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His son, on arriving at man's estate, visited England for the purpose of endeavoring to recover his patrimony, which had been confiscated. He failed in this, but was successful in a suit of a matrimonial nature, as he returned home with a bride, Elizabeth, the daughter of a Captain Smith, formerly of Cromwell's army. Their son Charles, born in 1690, organized in 1729 a large body of emigrants, and sailed with them for Amnerica. They landed at Cape Cod. In 1731 Clinton purchased land in Ulster county, eight miles west of the Hudson, and built a house surrounded by a palisade to protect himself from the Indians. Here he resided until his death, November 19, 1773. He left four sons, Alexander, Charles, James, a brigadier-general in the Revolutionary army, who died in 1812, and George, also a brigadier-general in the army, and Governor of the State of New York, from the formation of the constitution in 1777 to 1795, and afterwards from 1801 to 1804. He was elected Vice-President of the United States in 1804, and died in that office, 1812.

De Witt Clinton, the son of General James Clinton and Mary De Witt, was born March 2, 1769, at his father's residence in Orange county, N. Y. He was prepared for college at the academy under the charge of Mr. John Addison at Kingston, almost the only school of eminence open in the state during the Revolution, entered the junior class of Columbia College in 1784, and was the first student received by that institution under its new organization after the war. He was one of the graduating class in 1786. Clinton studied law with Samuel Jones, and was admitted to the bar. He was shortly after appointed private secretary of his uncle, George Clinton, the governor of the state, and retained the office until a change of administration in 1795.

In 1797 he was elected a member of the house of assembly, in 1798 a state senator, and in 1801 a Senator of the United States. In 1803 he was chosen Mayor of the City of New York, and, with a single exception, annually re-elected until 1815. In 1817 he was elected Governor of the State of New York, and re-elected in 1820. In 1822 he declined again appearing as a candidate. In 1823, after the celebration at Albany of the completion of the great work with which his name is inseparably identified, he was removed from the office of canal commissioner. This unjust and absurd proceeding aroused the feelings of the people of the state so warmly in his favor that he was elected governor of the state in 1824 by a majority of 20,000. He remained in office until his sudden death, February 11, 1828.

Clinton was an active promoter of the freeschool and other great educational movements of the state. He was also an influential member of the literary and scientific associations of his time, and a liberal promoter of the charitable institutions of the state and city. His occasional addresses before these institutions constitute his chief literary labors.

Clinton was Vice-President of the New York Historical Society from 1810 to 1817, and President from 1817 to 1820. He was always a great promoter of its interests. In 1811 he delivered his elaborate Discourse on the Iroquois, at an anhiversary meeting of that body. In 1814 he drew

up a memorial to the legislature in its behalf, in which he classified the history of the state under four periods: of the aborigines, the Dutch occupancy for about half a century, the English rule for more than a century, and the period since the Revolution, showing the measures necessary to be taken at each stage for the preservation of the national records. A grant was received in consequence from the legislature, which secured to the society means for the purchase of a large portion of its valuable library.

In the same year, 1814, he delivered his Introductory Discourse before the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York, of which he was president. It is an exhaustive scholar's review of the past and present state of literature and science, describing the impediments to their cultivation in the colony of New York under the general provincial influences, the population speaking a foreign language for a time; the confusion of the Revolution; the evils of party spirit afterwards, with the absence, in consequence of the industrial demands of the state, of a literary class by profession: while he finds new advantages in the freedom of the state, the growth of commerce, and a perpetual incentive to the excitement of genius in the pure and healthful climate. From these reflections he passes to the consideration of the peculiar objects of the Society, presenting the claims and opportunities of the studies of geology, zoology, botany, agriculture, and medicine. The notes and illustrations, which constitute three times the bulk of the text, are a repository of interesting and profitable reading on these various themes. In these matters Clinton was in earnest; and when the wags of the day, who opposed his politics, mixed up his literature and science with their ridicule, he showed that he was master of these lighter weapons as well. The satirists, who amused themselves with his grave, philosophical pursuits, were made to feel the edge of his wit and pleasantry.

