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AUGUST

Thomas Warton, a distinguished English clergyman, critic, was born at Basingstoke, August 1 (?), 1728, and died at Oxford, May 21, 1790. He was poet-laureate of England in 1785. He wrote: “History of English Poetry,” etc.

Francis Marion Crawford, a celebrated American author, was born in Bagni di Lucca, Italy, August 2, 1854, and died in 1909. Among his noted works are: “Dr. Claudius,” “Mr. Isaacs,” “A Tale of a Lonely Parish,” “Zoroaster,” “With the Immortals,” “Sant’ Ilario,” “The Witch of Prague,” “Love in Idleness,” “A Rose of Yesterday,” “Don Orsino,” “Via Crucis,” “In the Palace of the King,” “The Heart of Rome,” “Fair Margaret,” and its sequel, “Prima Donna.”

Sir William Watson, a famous English poet, was born at Wharfedale, August 2, 1858. He has published: “The Prince’s Quest,” “Epigrams of Art,” “Wordsworth’s Grave, and Other Poems,” “LachrymÆ Musarum,” “Excursions in Criticism,” “The Eloping Angels,” “Odes, and Other Poems,” “The Purple East,” “The Year of Shame,” “The Hope of the World,” “Collected Poems,” “For England: Poems Written During Estrangement,” “New Poems,” “Pencraft; A Plea for the Older Ways,” “Retrogression,” “The Man Who Saw,” “The Superhuman Antagonists,” etc.

Henry Cuyler Bunner, a celebrated American poet and story-writer, was born in Oswego, N. Y., August 3, 1855, and died in Nutley, N. J., May 11, 1896. He wrote: “A Woman of Honor,” “Airs from Arcady and Elsewhere,” “The Runaway Browns,” “Zadoc Pine and Other Stories,” “Jersey Street and Jersey Lane,” “The Midge,” “Short Sixes,” etc.

Percy Bysshe Shelley, the renowned English poet, was born at Field Place, near Horsham, Sussex, August 4, 1792, and was drowned off the coast of Italy, July 8, 1822. Among his many works may be mentioned: “A Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things,” “Queen Mab: A Philosophic Poem,” “Rosalind and Helen: A Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems,” “Hellas: A Lyrical Drama,” “Adonais: an Elegy on the Death of John Keats,” “The Cenci: A Tragedy,” “Prometheus Unbound: a Lyrical Drama,” “An Address to the Irish People,” “Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude, and Other Poems,” “A Vindication of Natural Diet,” “A Refutation of Deism,” etc.

Walter (Horatio) Pater, a distinguished English literary and art critic, was born at London, August 4, 1839, and died at Oxford, July 30, 1894. He wrote: “The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry,” “Marius the Epicurean,” “Imaginary Portraits,” “Appreciations,” “Plato and Plato-nism,” “The Child in the House,” etc.

Guy de Maupassant, a noted French novelist, was born at the ChÂteau de Miromesnil, (Seine-InfÉrieure), August 5, 1850, and died in Paris, July 6, 1893. Among his many works are: “In the Sunshine,” “On the Water,” “The Left Hand,” “The Sisters Rondoli,” “Peter and John,” “Strong as Death,” “Tales of Day and Night,” “Our Heart,” “A Wondering Life,” etc.

FranÇois de Salignac de la Mothe FÉnÉlon, an illustrious French theologian and writer, was born in the ChÂteau FÉnÉlon, in Perigord, Dordogne, August 6, 1651, and died January 7, 1715. He wrote: “Life of Charlemagne,” “Exposition of the Maxims of the Saints Regarding the Inner Life,” “Fables,” “Treatise on the Education of Young Girls,” and his most noted work, “Telemachus.”

Alfred Tennyson, Lord Tennyson, one of the greatest of English poets, was born at Somersby, Lincolnshire, August 6, 1809, and died at Aldworth, October 6, 1892. Among his famous works are: “Maud and Other Poems,” “Queen Mary,” “The Princess,” “The Foresters,” “Enoch Arden,” “The Holy Grail,” “Harold,” “The Idylls of the King,” “Tiresias,” “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After,” “Poems, Chiefly Lyrical,” “In Memoriam,” etc.

Joseph Rodman Drake, a noted American poet, was born at New York, August 7, 1795, and died September 21, 1820. Among his poetical works are: “The Culprit Fay,” “Abelard to HÉloise,” “The American Flag,” etc.

