International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1

* * * * *

JOHN INMAN

John Inman, a son of William Inman, was born in Utica in 1805. He had two brothers, William, a commander in the Navy, and Henry, so well known as one of the finest artists of this country. John Inman was educated pretty much by chance; he had the usual country schooling; but whatever valuable cultivation he had was in after-life when he was alone in the world, seeking his fortune. In 1823 he went to North Carolina where he taught school for two years. In the spring of 1826, with the profits of his schoolmastership, he went to Europe, and traveled there a little more than a year. On his return, being admitted to the bar, he practiced law about two years, when, in 1829, he became one of the editors of The Standard newspaper, which he left in 1830 to conduct the Mirror. In 1833 he was married to Miss Fisher, a sister of the popular and estimable actress, Clara Fisher, and about this time he devoted the leisure left from the duties of the Mirror office to a paper owned by his brother-in-law and himself, called The Spirit of the Times. In 1833 he accepted an offer from the late Colonel Stone to become one of the editors of the Commercial Advertiser, of which he became the editor in chief upon the death of that gentleman, in 1844. He continued in this post until his failing health last spring compelled him entirely to relinquish the use of the pen; and gradually declining, he died on the 30th of August.

Mr. Inman had edited several books, and for two or three years he conducted the Columbian Magazine. He was for a long time the critical reader of the great house of Harper & Brothers, who learned by a happy experience to confide unhesitatingly in his judgment of books. He wrote many tales and sketches for the annuals and other publications, and a few poems, of which "Byron, a Fragment," was the longest. Of the Columbian Magazine, he wrote with his own hand the whole of one number, partly from an ambition to achieve what seemed an impossible feat, and partly from his habit of close and unremitting labor. He also wrote several literary papers for the New York Review. He was a gentleman of the most honorable nature, and of the finest taste and most refined habits. Perhaps there was not connected with the press in this city a writer of purer English, and very few of our literary men have had a more thorough knowledge of French and English literature.

* * * * *

ADONIRAM JUDSON, D.D

The death of this widely-known and eminently devoted missionary is announced in an article of The Tribune, to have taken place on the 12th of April, on board of the French brig Ariotide, bound to the Isle of Bourbon, in which he had taken passage for the benefit of his health. His remains were committed to the deep on the evening of his death. For some time past the health of Dr. Judson, which had been seriously impaired for several years, has been known to be in an alarming state, and the news of his decease accordingly will not come as an unlooked-for blow upon his wide circle of friends. Dr. Judson was the son of Rev. Adoniram Judson, a Congregational clergyman in Plymouth county, Mass. He received his collegiate education at Brown University, with the original intention of pursuing the profession of the law, but experiencing a great change in his religious views soon after his graduation, he entered the Theological Seminary at Andover. During his residence at this institution, a profound interest in Foreign Missions was awakened among the students which resulted in his determination to devote his life to the missionary service. Leaving his native land, among the first missionaries sent forth by the American Board, in company with Samuel Nevill, Luther Rice, and Samuel Nott, he arrived in Calcutta, in 1812. In consequence of studies during the voyage, he was led to change his opinions on the subject of baptism, and a short time after his landing, received the rite of immersion from the hands of one of the English missionaries resident in Calcutta. His sermon on that occasion, which produced a deep impression on the religious world, is a masterpiece of logical argument, Scriptural research and grave eloquence. After connecting himself with the Baptist denomination, he selected the Burman empire as the seat of his future labors—at which post he has remained, with scarcely an interval of relaxation, for nearly forty years. His efforts and sufferings in the prosecution of his mission are well known. He was a man of high and resolute courage, of remarkable self-reliance, of more than common mental ability and of devotion to the performance of his duty, almost without a parallel in modern times. He had all the elements of a hero in his composition, and whoever would look for a rare specimen of a life consecrated to noble, ideal aims, inspired with an elevated and almost romantic self-devotion, and daily exercising a valiant energy more difficult of attainment than that which animates the soldier amid the smoke of battle, must contemplate the strange and beautiful history of the lion-hearted missionary of Burmah.

