Y industry, perseverance, and integrity, working in harmony with genius and

schoolmaster, became a "Count of the Holy Roman Empire," and a companion of kings and philosophers. He was born at Woburn, Massachusetts, on the 28th of March, 1753. His widowed mother was in comfortable circumstances, and the common school furnished him with an elementary education. He was a merchant's clerk, at Salem, for awhile, and then commenced the study of medical science in his native town. He attended lectures at Cambridge, in 1771, and employed a portion of his time in teaching schools, first at Wilmington, and then at Bradford. He was finally invited to take charge of a school at Rumford (now Concord), in New Hampshire. The fame of his philosophical experiments already made preceded him, and his handsome face, noble person, and grace of manners, made him a favorite. Before he was twenty years of age, he was the husband of a young and wealthy widow, daughter of Rev. Timothy Walker, minister of the town. His talent and this connection gave him high social position, at once, and he found leisure to pursue scientific investigations. Thus he was employed when the storms of the Revolution began to gather darkly. The time came when he must make public choice of party-be active, or suffer suspicion. With conscientious motives, he declined to act with the

Whigs. His neutrality was construed as opposition, and he was finally compelled to fly, for personal safety, to the protection of the British, in Boston, leaving behind him all he held most dear on earth-mother, wife, child, friends, and fortune. That persecution, under Providence, led to his greatness.

Mr. Thompson remained in Boston until the Spring of 1776, when General Howe sent him to England with important despatches for the British ministry concerning the evacuation of the New England capital. The ministry appreciated his worth, and scientific men sought his acquaintance. He was offered public employment, and accepted it; and in less than four years after he landed in England, a homeless exile, he was made Under-Secretary of State. In 1782, he was in America a short time, but could not see his family. The following year he went to Germany, bearing letters of introduction from eminent men in England. He was introduced to the Elector of Bavaria, who at once offered him honorable employment in his service. He repaired to England to ask permission to accept it, received the favor, and was knighted by the king. Soon after his return to Munich he entered upon public service, and the “Yankee schoolmaster," like Joseph, became the second man in the kingdom. The Elector made him Lieutenant-General; Commander-in-chief of the Staff; Minister of War; Member of the Council of State; a Knight of Poland; Member of the Academy of Sciences in three cities; Commander-in-chief of the General Staff; Superintendent of the Police of Bavaria, and Chief of the Regency during the sovereign's compulsory absence, in 1796. He accomplished great civil and military reforms, in Bavaria; and during his ten years' service, he produced such salutary changes in the condition of the people, that he won the unbounded love and admiration of all classes. When, in 1796, Munich was assailed by an Austrian army, Sir Benjamin Thompson commanded the Bavarian troops, and he conducted the defence so successfully that he won the highest praises throughout Europe. The Bavarian monarch attested his appreciation of his great services, by creating him a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. He chose the name of the birth-place of his wife and child for his title, and henceforth he was known as Count of Rumford.

In 1792, Sir Benjamin had heard of the death of his wife. He had soon afterward visited England, on account of ill-health, where he remained some time, engaged in scientific pursuits. From there, in 1794, he wrote to his daughter, the infant he left behind, to join him. She did so, early in 1796. She was then a charming girl of twenty years, and, with a father's pride, he conveyed her to Munich, introduced her at court, and placed her at the head of his household. Ill health again compelled him to travel, and he went to England, bearing the highly honorable commission of Bavarian minister at the court of St. James. He could not be received, as such, for the laws of English citizenship would not allow it. At about that time he received an invitation from the American government to visit his native land. Circumstances prevented his compliance, and he again went to Munich, where he remained until the death of the Elector, in 1799, when he quitted Bavaria forever. He went to Paris, married the widow of the celebrated Lavoisier, and at a beautiful villa at Auteil, near Paris, he passed the remainder of his days in literary and scientific pursuits, and in the society of the most learned men in Europe. There he died, on the 21st of August, 1814, in the sixty-second year of his age. His daughter inherited his

1. He established a military workhouse at Manheim, and, by stringent, yet benevolent regulations, he almost totally abolished vagrancy and mendicity from Munich, which had ever been noted for these nuisances. In the exercise of his good taste and enterprise, he greatly adorned and beautified Munich. A barren waste near the city was converted into a charming park for the enjoyment of the people, and there pleasure-gardens bloomed. To express their gratitude for these various reformatory efforts, the nobility and other principal inhabitants of Munich erected a handsome monument, with appropriate inscriptions upon it, commemorative of his deeds, within the beautiful pleasure-grounds he had given

them.

