though at the sacrifice of the author's means and feelings. Mr. Stephens accepted the martyrdom freely, and went through it nobly, for the sake of the cause which to his death he held sacred. Moreover, he would have continued the contest, but that he was strongly advised to the contrary by Mr. Sheridan Knowles, and Mr. John A. Heraud, the latter of whom had been actively engaged in getting up "Martinuzzi," but thought that sufficient demonstration had been made. In this he was right, as it subsequently proved; for, shortly after, in conjunction with Mr. Edward Mayhew and some other gentlemen, he was a party to the drawing up, in committee, of a bill for the liberation of the stage, the draft of which was forwarded to Sir Robert Peel, who placed it in the hands of Lord Mahon, by whom it was carried through Parliament; and thus every theatre was enabled legally to perform the Shakspearian and five-act drama. Mr. George Stephens himself, sick of dramatic disappointment, turned his ardent mind into a new channel, and became involved in railway speculations, and in them lost his fortune. His latter days were accordingly passed in narrow circumstances, accompanied with physical prostration quite deplorable. They who had benefited by his exertions, neglected him. His love for the drama and power of composition remained uninjured, but encouragement attached itself to younger candidates. His high principle, determined courage, personal pride and fortitude, however, continued with him to the last; and as he was a pious and religious man, he bore suffering and neglect not only with patience, but with confidence that the good cause in which he had labored would ultimately prosper.