W Joseppottery JOSEPH STORY. HATEVER subject he touched was touched with a master's hand and spirit. He employed his eloquence to adorn his learning, and his learning to give solid weight to his eloquence. He was always instructive and interesting, and rarely without producing an instantaneous conviction. A lofty ambition of excellence, that stirring spirit which breathes the breath of Heaven, and pants for immortality, sustained his genius in its perilous course." These were the beautiful words of Judge Story when speaking of a noble companion in profession who had just passed from earth, and they may, with earnest truth, be applied to the now departed jurist himself. Joseph Story was born at Marblehead, Massachusetts, on the 18th of September, 1779. He pursued academic studies under the Rev. Dr. Harris (afterward president of Columbia College, New York), and entered Harvard University, as a student, in 1795. He was graduated there in 1798, studied law, was admitted to the bar, in 1801, and made Salem his place of residence and professional practice. His fine talent was speedily appreciated, and he soon possessed an extensive and lucrative practice. He was often opposed to the most eminent lawyers of the day, who were Federalists, he having become attached to the Democratic In 1805, he was chosen party at the commencement of his professional career. to represent Salem in the Massachusetts legislature, and was annually reëlected 13 290 CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. to that station until 1811, when he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. In the meanwhile (1809-10) he had served a few months in the Federal Congress, as representative of the district in which he resided. During that brief congressional career, he was distinguished for his talent and energy, especially in his efforts to obtain a repeal of the famous Embargo Act. Mr. Jefferson regarded Mr. Story as the chief instrument in procuring the repeal of that act, so obnoxious in its operations upon the commerce and manufactures of New England.' Mr. Story was only thirty-two years of age when President Madison made him an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and from that time he discarded party politics, and labored incessantly to become eminently useful as a jurist. He was a worthy coadjutor of the illustrious Marshall, and in commercial and constitutional law he had no peer upon the bench of the Federal judiciary. In 1820, Judge Story was a member of the convention that revised the constitution of Massachusetts, and distinguished himself by eloquent expressions of the most liberal sentiments. In 1829, Mr. Nathan Dane founded a Law School in connection with Harvard University, on the express condition that Judge Story should consent to become its first professor. The eminent jurist acquiesced, and became greatly interested in the important duties of instruction to which his position called him. Indeed, he was so impressed with the importance of the labor, and so enamored with its pleasures, that he contemplated a resignation of his seat on the bench in order that he might apply all his time and energies to the school. Judge Story wrote much and well. The most important of his productions are Commentaries on the Law of Bailments; Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, three volumes, 1833; an abridgment of the same; Commen taries on the Conflict of Laws, 1834; Commentaries on Equity Jurisprudence, in two volumes; a treatise on the Science of Pleading in Courts of Equity, 1838; on the Law of Agency, 1839; on the Law of Partnership, 1841; on the Law of Bills of Exchange, 1843; and on the Law of Promissory Notes, 1845. To the Encyclopædia Americana, and the North America Review, he contributed many valuable papers; and he delivered many addresses upon various important subjects. Judge Story died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 10th of September, 1845, at the age of sixty-six years. A CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. GENTLE spirit, full of angelic sweetness, passed from earth to heaven when that of Charles Brockden Brown put off its mortality. He was born of Quaker parents, in Philadelphia, on the 17th of January, 1771. His body was always frail, but his mind was vigorous and his soul ever hopeful. He was dearly loved in the home where he was nurtured, carefully tutored in the rudiments of education, and at the age of ten was placed under the charge of a teacher named Proud, whose instruction he enjoyed for five years. Young Brown was wonderfully precocious, and he made remarkable progress in the study of the Latin, Greek, and French languages, and mathematics. Like Watts. his thoughts "came in numbers," and before he was fifteen years of age, he had actually commenced three epic poems. Young Brown's friends wished him to be a lawyer, and he commenced legal studies. They were not congenial to his 1. Mr. Story's course offended Mr. Jefferson, for the Embargo was one of the favorite measures of the President. He called Mr. Story a "pseudo-republican." BARON DE KALB. 291 taste, and he resolved to devote his life to literature. With young men of corresponding tastes he associated for mutual improvement in studying and in composition. His health was feeble, and he made long pedestrian journeys into the country in quest of invigoration. But it came not. In 1793, young Brown visited an intimate friend in New York, where he formed the acquaintance of several literary young men. For some time he resided alternately in New York and Philadelphia, carefully preparing his mind to become a public writer. He chose the Novel as the best medium through which to convey his peculiar views of humanity to the world; and, in 1798, when twenty-seven years of age, his Wieland appeared, and at once established his reputation as an author of highest rank. The following year he established a monthly magazine in New York; and, in 1800, he published three novelsArthur Mervyn, Ormond, and Edgar Huntley. Clara Howard was published in 1801; and, in 1804, his last novel, entitled Jane Talbot, was first issued in England, and afterward in Philadelphia. That year he married the daughter of a Presbyterian clergyman, in New York, and immediately removed to Philadelphia, where he afterward assumed editorial control of The Literary Magazine and The American Register. These were ably conducted by him until failing health compelled him to lay aside his pen, and, in the bosom of an affectionate family, surrounded by dear friends, to prepare for death, which the unmistakable symptoms of consumption were heralding. That disease was rapidly developed during 1809, and in February, the following year, he expired. BARON DE KALB. UPON the green in front of the Presbyterian Church in Camden, South Caro lina, is a neat marble monument erected to the memory of one of the brave foreigners who fought for liberty in