JANUARY

Maria Edgeworth, a noted English novelist, was born in Black Bourton, Oxfordshire, January 1, 1767, and died in Edgeworthstown, Ireland, May, 1849. She wrote: “Early Lessons,” “Castle Rackrent,” “Tales of Fashionable Life,” “Belinda,” “Leonora,” “Moral Tales,” “The Modern Griselda,” “Helen,” “Ormond,” and “Patronage.”

Richard Henry Horne, a famous English miscellaneous writer, was born January 1, 1803, and died March 13, 1884. His principal works are: “The Dreamer and the Worker,” “Cosmo de’ Medici,” “Orion,” “A New Spirit of the Age,” “The Death of Marlowe,” “Judas Iscariot, A Miracle Play,” “Australian Facts and Prospects,” and “Exposition of the False Medium, and Barriers Excluding Men of Genius from the Public.”

Arthur Hugh Clough, an English poet of great renown, was born in Liverpool, January 1, 1819; and died at Florence, Italy, November 13, 1861. Among his noted works may be mentioned: “Ambarvalia: Poems by Thomas Burbidge and A. H. Clough,” “Poems and Prose Remains,” “Plutarch’s Lives: the Translation called Dryden’s Corrected,” etc.

Alexander PetÖfi, a celebrated Hungarian poet, was born at Kis-Koros, near Pesth, January 1, 1823, and died July 31, 1849. His chief works are: “The Wine-Bibbers,” “Coriolanus” (a drama), and his famous song “Talpra Magyar” (Up, Magyar), the Hungarian Marseillaise.

Paul Hamilton Hayne, a distinguished American poet, was born in Charleston, S. C., January 1, 1830, and died at Augusta, Ga., July 6, 1886. He has written: “Sonnets and Other Poems,” “Avolio, a Legend of the Island of Cos,” “Legends and Lyrics,” “The Mountain of the Lovers,” etc.

Philip Freneau, a noted American poet, was born in New York City, January 2, 1752, and died near Freehold, N. J., December 18, 1832. He wrote: “Eutaw Springs,” “The College Examination,” “The Home of Night,” “The Indian Student,” and “Lines to a Wild Honeysuckle.”

William Lyon Phelps, a celebrated university professor and literary critic, was born at New Haven, Connecticut, January 2, 1865. He has written “Selections from the Poetry and Prose of Thomas Gray,” “Irving’s Sketch Book,” “The Best Plays of Chapman,” “The Novels of Samuel Richardson,” (20 vols.), “The Works of Jane Austen” (12 vols.), “Stevenson’s Essays,” “The Pure Gold of Nineteenth Century Literature,” “Essays on Modern Novelists,” “Essays on Russian Novelists,” “Essays on Books,” “The Advance of the English Novel,” “The Advance of English Poetry,” “Reading the Bible,” “Essays on Modern Dramatists.”

Douglas William Jerrold, a noted English humorist, was born in London, England, January 3, 1803, and died there June 8, 1857. Some of his well-known works are: “The Rent Day,” “Retired from Business,” “Story of a Feather,” “Nell Gwynne,” “The Bubbles of the Day.”

Jacob Grimm, a famous philologist, archÆologist, and folklorist, was born at Hanau, January 4, 1785, and died at Berlin, September 20, 1863. He wrote: “The Poetry of the Meistersingers,” “German Mythology,” “History of the German Language,” “German Grammar,” etc. His fame rests, however, upon his celebrated work, “Fables for Children,” written in collaboration with his brother Wilhelm, and best-known as, “Grimm’s Fairy Tales.”

Sir Isaac Newton, the renowned English philosopher and mathematician, was born at Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, January 5, 1643, and died at Kensington, March 31, 1727. Among his works are: “Principia,” “Theory of Light and Colors,” “Optical Readings,” “On Motion,” “Opticks,” etc.

Charles Sumner, a distinguished American statesman, was born in Boston, January 6, 1811, and died in Washington, D. C., March 11, 1874. His speeches, orations, etc., were collected and published (1870-83) in a 15-vol. edition.

Louise de la RamÉe (Ouida), a famous English novelist of French extraction, was born at Bury St. Edmunds, January 7, 1839, and died January 25, 1908. Among her numerous works are: “Held in Bondage,” “Strathmore,” “Chandos,” “Idalia,” “Under Two Flags,” “A Leaf in the Storm,” “Pascarel,” “In a Winter City,” “Friendship,” “A Village Commune,” “Wanda,” “A House Party,” “Guilderoy,” “Moths,” “A Rainy June,” “Views and Opinions,” etc.