In 1820 Clinton sketched the incidents of a tour to the west, along the line of the Erie canal, in a series of letters written in the character of an Irish gentleman travelling in America, which were published in the New York Statesman, and afterwards collected in a volume, in 1822, with the title, Letters on the Natural History and Internal Resources of the State of New York. They present a curious picture of the novel topics of interest at this recent period, in what is now, thanks to such laborers as Clinton, so well developed and thoroughly familiar a region. The freshness of his fancy, and activity of his mind, give a zest to his minute observations of natural scenery, climate, and productions, constantly enlivened by his ardent nationality, and taste for poetic and literary cultivation. The Letters of Hibernicus are genial and animated throughout, and well deserve to be annotated, and find a home, which would have been a consummation of the author's literary ambition, in the thousands of school-district libraries which now adorn his native state.

The Hon. W. W. Campbell has reprinted, in the Life and Writings of Clinton, his private journal of his exploration in 1810, in company with other commissioners, of the central portion of the state with reference to the proposed Erie canal. It is

a pleasant off-hand record, and gives a curious picture of the primitive days of Western New York. This was one of his first public services in reference to this great state enterprise, pronounced by President Madison too great an undertaking for the resources of the entire Union to accomplish. Clinton had faith then and ever in its feasibility and advantages. He continued its firm and active promoter and friend until he passed in triumph down its entire length, and poured the waters of Erie into the Atlantic ocean.

Clinton was twice married. His first wife was Maria, eldest daughter of Walter Franklin; and his second Catharine, daughter of Dr. Thomas Jones, "all of this city." In 1853 a noble colossal statue of bronze, modelled and cast by H. K. Browne, was placed by a public subscription over his remains in Greenwood Cemetery.

In person Governor Clinton was over six feet in height, and well proportioned. His countenance displayed an ample forehead, regular features, and an amiable and dignified expression. As a public speaker he was impressive, but not animated.*

PROVINCIAL INFLUENCES ON LITERATURE-FROM THE DISCOURSE BEFORE THE LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.

There is something in the nature of provincial government which tends to engender faction, and to prevent the expansion of intellect. It inevitably creates two distinct interests; one regarding the colony as subservient in every respect to the mother country, and the other rising up in opposition to this assumption. The governor and principal magistrates who derive their appointments from an extrinsie source, feel independent of the people over whom they are placed. The operation of this principle has been powerfully experienced in our territorial governments, which have been the constant theatre of intestine divisions; and when the human mind is called away from the interest of science, to aid, by its faculties, the agitations of party, little can be expected from energies thus perverted and abused. The annals of our colonial state present a continual controversy between the ministers of the crown, and the representatives of the people. What did the governor and judges care for a country where they were strangers! where their continuance was transient; and to which they were attached by no tie that reaches the human heart. Their offices emanated from another country;-to that source they looked for patronage and support, to that alone their views extended; and having got, what Archimedes wanted, another world on which to erect their engines, they governed this at pleasure.

The colonial governors were, generally speaking, little entitled to respect. They were delegated to this country not as men qualified to govern, but as men whose wants drove them into exile; not as men entitled by merit to their high eminence, but as men who owed it to the solicitations of powerful friends -and to the influence of court intrigue. Thus circumstanced and thus characterized, is it wonderful to find them sometimes patrolling the city disguised in female dress; at other times assailing the representatives of the people with the most virulent abuse, and defrauding the province by the most despicable acts of peculation; and at all times despising know

Hosack's Memoir of De Witt Clinton; James Renwick's Life of Clinton; W. W. Campbell's Life and Writings of Clinton; article on Clinton, by 11. T. Tuckerman, N. A. Review,. Oct., 1854.

ledge, and overlooking the public prosperity? Justice, however, requires that we should except from this censure Hunter and Burnet. Hunter was a man of wit, a correspondent of Swift, and a friend of Addison. Burnet, the son of the celebrated Bishop of Salisbury, was devoted to literature; they were the best governors that ever presided over the colony.

The love of fame is the most active principle of our nature. To be honoured when living-to be venerated when dead-is the parent source of those writings which have illuminated-of those actions which have benefited and dazzled mankind. All that poetry has created, that philosophy has discovered, that heroism has performed, may be principally ascribed to this exalted passion. True it is,

When fame's loud trump hath blown its noblest blast,
Though long the sound, the echo sleeps at last;
And glory, like the phoenix 'midst her fires,
Exhales her odours, blazes, and expires.

LORD BYRON.