America, and thereby gained the imperishable dignity of citizenship, in spite of the conventional restrictions which impose the necessity of native birth or fealty oath, to make men such. That officer was Baron do Kalb, Knight of the Royal Order of Military Merit, and a native of Alsace, a German province ceded to France. He was educated in the art of war in the French army, and came to America, with La Fayette, in the Spring of 1777. He offered his services to the Continental Congress, and on the 15th of September following, that body commissioned him a major-general in the regular army. He had been in America before, having been sent hither, about 1762, as a secret agent of the French government, to ascertain the state of the Anglo-American colonies. Although travelling in disguise, he excited suspicion. On one occasion he was arrested, but was immediately released, as nothing justified his detention. It was through De Kalb that La Fayette gained an introduction to the American commissioners in Paris, and, with the young marquis, the veteran soldier left the honors and emoluments of a brigadier in the French service, and joined the fortunes of a people in rebellion against one of the great powers of the earth. De Kalb was active in the events near Philadelphia during the Autumn preceding the memorable Winter encampment at Valley Forge. The following year he was in command in New Jersey. While at Morristown, in the Spring of 1780, he was placed at the head of the Maryland line, and with these, and the Delaware Continental troops, he marched southward, in April, to reinforco General Lincoln, then besieged in Charleston. He was too late; and General Gates being sent soon afterward to take command of the troops in the South, De Kalb became subordinate to that officer. Gates reached De Kalb's camp, on the Deep river, at the close of July, 1780, and pressed forward to confront Cornwallis, at Camden. Seven miles north of that village, the two armies unexpectedly met, at midnight; and in the severe battle which occurred the following morning [August 16], De Kalb was mortally wounded, and the Americans were utterly defeated and routed. He fell, scarred with eleven wounds, while trying to rally the scattering Americans. He died at Camden, three days afterward, was buried where his monument now stands, and an ornamental tree was planted at the head of his grave. The corner-stone of that monument was laid in 1825, by his friend and companion-in-arms, La Fayette. On the 14th of October, 1780, Congress ordered a monument to be erected to his memory in the city of Annapolis, Maryland, but that duty, like justice to his widow and heirs, has been delayed until now.' SEVE JOHN RANDOLPH. EVENTH in descent from Pocahontas, the beloved daughter of the great Emperor of the Powhatans, was John Randolph, who usually made the suffix, "of Roanoke," to his name. He was the son of a respectable planter in Chesterfield county, three miles from Petersburg, Virginia, where he was born on the 2d of June, 1773. It was through his paternal grandmother, Jane Bolling, that the blood of Pocahontas was transmitted to him. He lost his father while he was an infant, and his mother afterward married Judge St. George Tucker. His health was always delicate, and until he entered the college at Princeton, after a residence in Bermuda for a year, his studies were irregular. His mother died in 1788, and then he entered Columbia College, in the city of New York. There he remained until 1790, when he returned to Virginia, and completed his education in William and Mary College. In 1793, he went to Philadelphia to study law with his uncle, Edmund Randolph, then attorneygeneral of the United States. He made but little progress in preparing for the profession, and never entered upon its practice. He delighted in the British classics, and read a great deal, but for some time after reaching his majority, he had no fixed intentions concerning a life-employment. Mr. Randolph's first appearance in public life was in 1799, when he was elected to a seat in Congress. He had already displayed great powers of eloquence in the peculiar line of satire or denunciation, and just before his election, he was brought into antagonism with Patrick Henry, on the subject of the Alien and Sedition laws. When he commenced a reply to a speech by Henry, a gentleman remarked, "Come, colonel, let us go-it is not worth while to listen to that boy." "Stay, my friend," replied Henry, "there 's an old man's head on that boy's shoulders." Congress was a field particularly suited to his capacities, and for thirty years (with the exception of three intervals of two years each), he was a member of the House of Representatives. During that time he was a representative of Virginia in the Senate of the United States for about two years. 1. In 1819, 1820, and 1821, the surviving heirs of Baron de Kalb petitioned Congress for the payment of alleged arrears due the general at his death, and also for certain indemnities, but the claim was disallowed. Simeon de Witt Bloodgood, Esq., brought the matter to the attention of Congress, in 1836, but without success. On the 15th of December, 1854, the House of Representatives voted an appropriation of sixty-six thousand dollars to the heirs of Baron de Kalb, and on the 19th of January following, the Senate voted in favor of the appropriation; so, at last, tardy justice will have reached the family of the hero. John Randolph He was seized with a paroxism of insanity, in 1811, after many months of moodiness, irrascibility, and suspicions of his best friends; and he had returns of this malady several times during his life. He strenuously opposed the war with Great Britain, in 1812. Up to 1806, he had been a consistent member of the Republican party; then his views changed, and he became an opponent of Madison, more bitter than any Federalist of New England. His political course, after the war, was erratic, and he delighted to be in the minority, because it gave him special opportunities for vituperation. He favored the claims of Mr. Crawford for the Presidency of the United States, in 1824; but, in 1828, he was the warm friend of General Jackson, and his ardent supporter for the same office. In 1822, Mr. Randolph made a voyage to England for the benefit of his health, where his political fame and strange personal appearance created quite a sensation. He made another voyage thither, in 1824, but his health was too much impaired to receive any permanent benefit. From that time the current of his public career was often interrupted by sickness. In 1829, he was a member of the Virginia convention, called to revise the constitution of that State; and, in 1830, President Jackson appointed him minister to Russia. He accepted the station, on condition that he might spend the Winter in the south of Europe, if his health should require it. He reached St. Petersburg in September, but his |