136 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



Louisville in 1838, fulfilling liis duties as Professor with assiduity and 

 success until the year 1849, when he retired from public functions. 

 He was for many years one of the conductors of the Transylvania 

 Journal of Medicine, to which he contributed numerous scientific 

 papers, mostly relating to the botany of his native State. Dr. Short's 

 influence upon the advancement of the science to which he devoted 

 himself was more considerable than would be inferred from the extent 

 of his publications. He was a keen observer, a diligent explorer, a 

 liberal promoter of the explorations of others, and a bountiful corre- 

 spondent. There are few herbaria of consequence in this country or 

 in Europe that have not been enriched by choice contributions from his 

 hands. He and the late Mr. Oakes, independently, and at nearly the 

 same period, seem to have invented the art of preserving perennially 

 in dried specimens almost all the beauty and attractiveness, and the 

 scientific usefulness, of the living originals. The frequent recurrence 

 of his name in the pages of the systematic botanical works of the last 

 thirty years testifies to his scientific industry. His faults were an un- 

 warrantable diffidence, a too fastidious taste, and the total absence of 

 pei'sonal ambition, together conspiring to limit unduly his endeavors in 

 the fields of original investigation and authorship. 



Edward Robinson, our late eminent Associate in the section of 

 Philology and ArchaBology, belongs to that not inconsiderable class of 

 men who are led into a literary career by their decided taste, by 

 their inner prompting, and in spite of outward impediments. Born on 

 the 10th of April, 1794, in Southington, Connecticut, where his father 

 was settled as a parish minister, he attended first the common school of 

 his native town, and then a private school, kept by a clergyman. In his 

 sixteenth year he was apprenticed to a merchant ; but a year later, 

 after many fruitless efforts, he overcame the opposition of his father, 

 and obtained permission to enter Hamilton College, in the State of 

 New York. Here he pursued his studies, chiefly under the guidance 

 of his maternal uncle, one of the Professors, and graduated in 1816. 

 He now entered the office of a lawyer in Hudson ; but within a year 

 he accepted an appointment as a Tutor in Hamilton College, where 

 he taught Mathematics and Greek. In 1818 he married the daugh- 

 ter of the well-known missionary to the Indians, Samuel Kirkland. 

 She died within the year. He remained in charge of the farm be- 

 longing to her, and devoting himself also to classical studies, until 

 1821, when he went to Andover, where, without becoming a regular 