Yet, as long as man is susceptible of sublime emotions, so long will he commit himself to this master feeling of a noble nature. What would have become of the sublime work of Milton, if he had written for the fifteen pounds which he received from the bookseller; and where would have been the writings of Bacon, if he had not aspired to immortal fame? "My name and memory," said this prince of philosophers, in his will, “I leave to foreign nations, and to my own countrymen after some time be passed over." When with one hand he demolished the philosophy of the schools, and with the other erected a magnificent temple dedicated to truth and genuine knowledge, he was animated in his progress, and cheered in his exertions by the persuasion that after ages would erect an imperishable monument to his fame.

But in order that this passion may have its full scope and complete operation, it is not only necessary that there should be a proper subject, but a suitable place, and an enlightened public. The actor, in order to act well his part, must have a good theatre and a respectable audience. Would Demosthenes and Cicero have astonished mankind by their oratory, if they had spoken in Sparta or in Carthage? would Addison have written his Spectators in Kamtschatka, or Locke his work on the Understanding at Madrid? destroy the inducement to act, take away the capacity to judge, and annihilate the value of applause, and poetry sinks into dulness; philosophy loses its powers of research; and eloquence evaporates into froth and mummery.

A provincial government, like ours before the revolution, was entirely incompetent to call into activity this ennobling propensity of our nature. A small population, scattered over an extensive country, and composed almost entirely of strangers to literature; a government derivative and dependent, without patronage and influence, and in hostility to the public sentiment; a people divided into political and religious parties, and a parent country watching all their movements with a stepmother's feelings, and keeping down their prosperity with the arm of power, could not be expected to produce those literary worthies who have illuminated the other hemisphere.

History justifies the remark that free governments, although happier in themselves, are as oppressive to their provinces as despotic ones. It was a common saying in Greece, that a free man in Sparta was the freest man: and a slave, the greatest slave in the world. This remark may be justly applied to the ancient republics which had provinces under their The people of the parent country were

control.

free, and those remote were harassed with all kinds of exactions, borne down by the high hand of oppression, and under the subjection of a military despotism. The colonial system of modern times is equally calculated to build up the mother country on the depression of its colonies. That all their exports shall go to, and all their imports be derived from it, is the fundamental principle. Admitting occasional departures from this system, is it possible that an infant country, so bandaged and cramped, could attain to that maturity of growth, which is essential to the promotion and encouragement of literature? Accordingly we do not find in any colony of modern times any peculiar devotion to letters, or any extraordinary progress in the cultivation of the human mind. The most fertile soil-the most benign climate-all that nature can produce, and art can perfect, are incompetent to remove the benumbing effects which a provincial and dependent position operates upon the efforts of genius.

PARTIES-FROM THE LETTERS OF HIBERNICUS.

MY DEAR SIR,

Canandaigua, June, 1820.

In every country or village inn, the bar-room is the coffee room, exchange, or place of intelligence, where all the quidnuncs, newsmongers, and politicians of the district resort, and where strangers and travellers make their first entry. Neither my taste, my habits, nor my convenience will admit of gorgeous or showy equipments, and when I therefore take my seat in the caravanseras, there is nothing in my appearance to attract particular attention. Many a person with whom I have held conversations, has undoubtedly forgotten the subject, as well as the company. In the desultory and rapid manner in which such conferences are generally managed, a stranger is liable to mistake names and titles of office. I have no doubt but this has been my case frequently: may have styled a major a colonel, and a sheriff a judge, and if so, I assure you without the most distant idea of giving offence.

Curs'd be the verse however sweet they flow,
Which tends to make one worthy man my foe,
Give virtue scandal, innocence a fear,

Or from the meek-ey'd virgin draw a tear. Volney told me in Paris, that he travelled all over the west on foot. My countrymen, Dr. M'Nevin and Dr. Goldsmith, perambulated a great portion of Europe; and Wilson, the father of American Ornithology, was almost always a pedestrian traveller. How cautious ought people to be when in company with strangers. I have heard folly from the mouths of lawgivers, and ribaldry in the conversations of the notables of the land. Unnoticed, unobserved, reclining on my chair in the bar-room, I have seen human nature without disguise-the artificial great man exhibiting his importance-the humble understrapper listening like a blacksmith to a tailor's news -the oracle of the place mounted on his tripod, and pronouncing his opinions with solemn gravity. O! if I had been recognised as a traveller from the eastern world-a keen observer of human natureand a recorder of what I saw, I humbly hope that much nonsense would have been spared, and many improper exhibitions prevented; but then I would have seen man at a masquerade. I now derive light from my obscurity, and observe this world as it is. My plain dress, my moderate expenditures, my unobtrusive behaviour, avert particular remark. It is only in the society of such men as I meet with in this place, that I am considered as of the least importance. The prevalent conversations all over this federal republic, are on the subjects of political excitement. After some sage remarks on the weather, which compose the exordium of all conversations,