Alfred Russel Wallace, a renowned English naturalist, was born at Usk in Monmouthshire, January 8, 1822, and died November 7, 1913. He wrote: “Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro,” “The Malay Archipelago,” “On the Geographical Distribution of Animals,” “Tropical Nature,” “Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection,” “Man’s Place in the Universe,” “My Life: A Record of Events and Opinions,” “Is Mars Habitable?” “The World of Life,” “Social Environment and Moral Progress,” “The Revolt of Democracy,” etc.

William Wilkie Collins, a celebrated English novelist, was born in London, January 8, 1824, and died there September 23, 1889. He wrote: “The New Magdalen,” “No Name,” “Antonia,” “Basil,” “The Dead Secret,” “Armadale,” “Man and Wife,” “Poor Miss Finch,” “Miss or Mrs.?” “The Law and the Lady,” “The Two Destinies,” “Heart and Science,” “I Say No,” “The Legacy of Cain,” “The Moonstone,” and “The Woman in White,” his greatest novel.

Denton Jaques Snider, a distinguished American author, was born in Mt. Gilead, Ohio, January 9, 1841. He is best known by his famous work, “A Walk in Hellas.” His other works include: “Homer in Chios,” “Johnny Appleseed’s Rhymes,” “Ancient European Philosophy,” “Modern European Philosophy,” “Architecture,” “World’s Fair Studies,” “Commentaries on Froebel’s Play Songs,” “The Will and Its World,” “The Life of Frederick Froebel,” “The Father of History,” “Herodotus,” “Social Institutions,” “The State,” “A Tour in Europe,” “Cosmos and Diacosmos,” etc.

Aubrey Thomas De Vere, a famous Irish poet and descriptive and political essayist, son of Sir Aubrey De Vere, was born January 10, 1814, and died in 1902. Among his works are: “Poems,” “Irish Odes,” “Alexander the Great,” “Picturesque Sketches of Greece and Turkey,” “Constitutional and Unconstitutional Political Action,” “The Foray of Queen Meave and Other Legends of Ireland’s Heroic Age,” “The Sisters,” “Legends of the Saxon Saints,” “St. Peter’s Chains,” “Essays Chiefly on Poetry,” “Essays Chiefly Literary and Ethical,” “Recollections,” etc.

Charles George Douglas Roberts, a celebrated Canadian poet, was born in Douglas, N. B., January 10, 1860. Among his publications are: “Orion and Other Poems,” “In Divers Tones,” “Canterbury Poets,” “History of Canada,” “A Sister to Evangeline,” “The Heart of the Ancient Wood,” “The Kindred of the Wild,” “Barbara Ladd,” “The Watchers of the Trails,” “The Heart that Knows,” “The House in the Water,” “Neighbours Unknown,” “The Feet of the Furtive,” “Babes of the Wild,” “The Ledge on Bald Face,” “In the Morning of Time,” etc.

Alexander Hamilton, an illustrious American statesman, was born in the Island of Nevis, West Indies, January 11, 1757, and died near New York, July 12, 1804. His “Collected Works,” appeared in 1851.

EugÉnie de GuÉrin, a famous French diarist and prose-writer, was born January 11, 1805, and died May 31, 1848. Jointly with her brother Maurice, she wrote the “Journals,” and “Letters.”

Bayard Taylor, an eminent American poet, and novelist, was born at Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, January 11, 1825, and died at Berlin, Germany, December 19, 1878. His noted works are: “Views Afoot,” “The American Legend,” “Poems and Ballads,” “Poems of the Orient,” “Travels in Greece and Russia,” “Poems of Home and Travel,” “At Home and Abroad,” “Hannah Thurston,” “The Story of Kennett,” “By-Ways of Europe,” “The Masque of the Gods,” “Egypt and Iceland,” “Home Pastorals, Ballads, and Lyrics,” “Dramatic Works,” “Critical Essays and Literary Notes,” etc.

Governor John Winthrop, first Colonial governor of Massachusetts, and a distinguished writer, was born near Groton, Suffolk, England, January 12, 1587, and died at Boston, March 26, 1649. He wrote: “A Modell of Christian Charity,” “Arbitrary Government Described,” and a “History of New England from 1630 to 1649,” which was left by him in MS., and found in his “Life and Letters,” by Robert C. Winthrop.

Edmund Burke, an eminent British statesman and orator, was born in Dublin, January 12, 1729, and died in Beaconsfield, England, July 9, 1797. He wrote: “A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful,” “Reflections on the French Revolution,” “Letters on a Regicide Peace,” “Works and Correspondence.”