STEPHEN GIRARD.

2

271

large fortune, and the title of Countess of Rumford. After many vicissitudes in Europe, she returned to her native land, and died at Concord, on the 2d of December, 1852, at the age of seventy years. The death of Count Rumford, says Professor Renwick, deprived "mankind of one of its eminent benefactors, and science of one of its brightest ornaments."

STEPHEN GIRARD.

IT

is honorable to be wealthy, when wealth is honorably acquired, and when it is used for laudable or noble purposes. One of the most eminent possessors of great riches, among the comparatively few in this country, was Stephen Girard of Philadelphia, where the memory of his opulence is perpetuated by a college bearing his name. He was a native of France, and was born near Bordeaux, on the 24th of May, 1750. He was the child of a peasant, and the only school in which he was educated was the great world of active life. When about eleven years of age he left his native country, and sailed as a cabin-boy for the West Indies. He afterward went to New York, and spent several years in voyages between that port and the West Indies and New Orleans, as cabinboy, seaman, mate, and finally as master. Having saved some money, he opened a small shop in Philadelphia, in 1769, and the next year he married the beautiful daughter of a caulker. His own asperity of temper made their connubial life unhappy. She became insane, in 1790, and died in the Philadelphia hospital, in 1815, leaving no children.

After his marriage, Girard occasionally sailed to the West Indies, as master of his own vessel. On one occasion he was captured, and, after awhile, returned home poor. After the war of the Revolution, he and his brother carried on a profitable trade with St. Domingo; and on their dissolution of partnership, Stephen continued the business on his own account. While two of his vessels were there, in 1804, the great revolt of the negroes, which resulted in the massacre of the white people, took place. Many planters who sent their valuables on board his vessels never lived to claim them, for whole families were destroyed. A large sum of money was thus placed in his possession and never called for. He afterward engaged extensively and successfully in the East India trade; and, in 1812, he opened his own private bank, in Philadelphia, with a capital of one million two hundred thousand dollars. When the new United States Bank was started, in 1816, he subscribed for stock to the amount of over three millions of

1. In addition to ample provisions for his mother, Count Rumford gave the American Academy of Arts and Sciences five thousand dollars, in 1796, and also very liberally endowed a professorship in Harvard University. The Rumford Professorship in that institution was established in 1816.

2. The residence of Miss Sarah Thompson, Countess of Rumford, was a beautiful villa on the banks of the Merrimac, south of the village of Concord. A gentleman of the highest respectability, who was intimately acquainted with that lady, informs me that it was her firm belief that her father did not die in France, as is supposed. She related that on hearing of the death of her father, she repaired to Auteuil, but the servants could not show his grave, and their conduct appeared mysterious. She afterward went to England, and lived in a house that belonged to her father, at Brompton, and which was bequeathed to her in his Will. An adjoining landholder soon afterward claimed the property, and took legal steps to eject her. Without solicitation on her part, one of the most distinguished lawyers in London espoused her cause, secured a verdict in her favor, and refused any compensation. Fourteen years after the reported death of her father, the Countess, while repairing her house, was looking out of a window upon a neighboring dwelling, when she plainly saw the Count at a window. He immediately stepped back, out of sight. When she recovered from her surprise, she rushed to the street, and hastened toward the house where she saw her father. At that moment he stepped into a coach, and she never saw him afterward. The Countess fully believed that he had probably become entangled in some political coil in France, found it necessary to retire from the world, had his death reported, and lived incognito in London, and sometimes at Brompton. She believed that he had kept a vigilant eye over her welfare, and that he employed and paid the eminent London barrister, who managed her suit at Brompton. She died in the belief that her father was yet alive, în 1828, when she so distinctly saw him at Brompton.