the man of America, like the man of Athens, asks, What news? It is needless to say, that I have steered entirely clear of political and theological strife. I hardly understand the nomenclature of parties. They are all republicans, and yet a portion of the people assume the title of republican, as an exclusive right, or patent monopoly. They are all federalists, that is, in favor of a general government

and yet a party arrogate to themselves this appellation to the disparagement of the others. It is easy to see that the difference is nominal-that the whole controversy is about office, and that the country is constantly assailed by ambitious demagogues, for the purpose of gratifying their cupidity. It is a melancholy, but true reflection on human nature, that the smaller the difference the greater the animosity. Mole hills and rivulets become mountains and rivers. The Greek empire was ruined by two most inveterate factions, the Prasini and Vineti, which originated in the color of livery in equestrian ́ races. The parties of Guelphs and Gibbelines, of Roundheads and Cavaliers, of Whigs and Tories, continued after all causes of difference were merged. I have often asked some of the leading politicians of this country, what constituted the real points of discrimination between the Republicans and Federalists, and I never could get a satisfactory answer. An artful man will lay hold of words if he cannot of things, in order to promote his views. The Jansenists and the Jesuits, the Nominalists and the Realists, the Sub-lapsarians, and the Supra-lapsarians, were in polemics what the party controversies of this people are in politics. If you place an ass at an equal distance between two bundles of hay, will he not remain there to all eternity? was a question solemnly propounded and gravely debated by the schoolmen. The motive to eat both, some contended, being equal, it was impossible for the animal to come to a conclusion. He would therefore remain in a state of inaction, for ever and for ever. This problem, so puzzling to scholastic philosophers, would at once be decided by the ass, and the experimentum crucis would effectually silence every doubt. impossible for a man, however quietly disposed, to act the supposititious part of the scholastic ass, and remain neutral between the parties, or bundles of hay. He must in truth participate in one or in both, and as it respects any radical difference of principle, it is very. immaterial which he selects. There are some pendulum politicians who are continually oscillating between parties, and these men, in endeavoring to expiate their former oppugnation by fiery zeal, are mere firebrands in society. order to cover their turpitude, they assume highsounding names, and are in verity political partizans, laying claim to be high-minded, and like Jupiter on Olympus, elevated above the atmosphere of common beings. And what adds infinitely to the force of these pretensions, is to find the most of these gentry to be the heroes of petty strife, and the leaders of village vexation, the fag ends of the learned professions, and the outcasts of reputable associations. I often think of the observations of the honest old traveller, Tournefort, when I see the inordinate violence of these high-minded gentlemen. "The Turk (says he), take 'em one with another, are much honester men than renegadoes; and perhaps it is out of contempt that they do not circumcise renegadoes; for they have a common saying, that a bad Christian will never make a good Turk."

LITERARY TASTE FROM THE LETTERS OF HIBERNICUS.

It is

In

Western Region, August, 1820. MY DEAR SIR, The beauties of an American sky are frequently

unparalleled, and there is a peculiar lustre in the appearance of the morning star, which I have never seen equalled in my native land. This planet, on account of its propinquity to the earth, is only exceeded in apparent size by the moon, and on this account, and its superior effulgence, it has very naturally been a subject of poetical description. It may relieve the monotony of my former communications, to refer to some passages in the most distinguished poets on this subject.

Homer, in his fifth Iliad, in representing Diomede under the influence of Pallas, says,

Fires on his helmet, and his shield around
She kindled bright and steady as the star
Autumnal, which in ocean newly bath'd,
Assumes fresh beauty.-

The same allusion also occurs in Horace

Merses profundo, pulchrior evenit.

Virgil in his 8th Eneid, says

Qualis ubi oceani perfusus Lucifer unda,

Quem Venus ante alios astrorum diligit ignes,
Extulit os sacrum cælo tenebrasque resolvit.

Lastly comes Milton, who thus exclaims in his Lycidas:

So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,
And yet anon repairs his drooping head,

And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore
Flames in the forehead of the morning sky.