Frederick William Farrar, a celebrated English clergyman, was born at Bombay, India, August 7, 1831, and died March 22, 1903. His most notable works are: “Life and Works of Saint Paul,” “The Witness of History to Christ,” “The Life of Christ,” “The Early Days of Christianity,” “Eternal Hope,” “The Origin of Language,” “Chapters on Language,” “Families of Speech,” “Language and Languages,” “Darkness and Dawn,” “The Voice from Sinai,” “The Life of Christ as represented in Art,” “Gathering Clouds,” and “The Bible, Its Meaning and Supremacy.”

Francis Hutcheson, a distinguished Scotch educator and philosopher was born at Drumalig, Ulster, Ireland, August 8, 1694, and died in Glasgow about 1746. He was the author of “Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue,” “Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections,” “System of Moral Philosophy,” etc.

Francis Scott Key, a noted American poet, was born in Frederick County, Md., August 9, 1780, and died at Baltimore, January 11, 1843. He is best known as the author of “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Izaak Walton, a celebrated English author, was born in Stafford, England, August 9, 1593, and died at Winchester, December 15, 1683. His most famous work was: “The Complete Angler: or, the Contemplative Man’s Recreation.” He also wrote the biographies of a number of famous men, known as “Walton’s Lives.”

John Dryden, the renowned English poet, was born at Aldwinkle, Northamptonshire, August 9, 1631, and died in London, May 1, 1700. His most famous works were: “The Hind and the Panther,” “Alexander’s Feast,” and “Absalom and Achitophel,” also a number of noted plays including: “Marriage À la Mode,” “The Conquest of Grenada,” “The Spanish Friar,” “Don Sebastian,” “All for Love,” etc.

Henry Mackenzie, a noted Scotch novelist, essayist and miscellaneous writer, was born at Edinburgh, August 10, 1745, and died there January 14, 1831. He wrote: “The Man of the World,” “Julia de RoubignÉ,” “Works” (8 vols.), and “The Man of Feeling,” his most famous work.

Robert Green Ingersoll, a distinguished American orator, lecturer and lawyer, was born in Dresden, N. Y., August 11, 1833, and died at Dobbs Ferry, N. Y., July 21, 1899. He has published: “Some Mistakes of Moses,” “Lectures, Complete,” “Great Speeches,” “Prose Poems and Selections.”

Octave Feuillet, a celebrated French novelist, was born at St. LÔ, August 11, 1821, and died at Paris, December 29, 1890. He wrote: “The Great Old Man,” “The History of Sibylla,” “Julie de TrÉcoeur,” “A Marriage in High Life,” “Story of a Parisienne,” “La Morte,” and his most notable work, “Romance of a Poor Young Man.”

Mrs. Sarah Morgan (Bryant) Piatt, a noted American poet, was born at Lexington, Ky., August 11, 1836. Her best known works are: “A Woman’s Poems,” “A Voyage to the Fortunate Isles,” “Dramatic Persons and Moods,” “The Witch in the Glass,” “An Enchanted Castle,” etc.

Robert Southey, an English poet and prose-writer, of great renown, was born in Bristol, August 12, 1774, and died March 21, 1843. He wrote: “A Vision of Judgment,” “Joan of Arc,” “Thalaba the Destroyer,” “The Curse of Kehama,” “Life of Nelson,” “The Doctor,” “Book of the Church,” “Life of John Bunyan,” “Life of John Wesley,” “History of Brazil,” etc.

Edith Matilda Thomas, a famous American poet, was born in Chatham, Ohio, August 12, 1854. She has written: “A New Year’s Masque,” “The Round Year,” “Children of the Seasons,” “Babes of the Year,” “Babes of the Nation,” “Lyrics and Sonnets,” “Heaven and Earth,” “The Inverted Torch,” “Fair Shadow Land,” “In Sunshine Land,” “In the Young World,” “A Winter Swallow, and Other Verse,” “The Dancers,” “Cassia and Other Verse,” “Children of Christmas,” “The Guest of the Gate,” “The White Messenger,” “The Flower from the Ashes,” etc.

Goldwin Smith, a renowned English historian, essayist and educator, was born at Reading, Berkshire, August 13, 1823, and died June 7, 1910. He has written: “Irish History and Irish Character,” “Foundation of the American Colonies,” “England and America,” “The Civil War in America,” “Lectures on the Study of History,” “Short History of England,” “Life of Cowper,” “Life of Jane Austen,” “Guesses at the Riddle of Existence,” “Reminiscences” (1910), “The Empire,” “My Memory of Gladstone,” etc.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward, a celebrated American novelist, was born at Andover, Mass., August 13, 1844, and died in 1911. Among her many works are: “Ellen’s Idol,” “Gypsy Stories,” “Men, Women and Ghosts,” “Poetic Studies,” “The Story of Avis,” “Old Maid’s Paradise,” “Sealed Orders,” “Beyond the Gates,” “Songs of the Silent World,” “The Gates Between,” “A Struggle for Immortality,” “The Life of Christ,” “Trixy,” “Walled In,” and her most famous work, “Gates Ajar.”

