WELCKER, FRIEDRICH G. 



WEST VIRGINIA. 



763 



voted himself to literature and politics in Paris, 

 writing pamphlets on public questions of the 

 day, among which two " Un mot sur la Ques- 

 tion d'Afrique," and " D' Alliance Anglaise " 

 are still remembered, becoming part proprie- 

 tor and one of the editors of the Messager, and 

 writing a comedy, ISficole du Monde; ou, la 

 Coquette sans le Savoir, which had some suc- 

 cess on the stage in 1840. He also assisted 

 Alexandre Dumas in the composition of several 

 dramatic pieces. Having acquired distinction 

 as a writer and politician, he entered, in 1840, 

 upon the diplomatic career, receiving from M. 

 Thiers a mission to Egypt. Under the minis- 

 try of Guizot he was appointed to several mis- 

 sions. In 1849 he was sent, with the title of 

 plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary, to 

 Florence ; thence he went, in the same capa- 

 city, to Naples, and in 1854 became ambassador 

 of France to Great Britain. In 1855 he was 

 recalled, and took the place of M. Drouyn 

 d'Lhuys as Minister of Foreign Affairs. This 

 was during the Crimean War, and it fell to 

 Count Walewski's lot to conduct the impor- 

 tant negotiations following on the proclama- 

 tion of peace, to preside at the Congress of 

 Paris as the plenipotentiary of France, and to 

 sign the treaty of the 30th of April, 1856. He 

 was appointed a member of the French Senate 

 in 1855, resigned the post of Minister of Foreign 

 Affairs in 1860, succeeded M. Fould as Minister 

 of State in November of the same year, hold- 

 ing office till June, 1863; was elected a 

 member of the Corps Legislatif in August, 

 1865, and on the 1st of September following 

 was appointed president of that body, after 

 having resigned -as Senator. This office he 

 held until 1867". Count Walewski was made a 

 member, of the Privy Council in 1856, and dec- 

 orated with the grand cross of the Legion of 

 Honor in 1852. He was twice married; the 

 first time in 1830 to an English lady, a sister of 

 the present Earl of Sandwich, and after her 

 death to a grand-daughter of Stanislaus Ponia- 

 towski, nephew of the last king of Poland. He 

 and the late Due de Morny were the most in- 

 timate and trusted friends of the present Emper- 

 or of France. 



WELCKER, FEIEDEIOH GOTTLIEB, a German 

 philologist and archaeologist, Horn at Grun- 

 berg, Hesse Darmstadt, November 4, 1784; 

 died at Bonn, in December, 1868. He was 

 educated at the University of Giessen, and in 

 1803 was appointed one of the Masters of the 

 Gymnasium there. In 1806 he went to Rome, 

 where he remained engaged hi archaeological 

 studies till 1808. He pursued his studies there 

 in the society of Zoega, the celebrated Danish 

 archaeologist, whose life and essays he subse- 

 quently published. On his return from Italy 

 he was appointed Professor of Ancient Litera- 

 ture, first at Giessen, then at Gottingen, and 

 in 1819 in the newly-created University of 

 Bonn, where he subsequently remained deeply 

 engaged in his philological studies, embracing 

 in that term, as the Germans do, the recon- 



struction of the life and thought of ancient 

 nations as well as the investigation of their 

 language. Like most of the German scholars, 

 Welcker leaned to liberalism in politics, and 

 was twice tried for sedition by the conservative 

 Governments (in 1826 and 1832), but on both 

 occasions was acquitted. His works on phi- 

 lology and archeology have been numerous ; 

 yet, though bearing but slight external marks 

 of the unity of purpose which has pervaded his 

 entire literary career, they all fall naturally 

 under one or another division of it. All ex- 

 hibit a remarkable combination of extensive 

 and accurate learning, fine taste, delicate sen- 

 sibility, and sound judgment. Of them all the 

 most important are these three : " The jEschy- 

 lean Trilogy," 1824, in which the organic con- 

 nection and sequence of the Greek dramas are 

 set forth with a remarkable richness of construc- 

 tive detail; "The Epic Cycle," 1835-1849, de- 

 voted to the consideration of the early Greek 

 literature, and which removes Homer from the 

 region of mysterious isolation in which scholars 

 had previously placed him; and, lastly, the 

 Q-otterlekre, or Greek mythology, completed in 

 1864, which is perhaps his greatest work, em- 

 bracing all that is good and rejecting all that 

 is bad in the wide German literature on this 

 subject with rare tact and discrimination. 

 Welcker was one of the founders of the excel- 

 lent Art Museum of Bonn, and for more than 

 thirty years one of the editors of the Elieinis- 

 cties Museum fur Philologie. 



WELLS, SAMUEL, a political leader and 

 jurist of Maine, born in New Hampshire, 

 about 1805 ; died in Boston, July 15, 1868. He 

 was a member of a remarkable family (one of 

 his brothers was a Senator in Congress from 

 New Hampshire, in 1855, and another Lieuten- 

 ant-Governor of Illinois some years since. In 

 1856, Samuel Wells was elected Governor of 

 Maine, and after one year's service, retired. 

 He had previously been, for some years; a 

 Judge of the Supreme Judicial Court of 

 Maine. 



WEST VIRGINIA. The Legislature of this 

 State assembled on the 21st of January, and 

 continued its sessions for upward of six weeks, 

 but no general laws of special interest were 

 passed. The registration law was amended, 

 and an act was passed changing the time for 

 the election of township officers from April 

 to the day of the general State election in Oc- 

 tober. The effect of this last act was to con- 

 tinue in office the incumbent township officers 

 seven months beyond the term for which they 

 were elected. An attempt was made to pro- 

 vide for the permanent location of the State 

 capital, but nothing was done in the matter. 

 Toward the close of the session, Judge W. L. 

 Hindman, of the eighth judicial circuit, was im- 

 peached and removed from office for granting 

 a motion to admit S. A. Miller to practise as 

 an attorney-at-law without taking the test-oath, 

 prescribed by the act of February 14, 1866, en- 

 titled "An act in relation to attorneys." 



