OF ARTS AND SCIENCES: JUNE 4, 1872. 471 



no scientific quarrels to embitter his life, that his character was beyond 

 reproach, that his cup of domestic joy was full, and that everywhere he 

 was loved as much as he was admired. Happily, too, he has left suc- 

 cessors to his fame as well as to his name, who may be worthy to wear 

 the mantle which two generations have made resplendent. 



Sir William Thompson, in his address before the British Association, 

 said : " A monument to Faraday and a monument to Herschel Brit- 

 ain must have. The nation will not be satisfied with anything, however 

 splendid, done by private subscription." Whatever other monument 

 Herschel may have, let that most appropriate one be forever guarded 

 and preserved, which he himself chose in honoring his father, when, on 

 January 1, 1840, he, and his wife, and children, and servants, assembled 

 around the dismantled and prostrate telescope which had astonished the 

 world, sang a requiem, which he composed, inside of the tube, and then 

 hermetically sealed it. 



Moses Ashley Curtis was born in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, 

 on the 11th of May, 1808. His father was the Rev. Jared Curtis, of 

 Stockbridge, afterwards for many years chaplain of the State Prison 

 at Charlestown. His mother was a daughter of General Moses 

 Ashley. He was fitted for college chiefly under his father's tuition, 

 and was graduated at Williams in the class of 1827. Three years 

 afterward, he went to Wilmington, North Carolina, as a tutor in the 

 family of Governor Dudley, while at the same time he studied divinity. 

 There he resided until the year 1841, with the exception of a year 

 and a half passed with his father in Charlestown. In the autumn of 

 1834, he married Miss De Rosset, of Wilmington, who survives him. 

 He took holy orders at Richmond, Virginia, in the summer of 1835 ; 

 became rector of the Protestant Episcopal Church at Hillsborough, 

 North Carolina, in 1841, and fulfilled the duties of this station for the 

 remainder of his life, with the exception of ten years, from 1847 to 

 1857, during which he had the pastoral charge of a parish at Society 

 Hill, South Carolina. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was con- 

 ferred on him by the University of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill. 

 His health for a few years past was sensibly impaired ; but he was able 

 to perform his professional duties, and, in a measure, to prosecute his 

 scientific studies, until the 10th of April last, when he died suddenly, 

 probably of heart disease. 



Dr. Curtis's attention must have early been attracted to botany, and 



