externally with pine. In the center is an elliptic staircase from the basement to the attic. It is occupied for private rooms of professors and recitations. The building on the south side is the Sturgess Library. It is three stories and a basement-the last of which is stone, the remainder brick. It is fifty-two feet by sixty-six, and is in hight and style the same as the others. The basement and first story are elegantly fitted up for society halls and society libraries. The two upper stories are devoted to the college library, but they are thrown into one-galleries being substituted for the upper floor. This room is pure Grecian Ionic. It is sixty-one feet by fifty-one; twentythree feet high. From the celling rises a dome upon a square base. It is lighted by eight windows of ornamented glass. Below the galleries are ten alcoves, five on each side; between them runs a hall twenty-three feet wide, terminated at each end by an ornamental window sixteen and a half feet high by seven wide, surrounded by a rich molding; the sash being divided into three parts by mullions. The Chapel and Library were superintended by Mr. Morris Cadwallader, and reflects great credit upon his skill and taste as an architect. VI. Faculty. The present one consists of E. Thomson, President, and Professor of BellesLettres; Rev. F. Merrick, A. M., Professor of Biblical Literature and Moral Science; Rev. L. D. M'Cabe, D. D., Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy; William G. Williams, A. M., Professor of Greek and Latin Languages and Literature; Rev. W. L. Harris, Professor of Chemistry and Natural History; Mr. John Ogden, Principal of Normal Department; Samuel Williams, A. M., Tutor in Languages; T. C. O'Kane, A. M., Tutor in Mathematics. It should be borne in mind, that, while we have been gathering our influence and property, and extending our usefulness, the conferences in Ohio have been directing their attentionwhether wisely or not, I do not say-to other institutions as well as ourselves. We have at present within the bounds of the Ohio and North Ohio conferences six colleges under Methodist patronage, not to mention seminaries and high schools. We certainly should not be accused of neglecting the interests of education. MRS. AMELIA B. WELBY. BY BEN CASSEDAY. HERE is little in the mere biography of Mrs. distinguishes rest of her sex. Her life was passed placidly and quietly in the performance of those duties which She was born on the 3d belonged to her station. of February, 1819, at St. Michael's, in Maryland, a small village on Miles river, an arm of Chesapeake Bay, whence she was removed. when an infant to Baltimore. She resided in or near that city till 1834, when she removed to Louisville, Ky. It was at this latter place that her poetic genius first became known to the public, and there she died. It is quite probable that she had written previous to this time, but none of those earlier poems have been preserved. The history of her life does not furnish any clew to her genius. Her education was not thorough, her mind was not disciplined by study, nor was her reading at all extensive; yet, in spite of all these disadvantages, her poetry is perfect in rhythm and harmony, and is never blemished by any fault either of rhetoric or of grammar. In the most impressible part of her earlier life she was surrounded by a great deal that was grand and beautiful in nature, and most of her poetic images refer to those surroundings. Her first publication was in 1837, she being then hardly eighteen years old. It was printed in the Louisville Journal, of which paper George D. Prentice was and is the editor. This accomplished gentleman, himself a poet of admirable ability, took great pains to develop her poetic faculty and to procure for her a fair hearing before the public. She had, however, very little need of any adventitious aids to establish her in the highest favor with her readers. From her earliest appearance before the public, the sweetness and naturalness of her melodies caught every ear and warmed every heart. They reached all the better feelings of her readers because they so Her poevidently flowed fresh from her own. etry was the result of a pure afflatus, and had never been measured by the frigid rules of art. She sang because it was given her to sing; her melodies were like the voices of the birds-they were the simple outgushing of her own pure nature. She did not reach the higher forms of art, nor did she attempt them. Her song was a simple measure, learned of the trill of the brooklet, of the rustle of the leaves, or of the deep and solemn murmur of the ocean. It is WHEN the flail of affliction is upon me, let me not be the chaff that flies in thy face, but let me be the corn that lies at thy feet.