* * * * *

HENRY WHITE, D.D

The REV. HENRY WHITE, D.D., Professor of Theology in the Union Theological Seminary, died in this city on Sunday, August 25th, in the fifty-first year of his age. We obtain the following biographical facts from The Independent: "Professor White was born in Durham, Greene county, in this state. He had nearly reached the age of manhood before commencing a liberal course of education; was graduated at Union College in 1824; studied theology at Princeton, N.J., and after being licensed to preach the Gospel, was employed as an agent of the American Bible Society in Georgia and the Carolinas. In this service he remained during parts of the years 1826 and 1827. In 1827-28 he was engaged as an agent of the same society in New York and the vicinity; and during that period he supplied for some time the pulpit of the second Presbyterian church in Newark, N.J. In March, 1829, he became pastor of the Allen-street Presbyterian church in this city, in which office he remained until after his appointment to the Professorship of Theology in the Union Theological Seminary, then newly formed in this city. He was dismissed from his pastoral charge in March, 1837. The labors of his professorship were begun and carried on for some years in discouragement. The pecuniary basis on which the Seminary rested was inadequate, and there were arrearages in the salaries. In 1843 Professor W. was invited to Auburn, and great anxiety was felt lest he should accept the invitation. But his own attachment to the Seminary and the entreaties of his friends, and an effort which was made to endow his Professorship with a sufficient permanent fund, induced him to remain, and he held the office as long as he lived."

* * * * *

SIR MARTIN ARCHER SHEE, P.R.A

SIR MARTIN ARCHER SHEE, long known in art and letters, and for some years the oldest member as well as the President of the Royal Society, died at Brighton, on the 13th of August, in the eighty-first year of his age. He was descended lineally from one of the Kings of Munster, in the third century, and his family in more recent times has been honorably distinguished. He was born in Dublin, on the 23d of December, 1770. He evinced extraordinary precocity in his art, and when but twelve years old obtained of the Irish Academy medals for figures, landscapes and flowers. The author of "Wine and Walnuts," as quoted in the London Athenaeum, gives the following account of his first appearance in the Great Metropolis:

"I well remember this gentleman on his first arrival from Ireland to the British metropolis; he was introduced to the notice of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and to some other distinguished persons by his illustrious Friend and countryman Mr. Edmund Burke. I was at that time making a drawing in the Plaster Academy in Somerset House, and perfectly recollect the first evening Mr. Shee joining the students there. He selected the figure of the Discobolus for his probationary exercises to procure a permanent student's ticket. I need not say that he obtained it,—for it was acknowledged to be one of the best copies that had yet been seen of that fine figure. I further remarked that Mr. Wilton, the then keeper of the Royal Academy, was so pleased with the performance that he expressed a wish to retain it, after Mr. Shee had received his ticket; and Mr. Shee, with that politeness which marked his early career, presented it to the worthy old gentleman."

Mr. Shee became an exhibitor at the Royal Academy for the first time in 1789. He abstained from exhibiting in the following year, wisely husbanding his strength—worked hard at his art—gave his nights and days to Sir Joshua; and in 1791 took handsome apartments, and sent four portraits to the Exhibition. In 1792 he removed to yet better rooms, and sent in all seven works to the Exhibition. In the same year he walked as one of the students of the Royal Academy at the funeral of Sir Joshua Reynolds. In 1793 he reached what is now the full Academical number of eight portraits. The Exhibition of the following year contained his as yet most ambitious efforts:—a portrait of a young lady as Miranda in "The Tempest," and "Jephtha's Daughter" from the Book of Judges. In 1795 he exhibited a portrait of himself,—and a portrait of Mr. Addington, afterward Lord Sidmouth. In 1797 he exhibited in all ten works; including portraits of Pope and Fawcett the actors. He continued equally industrious for many successive years; and was in such favor with his fellow artists that he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1798, immediately after the election of Flaxman into the same honorary rank. The same year, on Romney's withdrawal from London, he removed to the house which that artist had built for himself in Cavendish Square; and in this he continued as Romney's successor to reside until age and growing infirmities compelled him to withdraw to Brighton, and abandon his pencil. In 1800, he was elected a full Royal Academician:—and of his thirty-nine brethren by whom he was chosen he was the last survivor.