Prosper Jolyot de CrÉbillon, a celebrated French dramatist, was born at Dijon, January 13, 1674, and died at Paris, June 14, 1762. His plays include; “The Death of Brutus’s Children,” “Idomeneus,” “Atreus and Thyestes,” “Electra,” “Rhadamistus and ZÉnobia,” “Xerxes,” “Semiramis,” “Pyrrhus,” and “Catalina.”

Samuel Woodworth, a noted American poet and journalist, was born at Scituate, Mass., January 13, 1785, and died in New York City, December 9, 1842. His poem, “The Old Oaken Bucket,” won for him great fame.

Ethel Lynn Beers, a well-known American poet, was born in Goshen, N. Y., January 13, 1827, and died in Orange, N. J., October 10, 1879. She is the author of “All Quiet Along the Potomac, and Other Poems.”

Harriet Waters Preston, a distinguished American scholar, translator, and writer, was born in Danvers, Mass., January 14 (?), 1836, and died in 1911. Besides her translations of Mistral’s “Mireio,” Virgil’s “Georgics,” etc., she has published: “Aspendale,” “Troubadours and TrouvÉres,” “Love in the Nineteenth Century,” “A Year in Eden,” etc.

Jean Baptiste Poquelin (MoliÈre), the greatest of French dramatists, was born in Paris, January 15 (?), 1622, and died there, February 17, 1673. Among his famous works are: “The Misanthrope,” “The Learned Ladies,” “The School for Wives,” “The Imaginary Invalid,” “The Miser,” “Don Juan,” “The School for Husbands,” and “Tartuffe,” which is considered by many to be his masterpiece.

Franz Grillparzer, a renowned Austrian poet and dramatist, was born in Vienna, January 15, 1791, and died there January 21, 1872. Among his noted works are: “Blanche of Castile,” “The Ancestress,” “Sappho,” “The Jewess of Toledo,” “The Poor Minstrel,” etc., also two famous poems, “Waves of Ocean; Thrills of Love,” and “In Thy Camp is Austria.”

Sarah Doudney, a noted English writer of fiction, was born near Portsmouth, England, January 15, 1843. She has written: “Under Grey Walls,” “The Pilot’s Daughters,” “Nothing But Leaves,” “Under False Colours,” “The Lesson of the Water Mill,” “The Missing Rubies,” “When We Two Parted,” “Through Pain to Peace,” “Pilgrims of the Night,” “A Cluster of Roses,” “Silent Strings,” “One of the Few,” “Shadow and Shine,” etc.

Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon, the great French annalist, was born January 16, 1675, and died March 2, 1755. His notable works are: His famous “Memoirs,” published in twenty volumes.

Benjamin Franklin, the renowned American philosopher and statesman, was born in Boston, January 16, 1706, and died in Philadelphia, April 17, 1790. He wrote his own “Autobiography,” and other important works.

Pedro Calderon de la Barca, the great Spanish dramatist, was born at Madrid, January 17, 1600, and died May 25, 1681. Among his dramas may be mentioned: “The Wonder-Working Magician,” “The Schism of England,” “The Alcalde of Zalamea,” “No Magic Like Love,” “The Divine Orpheus.”

Count Vittorio Alfieri, a celebrated Italian dramatist, was born at Asti in Piedmont, January 17, 1749, and died at Florence, October 8, 1803. Among his many works may be mentioned: “Cleopatra,” “Polinice,” “Antigone,” “Agide,” “Bruto,” “Saul,” “Filippo,” etc. He also wrote: “Tyranny,” “Essays on Literature and Government,” odes on “American Independence,” and “Memoirs of His Life.”

Charles de Secondant, Baron de Montesquieu, a famous French historian and political philosopher, was born near Bordeaux, January 18, 1689, and died in Paris, February 10, 1755. He wrote: “Persian Letters,” “The Temple of Cnidus,” “Causes of Roman Greatness and Decline,” “Dialogue of Sylla Eucrates and Lysimachus,” “Works,” etc. Also his renowned work, “Spirit of Laws,” his masterpiece.

Daniel Webster, the illustrious American statesman and orator, was born in Salisbury, N. H., January 18, 1782, and died in Marshfield, Mass., October 24, 1852.

