226 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



reputation. In boyhood diligent and faithful, in youth persevering in 

 his efforts to secure a liberal education, as a teacher attaining rare 

 success by conscientious devotion to the best interests of his pupils, 

 patriotic when his country was in danger, zealous in promoting the 

 cause of sound education, and full of kindly affection towards all, he 

 has left a memory that will be long and lovingly cherished. 



Nathaniel Langdon Frothinghau was born in Boston, July 

 23, 1793. He was graduated at Harvard University in 1811. He 

 pursued the study of theology at Cambridge, under the direction of 

 Dr. Ware, Senior, and from 1812 to 1815 inclusive officiated in the 

 College as instructor in Rhetoric and Oratory. In 1815 he was 

 ordained pastor of the First Church in Boston. In 1818 he married 

 Ann Gorham, daughter of Peter C. Brooks. In 1836 he received the 

 degree of S. T. D. from Harvard University. In 1850 he resigned his 

 parochial charge, retaining the undivided respect and affection of his 

 people, and continuing, until disabled by bodily infirmity, to take an 

 active and efficient interest in the prosperity of the parish, and in the 

 labors and services of his successor in its ministry. His life, during 

 his retirement, was devoted mainly to literary pursuits, hardly impeded 

 by the gradual failure of sight, which terminated in total blindness. 

 Other eyes replaced his own for several years, and his mind retained 

 its clearness, vigor, and fruitfulness for many months after his vision 

 was closed upon the outward world. For the last two or three years, 

 however, disease and infirmity have incapacitated him both for labor 

 and for enjoyment, and life was becoming a weariness and a burden, 

 when it was mercifully closed on the 4th of April, 1870. 



Dr. Frothingham's distinction lay in the purity, keenness, delicacy, 

 and high culture of the assthetic nature. In other respects the peer of 

 able and accomplished men, in this he could have had, if here and 

 there an equal, no superior. Taste was in him genius, wisdom, and 

 power. It imparted a new and rare beauty, even to trite thoughts; it 

 crystallized his scholarship in the most graceful forms ; it gave law to 

 his most indifferent words and acts. 



He was a scholar by inclination and by lifelong habit. He was well 

 versed equally in classical and in modern literature. He became famil- 

 iar with the German language at a very early period, and was well 

 read in German theology, while intimately conversant with the poetry 

 and imaginative literature to which that language is the key. By no 

 means narrowly utilitarian, he loved all knowledge for its own sake, 



