

176 BOARD OF REGENTS. 



barbarism bave spared — this naturally claimed bis attention first ; but be sympathized 

 also with the free, hopeful, restored Greece of the present ; ho examined the workings 

 of her political institutions, visited the halls of legislation at the capital, formed an 

 acquaintance with the learned men who adorn the University of Athens, and returned 

 in the faith that modern Greece has a noble destiny before her. He was led by his 

 tours to connect the Greek and the Romaic languages more closely together, to urge 

 the importance of studying the latter, and to advocate the application of the modern 

 pronunciation to the literature of the ancient tongues. Not long after his return 

 from his first journey, in the year 1856, he published selections from modern Greek 

 writers, accompanied with explanatory notes, and a little earlier enriched an Ameri- 

 can edition of Smith's " History of Greece " with a preface, notes, and a continuation 

 of Greek History from the Roman conquest until the present time. 



While engaged in the daily duties of a laborious profession, Mr. Eelton found 

 leisure to prepare for the press a number of editions of Greek authors and other 

 works within the same department. His maiden work of this kind was an edition of 

 Homer's Iliad, published in 1833, with English notes — which were carefully revised 

 and enlarged in subsequent editions — and with the addition of Plaxman's illustrations. 

 Next, in 1840, he sent forth from the press a Greek reader, containing selections from 

 writers of the best stamp — a work which has been repeatedly printed, and has main- 

 tained its ground among the principal introductions to the study of that language. 

 This was followed in the next year by an edition of the Clouds of Aristophanes, with 

 an introduction and a commentary, which appeared again in a revised form and was 

 republished in England. In 1843, in conjunction with Professor Edwards, of An- 

 dovcr, and Professor Sears, then of the Baptist Theological Seminary at Newton, he 

 published a work entitled Classical Studies, consisting principally of translations from 

 the German, his contributions being selections from the works of Frederic Jacobs. 

 In 1844 he rendered a valuable service to classical literature by translating, in con- 

 junction with Professor Beck, Munk's Treatise on Greek and Roman Metres. Three 

 years afterward appeared his editions of the Panegyricus of Isocrates — that much 

 polished closet-oration of the " old man eloquent," and of the Agamemnon of 

 ^Eschylus — that difficult chef d'eeuvre of the earliest dramatist. Both of these 

 passed into second editions. In 1849 he brought out an edition of the Birds of Aris- 

 tophanes, and in 1852 " Selections from Greek Historians," namely, from Herodotus, 

 Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Diodorus Siculus, Arrian, and Pausanias. In the 

 course of the same year appeared a tribute from his pen to the memory of his imme- 

 diate predecessor in the Eliot professorship, entitled "Selections from the Writings of 

 Dr. Popkin, with a Biographical Sketch." 



These were his principal contributions through the press and bearing his own name, 

 to the main study of his life. But we ought not to pass over his frequent lectures 

 and anonymous writings, tending to illustrate and recommend Greek learning, such 

 as his four courses of Lowell Lectures, and his frequent contributions to the North 

 American Revieio. 



Nor ought the briefest sketch of Mr. Felton's life to omit his literary labors beyond 

 his own immediate province. As his mind strove to grasp universal knowledge, and 

 as he maintained a lively sympathy with the literature of most of the cultivated na- 

 tions, so, from time to time, he poured forth through the press the gatherings of his 

 rich and many-sided mind. Among his original works we mention bis " Life of 

 General Eaton," in the ninth volume of the first series of Spark's "American Biog- 

 raphies;" his biographical notices accompanying Longfellow's " Poets and Poetry of 

 Europe ;" his articles in the North A?ncrlcan, upwards of fifty, and in the Christian 

 Examiner, upwards of twenty-five in number ; his contributions to the New American 

 Encyclopaedia* and others less elaborate in the daily journals. If with these we take 

 into view the help which he lent in various ways to education and science, as one of 

 the Massachusetts Board of Education, as one of the school committee for the town 

 of Cambridge, and as Regent of the Smithsonian Institution — to which trust he was 

 elected on the resignation of Mr. Choate, in 1856, and re-elected for the full term of 

 six years in February, 1861 — and if we bring into account, also, his labors for a num- 

 ber of years in the office of Regent in Harvard University, and that at the same time 

 he gave instructions in a school under the charge of Professor Agassiz, we shall won- 

 der that one man, besides the duties of a very laborious professorship, was able to do 

 so much, and perhaps wonder still more that he did it at all so easily to himself and 

 so well. It is rare, we imagine, to find a life of so much faithful, patient industry 

 united to a temper so genial and social as his, so capable of finding entertainment and 

 recreation on every side. 



*Some of these were on Agassiz, Athens, Attica, Demosthenes, Euripides, and Homer. 