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON.

dollars, which immensely augmented in value. finally reached four millions of dollars. In all his pecuniary transactions, Mr. The capital of his own bank Girard was successful, if accumulation is the test of success. fortune of about nine millions of dollars, a very small portion of which was beHe left behind a queathed to his relatives. Few of them received more than ten thousand dollars cach, except a favorite niece, to whom he gave sixty thousand dollars. The city of Philadelphia, in trust, was his chief legatee. He left two millions of dollars, "or more if necessary," to build and endow a college for the education and maintenance of "poor male orphan children," to be "received between the ages of six and ten, and to be bound out between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, to suitable occupations, as those of agriculture, navigation, arts, mechanical trades, and manufactures." Mr. Girard died in Philadelphia, of influ

enza, on the 26th of December, 1831, in the eighty-second year of his age.

BAR

JOHN JAMES AUDUBON.

ARON CUVIER, the great naturalist, paid a just tribute of praise to Audubon's work, The Birds of America, when he said, "It is the most gigantic and most magnificent monument that has ever been erected to Nature." man who reared it possessed genius of the highest order, and his name and deeds Tho will be remembered as long as the Bird of Washington soars in the firmament, or the swallow twitters in the barn.

John James Audubon was born in New Orleans, on the 4th of May, 1780, of French parents in opulent circumstances. From infantile years he was ever delighted with the song and plumage of birds; and his educated father fostered that taste which afterward led him to fame, by describing the habits of the tenants of the woods, and explaining the peculiarities of different species. At the age of fifteen years young Audubon was sent to Paris to complete his education. There he enjoyed instruction in art, for two years, under the celebrated David. When about eighteen years of age he returned to America, and soon afterward his father gave him a farm on the banks of the Schuylkill, at the mouth of Perkioming creek, not far from Philadelphia. His time was chiefly spent in forest roamings, with his gun and drawing materials. The study of birds had become a passion, and the endearments of a home, presided over by a young wife, could not keep him from the woods, whither he went at early dawn, and returned wet with the evening dews.

In 1809, Mr. Audubon went to Louisville, Kentucky, to reside, where he remained about two years in a mercantile connection, but spending most of his time in the woods. There, in March, 1810, he first saw Wilson, the great ornithologist.? A few months afterward he moved further up the Ohio to the verge of the wilderness, and then commenced in earnest that nomadic life in the prosecution of his great study, which marked him as a true hero. With gun, knapsack, and drawing materials, he traversed the dark forests and pestiferous fens, sleeping

1. Mr. Girard has been much censured because he directed, in his Will, "that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister, of any sect whatsoever, shall ever hold or exercise any station or duty whatever in said college; nor shall any such person ever be admitted, for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the purpose of said college." Mr. Girard immediately explained, by averring that he did not mean to cast any reflection upon any sect or person whatever." In view of the clashing doctrines of various sects, he desired "to keep the tender minds of the orphans" free from those excitements. He required the instructors to teach the purest morality, in all its forms, and summed up his object by saying that he wished the pupils, when they left the college, to adopt "at the same time, such religious tenets as their matured reason may enable them to prefer."

2. See sketch of Wilson.

beneath the broad canopy of heaven, procuring food with his rifle, and cooking it when hunger demanded appeasement, and undergoing, day after day, the greatest fatigues and privations. For months and years he thus wandered, from the shores of the Gulf of Mexico to the rocky coasts of Labrador, studying and preserving, with no other motive than the gratification of a great controlling passion. It was not until after an interview with Charles Lucien Bonaparte, the eminent ornithologist, in 1824, that Audubon experienced a desire for fame, and thought of publishing the results of his labors. Thus far his mature life had been devoted to the worship of Nature in one of its most beautiful and interesting forms, and the devotee was entirely lost to himself in the excess of his emotions. Now a new world opened before him. He made another tour of eighteen months' duration; and, in 1826, he sailed for England to make arrangements for publishing some of his drawings and descriptive notices. The portraits of birds were of life size, and their exhibition produced a great sensation among artists and literary men, in Great Britain. He was received with enthusiasm, especially at Edinburgh, where true genius has always been appreciated, and there he made an arrangement for the engraving of his pictures. Subscriptions to his work, amounting to about eighty thousand dollars, were speedily obtained, and