238 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



tion he was unsurpassed, perhaps unequalled, for his critical accuracy 

 and severe taste. He afterward kept for several years a school for 

 young ladies in Boston, and was at a still later period Librarian of the 

 Boston Athenceum. He was the author, so far as is known, of no 

 original works ; but edited a selection from Cicero's Orations, and a 

 series of excerpts from Livy, with valuable annotations of his own, 

 both which books had and deserved an unusually long currency in 

 our classical schools. He was also associated with Mr. Bryant, in 

 1824, in editing the " United States Literary Gazette ; " and in 1833 and 

 1834 he edited, in connection with Mr. Norton, the " Select Journal of 

 Foreign Periodical Literature." His later years were devoted to con- 

 genial literary pursuits, until he was disabled from all mental exercise 

 by repeated attacks of paralysis, under which his powers gradually 

 yielded. 



He mai'ried, in the autumn of 1824, Susanna Sarah, daughter of the 

 Rev. Professor McKean, who survives him. He was for almost half 

 a century an interested and influential member of this Academy, and 

 for several years its Corresponding Secretary. 



He was particularly distinguished as a Latin scholar ; and, though 

 he must have been but imperfectly acquainted with the light recently 

 throvrn from the East on the classic tongues, it is believed that in this 

 one department he was second to no American of his own generation. 

 He was also familiar with the best English literature, and in bibliog- 

 rapli}^ he especially manifested both extensive knowledge and keen dis- 

 cernment. He was an accomplished, indeed fastidious, literary critic, 

 endowed with what has been well characterized as " a passion for exact 

 and minute accuracy." La domestic and social and in all the relations 

 of life, Mr. Folsom was a man of kindly and most unselfish spirit, and 

 of the sweetest temper. Few men have had firmer, more persistent, 

 or more worthy friends than he had among the best and most dis- 

 tiuicuished of his coevals. 



Joseph Hale Abbot was born at Wilton, N.H., September 25, 

 1802, and was seventy years, six months, and thirteen days old at 

 the time of his death, April 7, 1873. His father was Ezra Abbot of 

 Wilton, who was fifth in descent from George Abbot, who emigrated 

 from England in 1640, and with other individuals of the name of Abbot 

 settled in Audover, Mass., in 1G43. 



His mother was Rebekah Hale, of Coventry, Conn., a niece of Cap- 

 tain Nathan Hale of Revolutionary memory, and a descendant in fourth 

 degree from the Rev. John Hale, first minister of Beverly, Mass. 