Mr. Shee continued to produce for years with amazing readiness of hand and fertility in posture. People of all ranks in life went to Cavendish Square, and for a time Shee was in greater request than either Beechey or Hoppner, though not so much so as Lawrence, or even as Owen or Phillips somewhat later. Lord Spencer was the first nobleman who sat to him; and his example was followed by the Duke of Clarence, the Duke of Leinster, the Marquis of Exeter, and others. The ladies flocked less readily around him; for Lawrence had then, as he continued to have, the entire artist monopoly of the beauty of Great Britain.

Much to the surprise of his friends, and to the infinite wonder of some of his brethren in the Academy, Mr. Shee made his appearance as a poet by the publication, in 1805, of his "Rhymes on Art, or the Remonstrance of a Painter; in two parts, with Notes and a Preface, including Strictures on the State of the Arts, Criticism, Patronage, and Public Taste": and the wonder had not ceased with Nollekins and Northcote, when, in 1809, he published a second poem, in six cantos, entitled "Elements of Art." It is to these poems that Byron alludes in his "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers":

  "And here let Shee and Genius find a place,  Whose pen and pencil yield an equal grace;  To guide whose hand the sister-arts combine,  And trace the poet's or painter's line;  Whose magic touch can bid the canvas glow,  Or pour the easy rhyme's harmonious flow;  While honors, doubly merited, attend  The poet's rival, but the painter's friend."

The Quarterly was complimentary, but less kind to the painter than the noble lord.

Mr. Shee appears to have always evinced taste for the theater; and when his gravity of years and his position as a popular portrait-painter forbade his any longer entertaining a wish to appear there, he began to woo the dramatic Muse, and commenced a tragedy called "Alasco," of which the scene was laid in Poland. The play was accepted at Covent Garden, but excluded, it was said, from the stage by Colman, who was then licenser. This is not strictly true. Colman objected to about eighty-five lines, which Shee refused to alter. Colman was equally obstinate; and Shee in 1824 printed his play, and appealed to the public against the licenser in a lengthy and angry preface. "Alasco," notwithstanding, is still on the list of the unacted drama.

On the death of Lawrence in 1830, Shee was elected President of the Royal Academy, and immediately knighted. His election was by a large majority, though Wilkie was a candidate; the members being governed in their votes rather, it is said, by the necessities of their annual dinner than by their sense of the merits of Shee as a painter. He excelled in short, well-timed and well-delivered speeches. He was seldom at a loss; and so highly was his eloquence appreciated within the walls of the Academy, that it had been common with more than one Royal Academician to remark whenever a great speaker was mentioned—"Did you ever hear the President—you should hear the President,"—as if Canning and Stanley had been united in Sir Martin Archer Shee.

He has but little claim to be remembered as a poet. His verse wants vigor, and his examples are deficient in novelty of illustration. The notes to both his poems are, however, valuable, and his poetry is perhaps more frequently read for its prose illustrations than for the beauty of its versification or the value of the truths which it seeks to inculcate. As a portrait-painter he was eclipsed by several or his contemporaries,—by Lawrence and by Hoppner,—by Phillips, Jackson, and Raeburn. He had a fine eye for color; while his leading want was, proportion, more especially in his heads. Compare his head of Chantrey with the portraits of Chantrey by Jackson and Raeburn, and the defect is at once obvious; or compare his head of Mr. Hallam with the head of Mr. Hallam by Phillips, or with the living head—since happily Mr. Hallam is still among us. How, then, it will be asked, is Sir Martin to be remembered: by his poems or by his portraits?—by his speeches or by his annual addresses to the students? The question is not difficult of solution. His pictures in the Vernon Gallery will not preserve his name, nor will his portraits viewed as works of Art. His name will scend in the History of Painting as a clever artist with greater accomplishments than have commonly fallen to the class to which he belongs,—and as the painter who has preserved to us the faces and figures of Sir Thomas Munro, Sir Thomas Picton, Sir Eyre Coote, Sir James Scarlett, and Sir Henry Halford. There was merit, we may add, in his portrait of the poet Moore. Principally, however, he will be remembered as one of the Presidents of the Royal Academy.

