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 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, Lastly comes Milton, who thus exclaims in his Lycidas: So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore 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 glaze the Lakes, to bridle up the floods, Or, perhaps, it is exceeded by the following eulo- cious demagogues warring against wisdom and virtue, 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 depression 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. DHosell 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-provements, Hosack bore a part. 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 im 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. Balchs 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 formel 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 Knowledge, held at Philadelphia." In 1768, Charles Thomson (afterwards Secretary of Conposals for enlarging this society, in order that it gress), one of its leading members, prepared “Proinstituted, namely, the promoting and propagating may the better answer the end for which it was 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 Phi losophical 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. D. Charleston, S. C. 1820. February, 1768, the Hon. James Hamilton was elected president. On the 22d of March the first scientific communication was made in "A Description of a New Orrery, planned and now nearly finished by David Rittenhouse, A.M." It is the first paper in the Transactions. Preparations were made in the same year for observing the approaching Transit of Venus, which was to occur on the 3d of June, 1769. The society voted to construct an observatory at Philadelphia, where, and also at Norriton, observations were to be taken under its auspices. Finding their means insufficient they, in September, sought the aid of the legislature, who voted a hundred pounds for the purchase of a reflecting telescope. On the 22d of January, 1769, the two societies were united. An exciting contest took place at the first presidential election between Hamilton and Franklin as the candidates, which resulted in the election of the latter. Additional aid being obtained from the legislature, temporary observatories were soon after erected in State-House square, Philadelphia, and Rittenhouse's residence at Norriton, and the desired observations made, the weather proving extremely favorable, with great success at these stations and from a building at Cape Henlopen. In the same year the society instructed their committee on American Improvements to inquire as to "the best place for cutting a canal to join the waters of the Delaware and Chesapeake, with the probable expense that would attend the execution of it." An appeal for pecuniary aid in the prosecution of the surveys was made to the merchants of the city, and liberally responded to. The report, recommending what is known as the upper route, but declining to make an estimate of the cost, "judging it an undertaking beyond the ability of the country," appears in the first volume of the Transactions. Soon after the consolidation of the two societies a committee was appointed to prepare a volume for the press from papers read at the meetings. A list was reported in August, 1769, and on the 22d of February, 1771, the work appeared. The next efforts of the society were devoted to the manufacture of silk, and a company was formed for the purpose under its auspices. Endeavors were also made to introduce the culture of the vine. The society was, like every institution of learning, suspended during the Revolution. It, however, resumed its labors before the conclusion of the contest, re-assembling on the 5th of March, 1779. It was incorporated March 15, 1780. In 1785 a lot of ground, 70 by 50 feet, in State House square, facing Fifth street, was granted to the society, who proceeded to erect a hall, which was completed in 1791. Some $3500 was obtained towards defraying the expenses of the building; $540 of which were contributed by Franklin. The society derive a small revenue from the rental of the ground-floor of this building. The laws of the society (passed Feb. 3, 1769) direct that its members "shall be classed into one or more of the following committees "1. Geography, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and Astronomy. 2. Medicine and Anatomy. The family of Rittenhouse, at the commencement of the last century, emigrated to New York, and afterwards removed to Germantown, Pennsylvania, where he was born, April 8, 1732. His parents removed during his childhood to a farm at Norriton, Montgomery county, about twenty miles from Philadelphia, where his early years were passed in agricultural pursuits. "It was at this place," says his eulogist, Rush, "his peculiar genius first discovered itself. His plough, the fences, and even the stones of the field in which he worked, were frequently marked with figures, which denoted a talent for mathematical studies." He also "made himself master" of Newton's Principia, and devoted himself to the science of fluxions, "of which sublime invention he believed himself to be the author; nor did he know for some years afterwards, that a contest had been carried on between Sir Isaac Newton and Leibnitz for the honor of that great and useful discovery." His mechanical ingenuity was also early developed. At the age of seven he constructed a complete water-mill in miniature, and ten years after, having in the meantime received no instruction in the arts, made a wooden clock. Being permitted by his parents to follow his own inclinations in the choice of a livelihood, he abandoned agriculture, and erecting a small work-shop by the road-side on his father's land at Norriton, commenced business as a clock and mathematical instrument maker, many of his tools being the work of his own hands. The astronomical clock made by Rittenhouse, and used in his Observatory, is now in the possession of the Society. His mental development was much aided by a friendship formed when he was about nineteen with the Rev. William Barton, who not long after married his sister. Barton was a young Irishman, who had received