-not asserted that Mrs. Welby's poetry is faultless, but there is in it that natural charm of innocence Henry. and grace which is known to but few writers. Mr. Poe said of her, in one of his peculiar criticisms, that "she had nearly all the imagination of Maria del Occidente, with more refined taste; and nearly all the passion of Mrs. Norton, with a nicer ear, and, what is surprising, equal art. Very few American poets are at all comparable with her," he adds, "in the true poetic qualities. As for our poetesses, few of them approach her." This is high praise, and, though perhaps somewhat overstrained, is not entirely unmerited. Her imagination and refinement of taste are, perhaps, her most prominent qualities, and her nicety of ear was none the less remarkable in view of the fact that it had never been cultivated by the study of any model. Mrs. Welby's poetry grew more rapidly into public favor, and found admiration and appreciation among a larger number of people than that of any author within our knowledge. Hardly had her fingers touched the lyre ere her strains were caught up by melody-lovers throughout the Union, and sung in every peopled valley and echoed from every sunny hill-side of our vast domain. Her poetry was of a character that could not fail to reach every heart. It was natural, free from all morbidness; full of grace, of delicacy, and of elegance. While it did not reach beyond the comprehension and the sympathy of the humblest individual, while her range of subjects was confined to the "every-dayness of this work-day world," yet her treatment of them was so absolutely poetic, and withal so naive and original, as to excite the admiration of the most cultivated and refined. The first collected edition of her poems was published at Boston in 1845, and, although a large number of copies were embraced in it, it was readily disposed of within a very few months, and the demand for the work was still unabated. In less than twelve months after the issue of her volume, overtures were made to Mrs. Welby by some of the best publishers in the country for a new edition. The Appletons were the successful competitors for the prize, and in 1846 they published a second edition. Since that time edition after edition has been issued, till already fourteen editions have appeared and found ready sale, and the demand for the volume is by no means exhausted. Few American writers either of prose or poetry have met with a success equal to this, and very few have found admirers in as many different circles of society as has Amelia Welby. The secret of all this is well explained by Rufus Griswold in one of his notices of this lady. He says, "Her fancy is lively, discriminating, and informed by a minute and intelligent observation of nature, and she has introduced into poetry some new and beautiful imagery. No painful experience has tried her heart's full energies; but her feelings are natural and genuine; and we are sure of the presence of a womanly spirit, reverencing the sanctities and immunities of life, and sympathizing with whatever addresses the senses of beauty." Mrs. Welby's brilliant success as an author has led many young ladies in the west to emulate her example; and while here and there is found one who displays talent and capacity, none have as yet compassed any thing like equal popularity, and very few, indeed, have been found equally deserving. In person Mrs. Welby was rather above than below the middle hight. Slender and exceedingly graceful in form, with exquisite taste in dress, and a certain easy, floating sort of movement, she would at once be recognized as a beautiful woman. A slight imperfection in the upper lip, while it prevented her face from being perfect, yet gave a peculiar piquancy to its expression which was far from destroying any of its charm. Her hair was exquisitely beautiful, and was always arranged, regardless of the prevailing fashion, with singular elegance and adaptation to her face and figure. Her manners were simple, natural, and impulsive, like those of a child, Her conversation, though sometimes frivolous, was always charming. She loved to give the rein to her fancy, to invent situations and circumstances for herself and her friends, and to talk of them as if they were realities. Her social life was full of innocent gayety and playfulness. She was the idol of her friends, and she repaid their affection with her whole heart. Her character was as beautiful as her manners were simple. Courted and flattered as she was, she was, perhaps, a little willful, and sometimes even obstinate, but an appeal to her affections always softened and won her. Her willfulness was that of a wayward, petted child, and had a charm even in its most positive exhibitions. Mrs. Welby's maiden name was COPPUCK. She was married in June, 1838, to Mr. George Welby, a large