* * * * *

GERARD TROOST, M.D

Dr. GERARD TROOST, for a long period one of the most eminent naturalists of the United States, died on the 14th of August at Nashville, where he had been for twenty years Professor of Chemistry and Natural History in the University of Tennessee. A native of Holland, and educated in one of her universities, he devoted himself to the natural sciences. For the sake of improvement he visited Paris, and for several years was a pupil of the celebrated Hauy. He removed to the United States about forty years ago, and in due time became an American citizen. In 1824 and 1825 he was with Robert Owen at New Harmony, and he appears always to have been distinguished for eccentricities of opinion and conduct, but to have commanded in every situation respect and affection. His entire life was consecrated to geology and the kindred sciences, with what ability and success, his published writings and his well-earned reputation at home and abroad may eloquently testify. Among the subjects upon which he wrote are, amber of Cape Sable, Maryland; the minerals of Missouri; five reports on the geology of Tennessee; meteoric iron from Tennessee and Alabama; a shower of red matter in Tennessee; meteorites, &c., &c.

* * * * *

PERCEVAL W. BANKS

This gentleman—better known as Morgan Rattler of "Fraser's Magazine"—died in London on the 13th of August. Mr. Banks, though only in his forty-fifth year, was the last of the race of writers, who, with Dr. Maginn, Mr. Churchill, and others, gave a sting and pungency (of a vicious and unwholesome kind however), to the early numbers of that journal. He seldom did justice to his own talents, for he wrote too often in haste, always at the last moment, and too rarely with good taste. He was by profession a barrister. The world at large, who admired the sportive fancy, classical eloquence, and kind yet firm criticism of poor Morgan Rattler, in his later years, will regret the early decease of one so gifted.

* * * * *

ROBERT HUNT

Mr. ROBERT HUNT, the eldest brother of Mr. Leigh Hunt, often mentioned in the "Autobiography," is dead. He was lately nominated by the Queen to the brotherhood of the Charter house, but has not lived very long to enjoy the royal bounty. He was seventy-six years old when he died.

* * * * *

JOHN COMLY

JOHN COMLY, an eminent minister of the Society of Friends, died on the 17th of August at Byberry in Pennsylvania, in the seventy-seventh year of his age. "Comly's Spelling-Book," and "Comly's Grammar," have to thousands now living made his name "familiar as household words."

* * * * *

BISHOP BASCOMB

THE REV. DR. BASCOMB, long eminent for various abilities, and most of all for a brilliant and effective elocution, died at Louisville, Ky., on the 9th of August. He was editor of the Southern Methodist Quarterly Review, and one of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

* * * * *

COUNT PIRE

GENERAL COUNT PIRE, one of the most distinguished officers of the French Empire, died recently. He fought as a private soldier of the National Guard of Paris, on the barricades, against the insurgents of June, 1848.

* * * * *

GLEANINGS FROM THE JOURNALS

The Athenæum is incredulous upon the subject of the falling of Table Rock, at Niagara, and in reprinting the account of the event, thought it necessary to offer a few remarks upon the credibility of American intelligence:—"Our readers," says the Athenæum, "know that we have great fears of the American penny-a-liner, and are carefully on our guard against his feats. Our own specimens of the class are commonplace artists compared with their American brethren. The season is at hand when we are looking out for the performances at the former,—but we expect little from beyond the old routine. In their sluggish imaginations, the annual pike is doubtless already growing up to his great dimensions, which, on failure of the accustomed springs of intelligence, we are soon to find floating in the newspaper shallows,—and the preposterous cucumber is probably having an inch added to its stature, which will shortly shoot rankly up where the parliamentary harvest has been cut down. The most daring thing that we can expect from these geniuses is, a trick or two perhaps with the Nelson Column. But the American penny-a-liner, our readers know, does the thing on the vast scale of his country. He takes down Niagara at his pleasure,—and puts it up again in its place, or anywhere else that he will. He transports the great Falls about the soil of his country at halt a crown an adventure,—and for five shillings would probably set them playing in the moon."