Edouard RenÉ LefÈbvre de Laboulaye, a distinguished French jurist, historian, and writer of tales, was born at Paris, January 18, 1811, and died there May 25, 1883. His greatest work is a “Political History of the United States, 1620-1789,” (3 vols.) 1856-66. His other works are: “The United States and France,” “Paris in America,” and a novel “Prince Caniche.” His best known works of fiction are the three series of “Blue Stories.”

James Ryder Randall, a celebrated American song-writer, was born in Baltimore, Md., January 18, 1839, and died in 1908. His poems include: “The Sole Entry,” “Arlington,” “The Cameo Bracelet,” “The Battle Cry of the South,” and his famous poem, “My Maryland!”

Henry Austin Dobson, a famous English poet and man of letters, was born at Plymouth, January 18, 1840, and died April 1, 1921. He has written: “Proverbs in Porcelain,” “Old-World Idyls,” “Eighteenth-Century Vignettes,” “Vignettes in Rhyme and Vers de SociÉtÉ,” “Four French Women,” “The Paladin of Philanthropy,” “Side-Walk Studies,” “De Libris,” “Old Kensington Palace,” “At Prior Park,” “Rosalba’s Journal and Other Papers”; also “Lives of Fielding, Steele, Goldsmith,” “William Hogarth,” “Horace Walpole,” “Richardson,” “Fanny Burney,” etc.

Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the renowned French author was born in Havre, January 19, 1737, and died at Eragny-sur-Oise, January 21, 1814. His works include: “Voyage to the Isle of France,” “Studies of Nature,” “The Indian Cottage,” “Vows of a Solitary,” “Harmonies of Nature,” “On Nature and Morality,” “Voyage to Silesia,” “Stories of Travel,” “The Death of Socrates,” and his most famous work, “Paul and Virginia.”

Auguste Comte, the great French philosopher, was born at Montpellier, January 19, 1798, and died in Paris, September 5, 1857. His most celebrated works are: “Positive Philosophy,” and “Positive Polity.”

Edgar Allan Poe, a celebrated American poet and story-writer, was born in Boston, January 19, 1809, and died in Baltimore, Maryland, October 7, 1849. His poems include: “The Raven, and Other Poems,” “Tamerlane and Other Poems,” “Eureka, a Prose Poem,” “Poems,” etc.

Rt. Hon. Augustine Birrell, a distinguished English essayist, was born in Wavertree, near Liverpool, January 19, 1850. He has written: “Obiter Dicta,” “Res JudicatÆ,” “Life of Charlotte BrontË,” “Men, Women and Books,” “Collected Essays,” “William Hazlitt,” “Andrew Marvell,” “Miscellanies,” “In the Name of the Bodleian,” “Frederick Locker Lampson,” etc.

Nathaniel Parker Willis, a celebrated American journalist and poet, was born at Portland, Maine, January 20, 1806, and died at Idlewild on the Hudson, New York, January 20, 1867. Some of his writings are: “People I Have Met,” “Inklings of Adventure,” “Letters from Under a Bridge,” “Famous Persons and Places,” “Poems,” etc.

Richard Le Gallienne, a noted English author, was born in Liverpool, January 20, 1866. He has written: “The Religion of a Literary Man,” “My Lady’s Sonnets,” “Prose Fancies,” “Sleeping Beauty and other Prose Fancies,” “The Quest of the Golden Girl,” “The Life Romantic,” “Pieces of Eight,” etc.

Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy, a famous English historian was born at Bexley in Kent, January 21, 1812, and died January 27, 1878. He wrote: “Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World,” “The History of the Ottoman Turks,” “History of England,” “Rise and Progress of the English Constitution,” “Historical and Critical Account of the Several Invasions of England,” etc.

Walter Neale, a noted American author and man of letters, was born at Eastville, Va., January 21, 1873. Among his works are: “The Betrayal” (a novel), “The Sovereignty of the States,” and numerous essays, poems, addresses, etc.

Francis Bacon, the great English philosopher, was born in London, January 22, 1561, and died April 9, 1626. Some of his works are: “The Advancement of Learning,” “On the Colors of Good and Evil,” “Novum Organum,” his immortal “Essays,” and many histories, among them “Elizabeth,” “Henry VII” and “Henry VIII.”

Gotthold Ephraim Von Lessing, a famous German poet, was born at Kamenz, in Upper Lusatia, January 22, 1729, and died at Brunswick, February 15, 1781. Among his writings are: “Letters on Literature,” “Nathan the Wise,” “Philotas,” “The Woman-Hater,” “The Jews,” “Trifles,” (a collection of poems), “The Free-Thinker,” “Education of the Human Race,” etc.