a liberal education, and possessed a few books. Rittenhouse, whose early education had been limited, seized with avidity the advantages thus opened to him, and devoted himself to midnight study after his daily labors with such devotion, as to seriously impair his health for the remainder of his life. It was while thus employed that he constructed his Orrery. The work was purchased by the College of New Jersey; and a second one, constructed by him on the same model, is now in the possession of the University of Pennsylvania. Owing to the interest excited by this production, he was induced to remove to Philadelphia in 1770, where he continued in business for several years. He was elected a member of the Philosophical Society, and became a frequent contributor to its Transactions. We find him in August, 1773, making a report as chairman of a committee appointed to examine the first steamengine erected in this country. "It was made by Christopher Colles, for the purpose of pumping up water at a distillery." The report states that the engine "performed several strokes," but in consequence of its execution being attempted at a very low expense, it did not continue its motion long. A favorable opinion is expressed of the undertaking.* In 1775 he delivered the annual oration before the same body. The subject of his discourse was Astronomy. In 1779 he was employed by the State of Pennsylvania as one of the commissioners for settling a disputed boundary between her territory and that of Virginia. În 1784, he performed a similar service on the western, and, in 1786, on the northern boundary of his native state. In 1789, he was employed in determining the boundary line between New Jersey and New York, and, in 1787, between the latter state and Massachusetts. "In his excursions through the wilderness," says Rush, "he carried with him his habits of inquiry and observation. Nothing in our mountains, soils, rivers, and springs, escaped his notice. It is to be lamented that his private letters and the memories of his friends are the only records of what he collected upon these occasions." Soon after his election as President of the Philosophical Society, he gave a substantial proof of his interest in the institution by a donation of three hundred pounds. In 1792, he was appointed a Director of the United States Mint, an office from which he retired three years after, in consequence of ill health. He died on the 26th of June, 1796, and, in accordance with his expressed wish, was buried beneath the pavement of his observatory, in the garden adjoining his residence. Dr. Ashbel Green, whose church he attended, spoke at his grave. An eulogium upon him was delivered on the 17th of December following, before the Philosophical Society, by Dr. Benjamin Rush, and his life, by his nephew, William Barton, published in 1813. The best eulogy of his private character, when we take in consideration the high position he had gained for himself by his own exertions, is the simple statement of his friend, Ashbel Green, "He was, perhaps, the most modest man I ever knew." The presidency was next filled, for three years, by Thomas Jefferson. On his retirement, Dr. Wistar became his successor. Caspar Wistar was the grandson of an emigrant from Germany in 1717, who established a glass manufactory in New Jersey. His parents were Quakers, residing in Philadelphia, where he was born, September 13, 1761. În 1783, he visited England, to complete his medical studies. He returned to Philadelphia in January, 1787, having in the meantime inherited a large fortune by the death of his father, and commenced practice. In 1789, he was elected Professor of Chemistry, and, in 1808, of Anatomy, in the University, which acquired a high reputation as a medical school from his exertions and distinguished position, he being regarded in Europe, as well as in his own country, as one of the first medical authorities of his time. He was elected, July 20, 1787, a member, and, January 6, 1815, President, of the American Philosophical Society, and so continued until his death, January 22, 1818, contributing several articles to the Transactions. His chief production is, A System of Anatomy, 2 vols. 8vo. 1814. He enjoys a genial reputation, in addition to his scientific honors, as the founder of the Wistar parties, which, originally gatherings of his friends every Saturday at his own residence, have since his death been continued on the same evening of the week by the survivors and their successors, each taking his turn as host. Robert Patterson, the next president, was born in the north of Ireland, May 30, 1743. He emigrated to Philadelphia in 1768, and in 1774 became the principal of the Wilmington Academy, Delaware. He served as brigade-major in the Revolutionary war, and in 1779 was appointed Professor of Mathematics in the University of Pennsylvania, afterwards becoming Vice-Provost of that institution. In 1805, he was appointed Director of the Mint. He was chosen President of the American Philosophical Society in 1819, and died July 22, 1824. He is the author of several papers in the Society's Transactions. William Tilghman, elected a member of the Society in 1805, was the next president. He was born, August 12, 1756, in Talbot county, Maryland. He was admitted to the bar in Maryland in 1783, but in 1793 removed to Philadelphia, where he practised his profession until his appointment, by President Adams, as Chief Judge of the Circuit Court of the United States. The law establishing this office being repealed in about a year, Mr. Tilghman returned to practice. In July, 1805, he was appointed President of the Courts of Common Pleas in the first district, and, in February, 1806, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the state. He died April 30, 1827. He prepared, in 1809, by direction of the Legislature, a report of the English statutes in force within the state, and published in 1818 an eulogium on Dr. Wistar. was succeeded by Peter S. Du Ponceau. He This distinguished philologist was born in Rhé, an island on the western coast of France, where his father held a military command, June 3, 1760. He displayed at an early age a great aptitude for the study of languages, and