merchant of Louisville, and a gentleman entirely worthy to be the husband of the woman and the poetess. She had but one child, a boy, who was born but two months before her death. She died on the 3d of May, 1852, in her thirty-third year. Her prose writings consist only of her correspondence. Her letters and notes, however, sometimes assumed the form of compositions or sketches. The following is an illustration of the style of many of them. She had been visited at her residence by a party of gay masqueraders, among whom was a very intimate friend costumed as a Turk, and bearing the euphonious soubriquet of Hamet Ali Ben Khorassen. On the day after this visit, Mrs. Welby received from this pseudo Pashaw a note of farewell written in the redundant style of the Orientals, to which the following is her answer: "Although a stranger to the graceful style of Oriental greeting, Amelia, the daughter of the Christian, would send to Hamet Ali Ben Khorassen, ere he departs from the midst of her people, a few words in token of farewell, and also in acknowledgment of the flowery epistle sent by the gallant Ben Khorassen to the 'Bulbul of the Giaour Land,' as he is pleased, in the poetical language of his country, to designate the humblest of his admirers! Like the sudden splendor of a dazzling meteor, gleaming before the delighted eye of the startled gazer, was the brief sojourn of the noble Ben Khorassen in the presence of the happy 'Bulbul.' He came before her uniting in his aspect the majesty of a god of old with the mien of a mortal-graceful in his step, winning in his words, yet 'terrible as an army with banners.' The song of the 'Bulbul' was hushed; the words of greeting died upon her lip. But now that the mightiest of the mighty has withdrawn from her dazzled gaze the glory of his overpowering presence, the trembling 'Bulbul' lifts her head once more like a drooping flower oppressed by the too powerful rays of the noontide sun; and in the midst of the gloom that overshadows her, recalls to mind every word and look of the gallant Ben Khorassen, till her thoughts of him. arise like stars upon the horizon of her memory, lighting up the gloom of his absence, and glittering upon the waters of the fountain of her heart, whose every murmur is attuned to the music of his memory. "But the bark of Hamet Ali Ben Khorassen floats upon the waters with her white wings spread for the clime of the crescent. Her brilliant pennon streams from the strand, and the words of the 'Bulbul' must falter into a farewell. May the favoring gales of paradise, fragrant as the breath of houris, fill the silken sails of Ben Khorassen, and waft him onward to his native groves of citron and of myrtle, waking thoughts in his bosom fresh and fragrant as the flowers that cluster in his clime! Thus prays Amelia, the daughter of the Christian, and the 'Bulbul of the Giaour Land! Farewell!" This exceedingly graceful and tasteful little note is but a single specimen of a sort of composition with which Mrs. Welby delighted to indulge her intimate friends. Indeed, during the last few years of her life, these notes and letters formed the only means through which her beautiful fancies were conveyed. She had ceased almost entirely to write verses, and a change was coming over her mind. Her genius was seeking some new form of development. Before, however, her friends could see even the foreshadowings of this new form, this accomplished poetess and estimable woman was called away to join her voice with the angelic choir, whose harmonies are the delight and the glory of the celestial world. On a bright May morning, such as her own songs have taught us to love, when the earth was redolent of beauty, and the flowers were sending up to heaven the incense of their perfumes; when all rejoicing nature was pouring out its morning orison to its Creator, the angels sent by her heavenly Father came and bore her spirit to its home in the skies. And so "She has passed, like a bird, from the minstrel throng, She has gone to the land where the lovely belong!" The following lines, written by Amelia on the death of a sister poetess, will form a fitting conclusion to this hasty sketch, and a fitting tribute to her own memory: "She has passed, like a bird, from the minstrel throng, still, And the moon floats up by the distant hill, GIANTS OF THE HUMAN RACE. the many things that excite our wonder, marvelous than the varieties of mankind. AsAssuming, as we are warranted in doing by the word of God and the researches of the best ethnologists, that the human species is one, it is easy to divide it, as some have done, according to color, into black, white, copper color, and tawny; or, with Blumenbach and Pritchard, into the Caucasian, Mangolian, Ethiopian, Malay, and North American Indians, and call these the