Park Benjamin, a noted American journalist, poet, and lecturer, was born at Demerara, British Guiana, August 14, 1809 and died in New York, September 12, 1864. Among his poetical pieces are: “The Old Sexton,” “Poetry,” “Infatuation,” “The Nautilus,” “To One Beloved,” and “The Contemplation of Nature.”

Sir Walter Besant, a distinguished English novelist, was born in Portsmouth, August 14, 1838, and died June 10, 1901. Among his noted works may be mentioned: “The Golden Butterfly,” “Ready Money Mortiboy,” “The Seamy Side,” “Studies in Early French Poetry,” “When George the Third Was King,” “The French Humorists,” “All Sorts and Conditions of Men,” “Dorothy Foster,” “All in a Garden Fair,” “The Ivory Gate,” “The Master Craftsman,” “Beyond the Dreams of Avarice,” “St. Katharine’s by the Tower,” “Armorel of Lyonnesse,” “The Rebel Queen,” etc. The first three works mentioned were written in collaboration with James Rice.

John Galsworthy, a famous English author, was born at Combe in Surrey, August 14, 1867. His publications include: “The Man of Property,” “A Motley,” “Moods, Songs and Doggerels,” “The Inn of Tranquillity,” “A Sheaf,” Vol. I; “Beyond,” “A Sheaf,” Vol. II; “Saint’s Progress,” “In Chancery,” “Awakening,” “To Let,” etc. Plays: “The Silver Box,” “The Pigeon,” “The Eldest Son,” “The Skin Game,” “A Family Man,” etc.

Jeremy Taylor, a renowned English theological writer, was born August 15, 1613, at Cambridge, and died at Lisburn, Ireland, August 13, 1667. His most celebrated works are: “The Great Exemplar of Sanctity and Holy Life,” “Discourse on the Liberty of Prophesying,” “The Rule and Exercise of Holy Living,” and “The Rule and Exercise of Holy Dying.”

Sir Walter Scott, a Scotch novelist and poet of great fame, was born in Edinburgh, August 15, 1771, and died at Abbotsford, September 21, 1832. Among his many works may be mentioned: “The Lay of the Last Minstrel,” “Ballads and Lyrical Pieces,” “Rokeby,” “Marmion,” “The Lady of the Lake,” “Waverley,” “Guy Mannering,” “The Field of Waterloo,” “The Lord of the Isles,” “Rob Roy,” “Harold the Dauntless,” “Ivanhoe,” “The Bride of Lammermoor: A Legend of Montrose,” “Kenilworth,” “The Abbot,” “The Monastery,” “The Pirate,” “Tales of the Crusaders: The Betrothed, The Talisman,” “History of Scotland,” “Tales of a Grandfather,” “Essays on Ballad Poetry,” “The Eve of St. John: A Border Ballad,” “Life of Dryden,” “Life of Swift,” etc., etc.

Thomas De Quincey, a celebrated English author, was born in Manchester, August 15, 1785, and died December 8, 1859. Besides his numerous essays and papers on historical literary and miscellaneous topics, he wrote: “Confessions of an English Opium Eater,” “Letters to a Young Man Whose Education Has Been Neglected,” “Logic of Political Economy,” “Klosterheim,” “Leaders in Literature,” “Suspiria de Profundis: Essays on Style and Rhetoric,” “Joan of Arc,” “Autobiographic Sketches,” “Literary Reminiscences,” etc., etc.

William Miller, a noted Scotch poet, was born in Bridgegate, Glasgow, August 16, 1810, and died at Glasgow, August 20, 1872. He wrote: “Scottish Nursery Songs and Other Poems,” his best known poem being “Wee Willie Winkie.”

David Crockett, a celebrated American politician, hunter and humorist, was born at Limestone, Tenn., August 17, 1786, and was killed at Fort Alamo, San Antonio, Texas, March 16, 1836. He wrote: “Sketches and Eccentricities,” “Tour to the North and Down East,” his “Autobiography,” etc.

