14 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



The universal sorrow occasioned by Mr. Loring's death found ex- 

 pression from the bar, the pulpit, the bench, and the various associa- 

 tions with which he had been connected. " Midtis ille flebilis occidit." 

 It rarely happens that the death of a private citizen is regarded as a 

 public loss. Such was the feeling which waited on his obsequies, and 

 no higher tribute could have been paid to his life and character. 



Charles Coffin Jewett, the son of Rev. Paul Jewett, was born at 

 Lebanon, Maine, in 1816. He was graduated at Brown University in 

 1835. Immediately or shortly after taking his degree, he became a 

 member of the Theological Seminary at Andover, and completed the 

 course of study there, yet without entering on the active duties of the 

 clerical profession. While at Andover he commenced his bibliographi- 

 cal labors by preparing a catalogue of the excellent Library of that 

 institution. The rare merit of this work attracted the attention of the 

 few men capable of an intelligent judgment in a department of litera- 

 ture then much less cultivated than now, and led to the appointment 

 which determined his subsequent course of life. In 1842 he was 

 chosen Librarian of Brown University, and held the office for four 

 years, combining with it for most of the time that of Professor of 

 Modern Languages and Literature, to which he brought the prepara- 

 tion, not only of diligent and faithful study, but of prolonged travel 

 and residence on the continent of Europe. He left Providence to 

 accept an appointment as Assistant Librarian of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, of which he very soon was made Chief Librarian. Here 

 he distinguished himself, not only by his enterprise and skill in 

 endeavoring to lay the foundation of a great national library, but 

 equally by his polemic ability in advocating the policy by which he 

 hoped that the Smithsonian fund would be devoted primarily to that end. 

 Professor Jewett resigned this office in 1855, and his services were 

 immediately engaged in the initial measures for the establishment of 

 the Boston Public Library, of which, on the completion of its organiza- 

 tion in 1858, he was chosen first Superintendent. For thirteen years he 

 has been soul, heart, brain, and hands of this institution, systematizing 

 and energizing every branch of its administration, inspiring its Board 

 of Direction with his own zeal, and stimulating its benefactors to gen- 

 erous gifts by the assurance that the custody, arrangement, cataloguing 

 and use of the contents of the library, would be provided for with 

 equal wisdom and fidelity. In this charge he labored with an industry 

 too strenuous, and with too little regard to the hygienic laws which 



