acter and unselfishness of conduct gave him an honored place in the community.

The following is a list of his published writings:

A Letter to a Lady in France in answer to inquiries concerning the late imputations of dishonor upon the United States. Boston, 1844.

Dependence of the Fine Arts on the Security of Property. An Address before the Mercantile Library Association, Nov. 13, 1844. Boston, 1845. A Practical View of Banking. Address before the Mercantile Library Association. December, 1845.

Profits on Manufactures at Lowell. Letter from the Treasurer of a Corporation to J. S. Pendleton, Esq., Va. Boston, 1845.

Oration before the City Authorities of Boston, July 5. Boston, 1847. Speech in the Senate of Massachusetts on the Bill concerning the Manufacture and Sale of Intoxicating Liquors. March 3, 1852.

Speech on the Resolutions providing for the Reception of Louis Kossuth, April 7. Boston, 1852.

Speech on the Use of the Credit of the State for the Hoosac Tunnel, May 18. Boston, 1853.

Reply to a Review of the above Speech, by E. H. Derby. Boston, 1853. Memoir of Thomas Handasyd Perkins. [In Hunt's Lives of American Merchants, vol. i., 1856.]

Destiny and Progress. Hunt's Merchants' Magazine.

Gold from California. Lecture at North Chelsea, March 25. New York, 1856.

MEMOIR

OF

J. E. WORCESTER, LL.D.

BY WILLIAM NEWELL.

JOSEPH EMERSON WORCESTER, the great-grandson of Rev. Francis Worcester, who was a descendant in the third generation of Rev. William Worcester, first minister of Salisbury, N. H., was the second son of Jesse and Sarah Parker Worcester, and born in Bedford, N. H., Aug. 24, 1784. He removed with his father to Hollis, N. H., in 1794. His father's family, consisting of nine sons and six daughters, seems to have been a race of educators. Fourteen out of the fifteen were employed at one time or another as teachers in the public schools or academies of New England.

Joseph, the subject of this memoir, worked on his father's farm till he was twenty-one. From his boyhood he had an eager desire for knowledge, and when he came of age he determined to obtain, if possible, a collegiate education. With characteristic perseverance, amid difficulties, he finally succeeded in fitting himself for an advanced standing in Yale College, being admitted to the Sophomore class in 1809, and graduating in 1811. He then became preceptor of a private academy in Salem, Mass., where he remained for five years, quietly preparing himself, and being prepared by his school experience and his private studies, for his future eminent career. In 1816 he gave up his school and passed the two following years at Andover. From this time until his death his life was one of unbroken, patient and useful literary labor, interrupted only in his latter years by partial failure of sight; in spite of which, however, he continued with all the power which yet remained to him his devotion to his work. "Nulla dies sine linea." His first publication, "A Geographical Dictionary or Universal Gazetteer, Ancient and Modern," in two large octavo volumes, was issued at Andover in 1817, followed by a" Gazetteer of the United States," also in octavo, — both

of them received with marked approval for their accuracy and comprehensiveness. In 1819 he removed to Cambridge, where he passed the remainder of his industrious, successful, and honorable life. In that year appeared his "Elements of Geography, Ancient and Modern," which soon became a standard text-book in the New England schools, and in 1824, Epitome of Geography," each with an atlas, and in the same year with the former (1819), a companion work, "Sketches of the Earth and its Inhabitants," in two volumes duodecimo, with one hundred pictorial engravings.

an "

On his election to the American Academy, in 1825, he presented an essay on "Longevity and the Expectation of Life in the United States," which was published among the memoirs of the Academy. The following year he issued from the press his "Elements of History, Ancient and Modern," which, as meeting a want long felt of a compendious, reliable and well written history for the use of schools and academies, was soon adopted as a text-book in New England and in other parts of the country. In 1827 appeared his "Epitome of History," with charts, and in the two following years "Outlines of Scripture Geography," and "Outlines of Ancient, Classical, and Scripture Geography," each with an atlas.

His indefatigable industry, not satisfied with these achievements, now entered a new field of labor. In 1828 he issued an edition of "Johnson's Dictionary, as improved by Todd and abridged by Chalmers, with Walker's Pronunciation combined," with which he incorporated valuable additions of his own. This was his first undertaking in the department of lexicography, leading to the works on which his fame will chiefly and justly rest.

In 1829, under the urgent persuasion of the publisher of Dr. Webster's large dictionary and his own personal friend, he reluctantly consented to prepare an abridgment of that work, which he faithfully and ably accomplished. It may be easily imagined how this afterward was made the handle of some scandal and misrepresentation by interested parties. It is hardly worth while to allude to it, except to say that Dr. Worcester was amply vindicated. Indeed no one who knew him needed any certified assurance of his honor and integrity in all the transactions of his busy life. But his own independent researches and independent collections now impelled him to complete the enterprise which had long been in his mind, delayed only by his scrupulous solicitude for accuracy in all its details. In 1830 he published, in a duodecimo vol