250 BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



with Mary Barnwell. His father died while he was yet young, 

 and the care of his education devolved on his elder brother, 

 William. The rudiments of his education he received in his 

 native town. From there he was sent to New Haven, in 1787, 

 and placed for a while under the tuition of Mr. (afterwards Judge) 

 S. S. Baldwin. In February following he entered Yale College. 

 There are letters, given in full in Dr. Moultrie's eulogy? written 

 to his friends here after his death, from Judge Baldwin, of New 

 Haven, and Prof. Hezekiah Howe, of Yale, in which they both 

 speak in the highest terms of his college life. Judge Baldwin, 

 with whom he carried on his preparatory classical studies for ad- 

 mission, says : "I soon found him a young gentleman of prepos- 

 sessing manners, of steady habits, of great industry, of close 

 application to the object of pursuit, and possessed of a sound, dis- 

 criminating mind, with an early, fixed and full determination to 

 become thoroughly master of all he attempted to learn. I had 

 the pleasure of an intimate personal acquaintance with him dur- 

 ing his connection with the college, and without making invid- 

 ious comparisons, I can safely say that he ranked high in the 

 estimation of the Faculty, of his classmates, and of all who 

 knew him. His deportment was dignified and exemplarily cor- 

 rect. He not only attended with diligent perseverance to his 

 classical studies, in which he was highly distinguished, but he 

 also acquired much more general information than is usually at- 

 tained by the most distinguished scholars of that University, and 

 thus early laid the foundation for that literary distinction which 

 adorned his future career in life. I well remember the remark 

 of my friend, M. Leavenworth, Esq., a lawyer of reputation and 

 a classical scholar, when speaking of Mr. Elliott, then a Senior 

 in college, with whom he was intimately acquainted : ' Mr. Elliott 

 was a young gentleman of more science and general information 

 than any he ever knew of the same age and standing.' " 



The following incident, related by Prof. Howe, exhibits the 

 bent of his mind at that early age : " When he graduated his 

 was the only English oration delivered by a Bachelor (there were 

 two candidates for the Master's Degree). The subject was on 

 ' The Supposed Degeneracy of Animated Nature in America.' 

 As this was then a novel subject, having been but recently sug- 

 gested by Buffon and Raynal, it was one of considerable interest 

 to Americans, and excited much attention among the literati of 

 our country, and I well recollect hearing Mr. Elliott's oration 

 spoken of as an able refutation of the theory." 



On his return home, after graduating at Yale with one of the 