If these extracts shall be considered as fair specimens by which to compare poetic merit, in what an illustrious light does Milton appear?

A poet as well as an orator, in order to be truly great, ought to have a fertile imagination, under the dominion of good taste. Those faults which result from undisciplined genius, are however more tolerable than those which spring from sterility of mind. In one of my solitary walks, I stopped at a farmhouse for refreshment, and I accidentally found an old newspaper which contained an address from a ci-devant governor to a great military commander, on the presentation of a sword. The writer has evidently put his mind into a state of violent exertion, and in striving to be sublime and magnificent, has shown a total incapacity in thought as well as language. In speaking of a nocturnal battle near the cataract of Niagara, he says that it produced a midnight rainbow, whose refulgence outshone the iris of the day.

This master-piece of the great orator and statesman who wrote it, can only be excelled by the poet quoted by Dryden, when he says

Now when the winter's keener breath began

To chrystalize the Baltic ocean,

To glaze the Lakes, to bridle up the floods,

And periwig with snow the bald pate woods.

Or, perhaps, it is exceeded by the following eulogium of a country school-master on General Wolfe. Great General Wolfe, without any fears, Led on his brave grenadiers,

And what is most miraculous and particular, He climb'd up rocks that were perpendicular. And yet would you believe that the man who pronounced that farrago of bombastic nonsense, has been a governor, a vice-president, and God knows what; and that he is passed off as a paragon of wisdom, and an exemplar of greatness. With intellect not more than sufficient to preside over the shopboard of a tailor, or to conduct the destinies of a village school, he has, by the force of fortuitous circumstances, attained to ephemeral consequence. D'Alembert has justly observed that "the apices of the loftiest pyramids in church and state, are only attained by eagles and reptiles." The history of democracies continually exhibits the rise of perni

cious demagogues warring against wisdom and virtne, philosophy and patriotism-but why do I confine this remark to any particular form of government! The spirit of the observation will apply to human nature in all its forms and varieties. Even in the Augustan age of Great Britain, Elkanah Settle was set up as the rival of Dryden--and Stephen Duck was put in competition with Pope. This levelling principle gratifies two unworthy feelings; it endeavors to mortify the truly great by its flagrant injustice, and it strives to lower them down to our own de pression of insignificance. Posterity, however, will dispense justice with unerring hand, and with impartial distribution; and the great men who are almost always assailed by calumny, and who are sometimes borne down by ingratitude, may, in considering the benefits which they have rendered to the human race, confidently appeal to heaven for their reward, and to posterity for their justification.

DAVID HOSACK.

DOCTOR DAVID HOSACK, F.R.S., was born in the city of New York, August 31, 1769. His father, a Scotchman, came to America with Lord Jeffrey Amherst, upon the siege of Louisburg. His mother was the daughter of Francis Arden of New York. He was educated at Columbia College and at Princeton; received his medical degree at Philadelphia in 1791; visited the schools of Edinburgh and London, where he wrote a paper on Vision which was published in the Transactions of the Royal Society in 1794, and on his return to New York filled the Professorship of Botany and Materia Medica in Columbia College. In the new College of Physicians and Surgeons he taught Physic and Clinical Medicine, and was engaged in the short-lived Rutgers Medical College. He was eminent as a clinical instructor. He engaged with Francis in the publication of the Medical and Philosophical Register. His Medical Essays were published in three octavo volumes, 1824-30. His System of Practical Nosology was published in 1829, and in an improved form in 1821. He wrote discourses on Horticulture, on Temperance, biographical notices of Rush and Wistar, and a memoir in quarto of De Witt Clinton. The style of these productions is full and elegant. From 1820 to 1828 he was President of the New York Historical Society. A posthumous publication on The Practice of Physic, edited by Dr. H. W. Ducachet, one of his pupils, appeared in 1838.

Whosell

Hosack was for more than thirty years a prominent medical practitioner in New York, and, fond of society, exercised a strong personal influence in the city. The Duke of Saxe-Weimar, in his travels in America in 1825, mentions the social importance of his Saturday evening parties, where the professional gentlemen of the city and distinguished foreigners were liberally entertained. In all prominent movements connected with the arts, the drama, medical and other local institutions, and the state policy of internal improvements, Hosack bore a part.