great varieties of the species; but these, or any other divisions, give but a faint idea of the diversity of mankind in a world of ten hundred million people, where no two faces are alike, where no two bodies have been cast in the same mold, and no two souls develop the same faculties in the same proportion. his head, so that it fell down upon his shoulders; at the same time his teeth grew out in all directions, so that he could not cast it off his head. who was himself ton cubits Og thus entangled, took an ax ten cubits long, and, having leaped ten cubits in hight, struck Og on the ankle-bone so that he fell and was slain." See Targum on Numbers xxi, 35, 36. According to this, Og's ankle must have been forty-five feet high; but even this account is surpassed by some others, for in other places of the Targum he is said to have been several miles in hight. Comparative anatomy has enabled us to dispose very summarily of one set of stories in reference to giants, or what has been termed giants' bones. Historians inform us that in 1171 the bones of a giant were found in England fifty feet long. The Italian writers, however, have given accounts of still more remarkable skeletons; and if the relics which they describe had belonged to men, Homer's Cyclops would be no fable. An early father also mentions a giant's tooth preserved in a certain church, which was several pounds weight, and conjectures very truly that it must have been an enormous mouth that held a full set of them. Science has enabled us to appropriate those bones to their rightful owners, and assign them to the mastodon and other extinct animals instead of man. Sir Hans Sloane had the vertebræ of a whale, which was dug up in Lincolnshire, sent to him as a portion of a giant's back-bone; but, perceiving it to have been the property of a monster of the deep, the wonder ceased. Thus we have no direct evidence of the existence of that race of stout old gentlemen whom Jack slew, except it be the testimony of those veritable witnesses— the compilers of early history. It is not, however, the ordinary so much as the extraordinary, that has hitherto attracted the attention of mankind; and hence all early writers have filled their books with stories of monsters and prodigies of various kinds, and among them with accounts of giants and pigmies of the most extraordinary description. It would almost appear as if there were a natural tendency of mankind to romance in a certain state of their intellectual development, and hence all early travelers see wonders which are robbed of their proportions by those who come after them. Those who first visited America saw many things which have greatly diminished in later times. As an instance of this, Garcilasso de la Vega, in his history of Peru, says that a company of giants came there in a boat, so tall that the natives could only reach their knees; that their eyes were as broad as the bottom of a plate, and their limbs proportionably large: and another Although we may doubt the fabulous dimenwriter tells us that he measured several corpses, sions given by the Jewish rabbis and others, still and found them from fourteen to fifteen feet it is impossible to doubt the fact that giants have high. These, however, are only trifles compared existed in almost every country. It is, however, with the relations of more ancient writers, such plain, from the notices which historians have as Homer, Pliny, and others. Here is a speci- given of them, that they were always rarities, men from one of the authors of the Targums, and that we have no reliable accounts of a race Jonathan ben Uzziel-a specimen which may of giants ever having existed. Indeed, there are also teach us how much, by their vain traditions, many reasons for believing that the size of the the Jewish rabbis have obscured divine truth: human race, taken in its totality, rather increases "Og having observed that the camp of the than diminishes, and that the relations of hisIsraelites extended six miles, he went and tore torians of gigantic nations of men have originated up a mountain six miles at its base, and put it in the first impressions of small men when on his head and carried it toward the camp, that brought into the presence of those of superior he might throw it on the camp and destroy stature. An instance of this has just occurred. them; but the word of the Lord prepared a The English Guards who went to Turkey astonworm, which bored a hole in the mountain overished the people there by their great size, so that probable that a race so diminutive ever existed. The Esquimaux, near the pole, and the Bush the interior of Africa-are the smallest races of men that we are acquainted with, their hight seldom exceeding four feet, five inches; and from those to the Patagonians we have all the intermediate