* * * *

A "MASONIC SWORD" FOR THE EMPEROR OF HAYTI.—A magnificent sword, intended to be presented to the Emperor Soulouque on his installation to the mysteries of the "Grand Masonic Order of Hayti," has been made at Birmingham, thirty-two inches in length. The blade is richly ornamented along its whole length with devices in blue and gold, bearing the inscription in French on the one side, "To the illustrious F. Faustin Soulouque, Emperor of Hayti," and on the other, "Homage of the Grand Order of Hayti." The hilt is surmounted by an imperial crown, and adorned with various masonic emblems. On the shield are richly chased the arms of Hayti, with the motto, "God! my Country, and my Sword," "Liberty and Independence." We perceive, also, from the French papers, that a celebrated goldsmith at Paris, has forwarded to Hayti a crown, a scepter, a wand of justice, and a sword of state, manufactured expressly for his sable Majesty, at a cost of £20,000 sterling. The latter has moreover, commanded, for his coronation, a sky-blue velvet mantle, embroidered with bees and richly bound with gold lace, and a Court dress of scarlet velvet, lined with white satin, and trimmed with the most expensive point lace, "with most valuable ornaments to match."

* * * * *

TIME WORKS WONDERS.—A correspondent Of the Melbourne Daily News remarks that in June, 1847, he met Prince Louis Napoleon and his cousin Jerome Napoleon at Lady Blessington's. "The president was then living in a very modest house in King-street, St. James's-square, and his very unaffected demeanor led me to form an intimate acquaintance with him. He appeared to me a person more fond of the ordinary amusements of the metropolis, frequenting the theaters, casinos, and other similar places, than an ambitious adventurer. On the following May as I was entering the chambers of my solicitor, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, an old gentleman with an umbrella under his arm passed me as I opened the swing doors, and politely removed his hat as I made way for him. It was Louis Philippe. It is scarce three weeks ago I was ordering a waistcoat of my tailor, when two gentlemen entered the shop, and one of them in broken English gave an order for a paletot; I looked up, It was Ledru Rollin and Etienne Arago; when they had gone, the worthy tradesman, knowing I had lived much in Paris, asked me if I knew his customer (M. Arago,) and if he could safely give him credit!"

* * * *

AMERICAN MUMMIES.—A letter from Ratisbon states, that the Museum of the Zoological and Mineralogical Society of that town has made a curious acquisition,—that of two mummies found in the sands of the desert of Atacama in Upper Peru, by Dr. Ried, a Bavarian physician resident at Valparaiso. These mummies, male and female, both of American race, are natural mummies,—that is to say, dried without embalming or any other species of preparation. The man is in a stooping posture, his head sustained on his hands, and his elbows renting on his knees. The face has an expression of pain which seems to indicate a, violent death. The woman is stretched at length, with arms crossed on her breast. Both heads are covered with long hair, dark and silky, and divided into an infinity of small plaits. When Dr. Reid discovered these mummies both had their teeth complete; but during their transport to Europe many of these have fallen out, and were found at the bottom of the cases containing these curious relics of American antiquity.

* * * *

THE COMMON SLANDERS AGAINST DANIEL WEBSTER are noted in the English Journals in connection with his acceptance of the Secretaryship of State. "These scandals," observes the Spectator, "cannot, however, hide from us the fact, that of all public men in America, perhaps with one exception, Mr. Webster is he who has evinced the greatest knowledge of public affairs, the greatest acumen in administration, and the greatest common sense in emergency. High intelligence is probably the best of all substitutes for high honor—if, indeed, it does not necessarily include that nobler quality."

* * * * *

COFFINS OF BAKED CLAY OF THE CHALDEANS.—Mr. Kennet Loftus, the first European who has visited the ancient ruins of Warka in Mesopotamia, and who is attached to the surveying staff of Colonel Williams, appointed to settle the question of the boundary line between Turkey and Persia, writes thus:—"Warka is no doubt the Erech of Scripture, the second city of Nimrod, and it is the Orchoe of the Chaldees. The mounds within the walls afford subjects of high interest to the historian and antiquarian; they are filled, nay, I may say, they are literally composed of coffins, piled upon each other to the height of forty-five feet. It has, evidently, been the great burial-place of generations of Chaldeans, as Meshad Ali and Kerbella at the present day are of the Persians. The coffins are very strange affairs; they are in general form like a slipper-bath, but more depressed and symmetrical, with a large oval aperture to admit the body, which is closed with a lid of earthenware. The coffins themselves are also of baked clay, covered with green glaze, and embossed with figures of warriors, with strange and enormous coiffures, dressed in a short tunic and long under garments, a sword by the side, the arms resting on the hips, the legs apart. Great quantities of pottery and also clay figures, some most delicately modeled, are found around them; and ornaments of gold, silver, iron, copper, glass, &c., within."—Art-Journal.