1802=1870.

George Denison Prentice was born in Preston, Connecticut, and was a teacher and lawyer in early life. In 1830 he went to Kentucky, and a year afterward became editor of the Louisville “Journal,” which position he held and made illustrious during the remainder of his life. His wit and humor gave him great influence, and his paper, afterwards consolidated with the “Courier” and known as the “Courier-Journal,” became a power in politics, commerce, and society. A fine statue of him adorns the Courier-Journal building in Louisville, and his fame is by no means forgotten. “Prenticeana” is a collection of his witty and pungent paragraphs. See Memorial address by his successor, Henry Watterson.

WORKS.

Life of Henry Clay.
Poems, edited by John James Piatt.
Prenticeana, [with life-sketch.]

Mr. Prentice’s best known poem is the “Closing Year,” which elocutionists have kept before the public and which has often inspired young poets to sad verses on the passing of time.

THE CLOSING YEAR.

(From Poems.[12])

(From Prenticeana.)

A pin has as much head as a good many authors, and a good deal more point.

The Turkish men hold that women have no souls, and prove by their treatment of them that they have none themselves.

A writer in the “American Agriculturist” insists that farmers ought to learn to make better fences. Why not establish a fencing-school for their benefit?

The thumb is a useful member, but, because you have one, you needn’t necessarily try to keep your neighbors under it.

The greatest truths are the simplest; the greatest man and women are sometimes so, too.

A New Orleans poet calls the Mississippi the most eloquent of rivers. It ought to be eloquent; it has a dozen mouths.