varieties. the Turk believes the English giaours to be the Anakims. When the Bishi-Bouzouk returns to his native home he will, no doubt, tell his wonder-men-the Gipsies, as they have been called, of ing friends that the English are a race of giants, and, having added a foot to them, will greatly astonish the simple rustics. His descendants will add a yard more, so that some future traveler in the mountains of Armenia, unless in the mean time our missionaries there do their enlightening work, will no doubt hear his countrymen described as giants. Numerous cases of this sort of exaggeration are on record, and many strange scraps of history are explained by it. So much has been said about the Patagonians, that the judgment of one who lived among them for a time in close captivity may be acceptable. It does not follow, however, that his, or any other description, applies to the whole of the Patagonians, as the author may have seen only a particular tribe; and this suggestion will, perhaps, explain many discrepancies in the works of those who have written about them. Captain Bourne says: "In person they are large; on first sight they appear absolutely gigantic. They are taller than any other race I have seen, though it is impossible to give any accurate description. The only standard of measurement I had was my own hight, which is about five feet, ten inches. I could stand very easily under the arms of many of them, and all the men were at least a head taller than myself; their average hight I should think is nearly six and a half feet, and there were specimens that could have been little less than seven feet high. They have broad Giants, as we before remarked, are common to all nations, ancient and modern; but it is probable that there never was a man more than ten feet high. Goliath of Gath was nine feet high, and so also was one of the Roman emperors. A skeleton was dug up at a place near St. Albans, near an urn marked Marcus Antoninus, eight feet high. Dr. Adam Clarke measured a man in Ireland who was eight feet six inches, and we recollect seeing a thigh-bone, which was taken out of a stone coffin found in Devonshire, which indicated a man of eight feet nine inches. There are, indeed, we believe, men now living who are about the same hight. From nine to ten feet, therefore, is the extreme which we can credit as the tallest man's attainments; and although there are, in profane history, a few seem-shoulders, full and well-developed chests, frames ingly authentic instances of men exceeding this stature, our knowledge of the race leads us rather to doubt the measure than believe in the man. Taking this hight, however, as the extreme, there is still a great diversity in the species; for the giant is set off at the other extremity by the dwarf, who is so far below the common standard as to be equally a wonder. The smallest man, perhaps, that ever lived was two feet high; and rising from this we have every conceivable measure up to the giant. Julia, the daughter of Augustus, was very fond of a dwarf named Sonopas, who, according to the Roman historian, was two feet and a handbreadth high. In the Philosophical Transactions two cases are mentioned-one a native of Norfolk, who never weighed more than thirty-four pounds in his life; and of another still more remarkable case in Wales, who, at the age of fifteen, weighed only thirteen pounds, was two feet, seven inches high, and was characterized by all the symptoms of an old man at that age. General Tom Thumb, who has created such a sensation all over Christendom, was one of the most perfect specimens of dwarfs that we know of; but it is highly im muscular and finely proportioned; the whole figure and air making an impression like that which the first view of the sons of Anak is recorded to have produced on the children of Israel. They exhibit enormous strength whenever they are sufficiently aroused to shake off their constitutional laziness and exert it." (Giants of Patagonia.) Such are the giants of the old Spanish historians as seen by modern navigators. There are, however, other proofs of the enormous stature of the race, which at once set the question at rest; such as the bodies which have been disinterred, and the armor which has been worn by people in various ages and countries. There are bodies, principally mummies from Egypt, which are at least three thousand years old. Since the time when these people lived, not only scores of generations, but whole races of men have been born, lived, and died; and still the mummies, as they lie before us, are, we believe, in no case larger than the same class of people which they represent among us at the present day. The same observation applies also to the armor which has been dug out of tumuli and ancient graves. Poets and historians have |