acquired a knowledge of English and Italian from intercourse with the officers of an Irish and Italian regiment stationed in his vicinity. He was educated for the post of a military engineer, but was prevented from entering the army on account of being short-sighted. He was in consequence sent, in 1773, to a Benedictine College at St. Jean d'Angely. After he had remained there eighteen months his father died, and at the solicitation of his mother and family he consented to become a priest. He was made an instructor by the Bishop of Rochelle in the college at Bressuire in Poitou, but soon becoming tired of the place, he abandoned it in 1775, went to Paris, and for some time earned a frugal subsistence by translating English works by the sheet, English letters for business men, and giving lessons. He next formed the acquaintance of Count de Gebelin, author of the Monde Primitif, who made him his private secretary. While filling this office, he met at the house of Beaumarchais with Baron Steuben, who persuaded him to accompany him as his secretary and aide-de-camp to America. They sailed from Marseilles, and arrived at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, December 1, 1777. At the request of the Baron, Du Ponceau was appointed captain by brevet in the American army, February 18, 1778. He accompanied Steuben in his movements until the winter of 1780, when he was attacked at Philadelphia with cough and spitting of blood, and so reduced in strength that he was obliged to desist from further military service, and retired from the army. He became a citizen of Pennsylvania, and in October, 1781, was appointed secretary to Robert R. Livingston, then in charge of the department of Foreign Affairs. After filling this office for a period of twenty months he commenced the study of the law, and was admitted an attorney in June, 1785. He had previously been appointed a notary public. In 1778 he married, and in 1791 was appointed a sworn interpreter of foreign languages. The succeeding years were closely devoted to his profession, in which he rose to such eminence as to decline, in consequence of his prospects of practice, an appointment by Jefferson as Chief Justice of Louisiana. During his legal career he translated several valuable works on that science, and prepared some original essays on the same subject. Having gained a comfortable competence" by his profession, he was enabled to devote himself to the less remunerative, but to him most agreeable labors of a philologist. He was much encouraged in this pursuit by the formation in March, 1815, by the American Philosophical Society, of which he had become a member in 1791, of the "committee of history, moral science, and general literature." He prepared and presented in behalf of this committee a report in 1819 on the Structure of the Indian Languages, which was printed in the Transactions, and gave him a distinguished position in his favorite department of learning, procuring him among other honors the degree of LL.D., and an election on the 20th of April, 1827, as member of the Academy of Inscriptions of the French Institute. In May, 1835, the Linguistique prize, founded by Volney, was awarded him by the same body for his memoir on the Indian Languages of North America, afterwards published in Paris. His next and last work was a Dissertation on the Chinese Language, published in 1838, in which he maintained that the written language of that people was lexigraphic, that is composed of characters representing sounds, in opposition to the general opinion that it is ideographic, or composed of characters representing ideas. Mr. Du Ponceau was the author of a number of memoirs contributed to the various learned societies of which he was a member, and in many instances president; of addresses delivered on various public occasions, and of several essays. He was a constant reader and writer throughout his life in spite of the defect in his vision, which in his latter years was accompanied by cataract. He is said to have been remarkable for great absence of mind. He died on the first day of April, 1844, at the advanced age of eighty-four years. Dr. Nathaniel Chapman, elected President of the Society in 1846, was a native of Virginia, and for many years Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in the University of Pennsylvania. He occupied a distinguished position as a practitioner of medicine, and contributed largely to the medical literature of the country. He died at Philadelphia, July 1, 1853, at the age of seventy-four. Dr. R. M. Patterson was elected President in 1849. He was born in Philadelphia, and was the son of Robert Patterson, a former President. On completing his education as a chemist under Sir Humphrey Davy, he returned in 1812 to his native country, and soon after was elected Professor of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, and Mathematics, in the University of Pennsylvania. In 1828 he accepted a Professorship in the University of Virginia, where he remained until 1835, when he was appointed Director of the United States Mint at Philadelphia, which office he held until 1853, when his declining health induced him to resign. Dr. Patterson was elected a member of the Society in 1809, in his twenty-second year, at an earlier age than any person previously admitted. He was a most active participant in the labors of the Society, and contributed largely both by oral and written communications to the interest of its proceedings. He delivered, May 25, 1843, while Vice-President, A Discourse on the Early History of the American Philosophic Society, pronounced by appointment of the Society at the celebration of its Hundredth Anniversary, to which we have to acknowledge our obligations. It closes with the reorganization of the association, March 5, 1779. He died in Philadelphia, September 5, 1854, aged 68 years. On the resignation of Dr. Patterson, the office of President was conferred in 1853 upon Dr. Franklin Bache, a great-grandson of the illustrious founder of the Society. Dr. Bache has been for many years Professor of Chemistry in the Jeffer son Medical College of Philadelphia, and has greatly aided in elevating that school to its pre |