George Noel Gordon, Lord Byron, the renowned English poet, was born in London, January 22, 1788, and died at Missolonghi, Greece, April 19, 1824. Some of his celebrated works are: “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,” “Hours of Idleness,” “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” “The Corsair,” “Hebrew Melodies,” “Lara,” “Manfred,” “The Prisoner of Chillon,” “The Lament of Tasso,” “Don Juan,” etc.

Josiah Quincy, a distinguished American lawyer, was born in Boston, January 23, 1744, and died April 26, 1775. His important works are: “Observations on the Boston Port Bill,” and “An Address of the Merchants, Traders, and Freeholders of Boston.”

Marie Henri Beyle, a famous French novelist and critic, was born in Grenoble, January 23, 1783, and died in Paris, March 23, 1842. He has written, “History of Painting in Italy,” “Rome, Naples, and Florence in 1817,” “About Love,” and his celebrated work, “The Chartreuse (Carthusian Nun) of Parma.”

Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, a renowned French dramatist, was born in Paris, January 24, 1732, and died there, May 18, 1799. His greatest plays are: “The Barber of Seville,” and “The Marriage of Figaro.”

Robert Burns, a Scotch poet of world-wide fame, was born in Alloway, January 25, 1759, and died in Dumfries, July 21,1796. His most famous poems are: “Hallowe’en,” “The Cotter’s Saturday Night,” “To a Mountain Daisy,” “Twa Dogs,” “Tam O’Shanter,” and “Highland Mary.”

Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, an eminent English author and statesman, was born at Doxey, near Stafford, January 26, 1795, and died at Stafford, March 13, 1854. His works include: “An Attempt to Estimate the Poetical Talent of the Present Age,” “Poems on Various Subjects,” “History of the Roman Republic,” “History of Greece,” “Final Memorials of Charles Lamb,” “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays,” etc.

Richard Bentley, a celebrated English critic and essayist, was born in Oulton, Yorkshire, January 27, 1662, and died July, 1742. His important works are: “Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris,” and “Latin Epistle to John Mill, Containing Critical Observations on the Chronicle of Joannes Malala.”

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Von Schelling, an eminent German thinker and philosopher, was born at Leonberg, Wurtemberg, January 27, 1775, and died at the Ragaz baths, Switzerland, August 28, 1854. Among his many works are: “On the Possibility of a Form of philosophy,” “Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature,” “On the Soul of the World,” “Philosophy and Religion,” etc. Four posthumous volumes are: “Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology,” “Philosophy of Mythology,” and “Philosophy of Revelation,” in two separate volumes.

Lewis Carroll, nom de plume of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a distinguished English clergyman and writer on mathematical subjects was born January 27, 1832, and died in January, 1898. His principal works are: “A Syllabus of Plane Algebraical Geometry,” “Guide to the Mathematical Student,” etc. Also: “The Hunting of the Snark,” “Rhyme and Reason,” “Euclid and His Modern Rivals,” “Game of Logic,” “Mathematica Curiosa,” and his two popular tales for children, entitled “Alice in Wonderland,” and “Through the Looking-Glass.”

Christian Felix Weisse, a noted German poet and writer, was born at Annaberg, January 28, 1726, and died at Leipsic, December 16, 1804. He wrote: “Sportive Lays,” “Lays of the Amazons,” “Songs for Children,” etc.

Sabine Baring-Gould, a renowned English antiquary and novelist, was born in Exeter, January 28, 1834; died January, 1924. Among his numerous works may be mentioned: “Lives of the Saints,” “Yorkshire Oddities,” “In the Roar of the Sea,” “The Deserts of Southern France,” “A Garland of Country Song,” “Old Fairy Tales Retold,” “Napoleon Bonaparte,” “A Study of St. Paul,” “A Book of the Riviera,” “A Book of the Rhine,” “A Book of the Pyrenees,” “Devonshire Characters,” “Cornish Characters,” “The Land of Teck,” “Cliff Castles and Cave Dwellings,” “The Church Revival,” and his most famous work, “Curious Myths of the Middle Ages.”

Emanuel Swedenborg, the famous Swedish mystic philosopher and author, was born in Stockholm, January 29, 1688, and died there March 29, 1772. His notable works include: “Principles of Chemistry,” “Conjugal Love and its Chaste Delights,” “Opera Philosophica et Mineralia,” “Domini Jesu Christi Servus,” etc.

The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime makes the ridiculous, and one step above the ridiculous makes the sublime again.

“Age of Reason,” Part ii, note,—Thomas Paine.