Henry Drummond, a distinguished Scotch geologist and religious writer, was born at Stirling, August 17, 1851, and died at Tunbridge Wells, England, March 11, 1897. His most famous works are: “Natural Law in the Spiritual World,” “The Ascent of Man,” “Tropical Africa,” “Pax Vobiscum,” “The Greatest Thing in the World,” “The Programme of Christianity.”

Lord John Russell, a famous English statesman, was born in London, August 18, 1792, and died at Pembroke Lodge, Richmond Park, May 28, 1878. He is best remembered by his historical works, “Life of William Lord Russell,” “Memoirs of the Affairs of Europe” (2 vols.) “Correspondence of John, 4th Duke of Bedford,” etc.

Charles Francis Adams, an eminent American statesman, publicist, and miscellaneous writer, was born at Boston, August 18, 1807, and died at Boston, November 21, 1886. His best known work was: “Life and Works of John Adams.”

Thomas William Parsons, a distinguished American poet, was born at Boston, August 18, 1819, and died September 3, 1892. Among his writings are: “The Old House at Sudbury,” “Ghetto di Roma,” “The Magnolia,” “The Shadow of the Obelisk,” etc. He also made a metrical translation of Dante’s “Inferno.”

Robert Williams Buchanan, a celebrated English author, was born in Warwickshire, August 18, 1841, and died in 1901. He wrote: “Idylls and Legends of Inverburn,” “Undertones,” “London Poems,” “North Coast Poems,” “Ballads of Love, Life and Humor,” “The City of Dreams,” “A Child of Nature,” “The Shadow of the Sword,” “Foxglove Manor,” etc.

Pierre Jean de BÉranger, a famous French poet, was born in Paris, August 19, 1780, and died there July 16, 1857. Some of his noted songs are: “The Old Flag,” “Les Petits Coups,” “The Old Corporal,” “Roger Bontemps,” “Little Red Man,” “Little Gray Man,” “King of Yvetot,” “My Grandmother,” “The Marquis of Carabas,” and his “Autobiography.”

Robert Herrick, a renowned English poet and royalist clergyman, was born in London, August 20, 1591, and died at Dean Prior, Devonshire, October 15, 1674. He wrote: “Noble Numbers,” and “Hesperides.”

Jules Michelet, a famous French historian, was born in Paris, August 21, 1798, and died at HyÈres, February 9, 1874. His principal works are: “History of France,” “History of the Revolution,” “Abridgment of Modern History,” “Of the Jesuits,” “Of the Priest, the Wife, and the Family,” “Of the People,” “Poland and Russia,” etc.

John Tyndall, an eminent British physicist and writer on science, was born at Leighlin Bridge, near Carlow, Ireland, August 21, 1820, and died at Haslemere, Surrey, England, December 4, 1893. He has written: “Philosophical Transactions in Glaciers of the Alps,” “Mountaineering in 1861,” “Dust and Disease,” “Hours of Exercise in the Alps,” “Sound: A Course of Eight Lectures,” “Nine Lectures on Light,” “Essays on the Use and Limit of the Imagination in Science,” “The Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice and Glaciers,” “Essays on the Floating Matter of the Air,” “New Fragments,” etc.

James Kirke Paulding, a distinguished American novelist, was born in Dutchess County, N. Y., August 22, 1779, and died at Hyde Park, N. Y., April 6, 1860. Among his famous works may be mentioned: “The United States and England,” “Lay of a Scotch Fiddle,” “Letters on Slavery,” “The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan,” “Koningsmarke,” “John Bull in America,” “Westward Ho!” “The Dutchman’s Fireside,” “Life of George Washington,” etc.

William Ernest Henley, a noted British poet, critic, and editor, was born at Gloucester, August 23, 1849, and died July 11, 1903. Among his works are: “Views and Reviews,” “Poems,” “London Voluntaries,” “Hawthorn and Lavender,” etc.

Theodore Parker, an American preacher and reformer of great celebrity, was born at Lexington, Mass., August 24, 1810, and died at Florence, May 10, 1860. He wrote: “Ten Sermons on Religion,” “Theism, Atheism and the Popular Theology,” and his most celebrated work: “Discourse on Matters Pertaining to Religion.”

John Gottfried von Herder, a distinguished German philosopher and historian of literature, was born at Mohrungen, August 25, 1744, and died at Weimar, December 18, 1803. Among his works are: “Voices of Nations in Song,” “Fragments on Recent German Literature,” “The Cid,” “Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind,” “Spirit of Hebrew Poetry,” etc.

Which I wish to remark,—
And my language is plain,—
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The heathen Chinee is peculiar.

“Plain Language from Truthful James,”—Francis Bret Harte.