He was twice married; in the first instance to a sister of Thomas Eddy, the benevolent Quaker at the head of the hospitals and charitable institutions of the city. By his second wife, the widow of Henry A. Costar, he became possessed of a large income.

Dr. Hosack died of an attack of apoplexy at his residence in Chambers Street, New York, December 23, 1835.*

FREDERICK DALCHO,

Feat. Halchs

A physician and clergyman of South Carolina, was born in London. His father was a Polander by birth, and an officer of considerable rank in one of the European armies, we think of Hanover. Having been severely wounded he went over to England with his family, and lived a few years on his pension. At his death his brother in Maryland invited the boy Frederick over to America, and gave him an excellent education in Baltimore. He studied medicine successfully, became a skilful botanist, and obtained a commission in the medical department of the American army. He came with his division to South Carolina, and was stationed with them at Fort Johnson in Charleston Harbor. Here some disagreement occurred between him and his brother officers, under which Dr. Dalcho resigned his commission, and became a practitioner of medicine in Charleston. In 1800 he was associated with Dr. Isaac Auld, and became a member of the Medical Society of South Carolina. He was active in establishing the Botanic Garden, and continued several years one of

the Trustees of that Institution.

About the year 1810 Dr. Dalcho relinquished his practice and became associated with Mr. A. S. Willington in conducting the Courier, a daily Federal newspaper. About the year 1811 he became more than usually devoted to religious reflections and studies. In 1812 he became Lay Reader in St. Paul's Church, Colleton, and was ordained Deacon on the 15th of February, 1814, by the Right Rev. Theodore Dehon. Having been admitted to priest's orders by the Right Rev. W. White of Pennsylvania, he was elected assistant minister of St. Michael's Church, Charleston, by a majority of the congregation in the year 1819. He continued with unabated zeal and piety devoted to the advancement of religion in his pastoral charge, until his declining health called for repose. His vestry would not part with him, but gave leave of absence on a continued salary for an indefinite time. He continued to decline in health, and died on the 24th November, 1836, in the 67th year of his age, and the seventeenth of his ministry in that church.

The religious publications of Dr. Dalcho were few. One was on the Evidence of the Divinity of our Saviour. The other is a work of high au

* Memoir by Dr. J. W. Francis, in Williams's American Medical Biography.

thority, being An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina,* and the early history of the State unavoidably blended with that of the Church. This work is quoted and referred to frequently by writers on different questions incidental to such subjects.

AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY was formed at Philadelphia on the second of January, 1769, by the union of two associations of a similar character, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Society for promoting and propagating Useful Knowledge. The first of these originated in a printed circular issued by Franklin, dated May 14, 1743, entitled, A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge among the British Plantations in America. The society seems to have gone into immediate operation, as on the 5th of April, 1744, Franklin writes to Cadwallader Colden, "that the society, as far as it relates to Philadelphia, is actually formed, and has had several meetings to mutual satisfaction." Thomas Hopkinson was the first president. The minutes of the society have been lost, so that the details of its early history are unknown. Its meetings, after having been kept up for about ten years, were discontinued.

The second of the societies named was founded in the year 1750. It was originally called the Junto, and is supposed to have been formed by the members of the old Junto, who, unwilling to enlarge their own circle by the admission of new members, were desirous of perpetuating its name and usefulness.

In December, 1766, the admission of corresponding members was decided upon, and the name of the society changed to "The American Society for Promoting and Propagating Useful Charles Thomson (afterwards Secretary of ConKnowledge, held at Philadelphia." In 1768, gress), one of its leading members, prepared "Proposals for enlarging this society, in order that it may the better answer the end for which it was instituted, namely, the promoting and propagating useful knowledge." It embraces every department of science in the scope of its proposed inquiries, prominence being given to those of an immediate practical character, and especially to agriculture. The paper is published in the first volume of the Transactions.

Large additions of members were made, and on the 23d of September a new code of laws and a new title, "The American Society, held at Philadelphia, for promoting Useful Knowledge," adopted. On the fourth of November, at its first election, Benjamin Franklin was chosen president.

Meanwhile the members of the American Philosophical Society, reduced to six in number, resolved, in 1767, to resuscitate that institution. They elected four new members in November of that year, and forty-four in the January following. John Penn, the governor of the province, consented to become patron, and on the ninth of

Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal Church in South Carolina, by Frederick Dalcho, M. P. Charleston, S. C. 1820.

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