BRISTED, CHARLES A. 



BROWN, JOII 



99 



rnin.ir that a Inutile alliance of S 

 1:1 (towers was a subject of debate in a 

 II !' the Ai-u'i-iitino Congress, wa 

 .lictr.l !.y tlio Argentine Minister of- 

 i AiF.-iir-; in H note addressed to the 

 inuilian envoy, declaring that the government 

 ciitor into no alliunoo importing a war 

 ritti tin- empiiv. and that, while differing with 

 : : .o de Janeiro Government in the Para- 

 ion. it would confine itself to the 

 /ion of th" remainder of the agreement 

 veraber 19, 1872, leaving the boundary 

 :i to the action of time. 

 i>n July 1, 1874, Secretary Fish handed to 

 r II. F. Torreao de Barros, of the Brazil- 

 Cation at Washington, the sum of $96,- 

 . in refundment of the payment made by 

 on September 30, 1867, upon the recla- 

 :n i!i.>n of the United States Government, as an 

 mity in the matter of the brig Caro- 

 Tliis spontaneous act of justice elicited 

 the encomiums of the Petropolis Court and of 

 all the diplomatic agents at Rio de Janeiro. 

 The sanitary state of many portions of the 

 ry was very unsatisfactory ; yellow fever, 

 s;nall-pox, and typhoid fever, raged, now simul- 

 taneously, now alternately, especially at Rio 

 de Janeiro, where the mortality reached an 

 alarming proportion; but the sufferings of the 

 ;-iM>|ilo were materially alleviated by the prompt 

 and efficacious assistance procured by public 

 and private benevolence. 



The terms of a consular convention with 

 Great Britain, and of a treaty of extradition 

 with Belgium, were ratified; but the all-ab- 

 sorbing topic in political circles during the 

 year was the organization of the military force, 

 and of the police, to which subject , attention 

 was particularly called by the Emperor in his 

 speech at the opening of the Legislative Cham- 

 bers in May. 



BRISTED, CHARLES ASTOR, an American 

 author and man of letters, born in New York 

 City in 1820 ; died in Washington, D. C., Jan- 

 uary 15, 1874. He was the only son of an 

 Em-copal clergyman of New York City, but 

 of English birth, and his mother was the eldest 

 daughter of the late John Jacob Astor. He 

 graduated from Yale College with high honors 

 in 1839, and soon after sailed for Europe, and 

 spent five years in Trinity College, Cambridge, 

 whence he graduated in 1845, taking numerous 

 prizes, and being made foundation scholar of 

 the college. He married in 1847, and, possess- 

 ing an ample fortune, traveled extensively in 

 Europe, amusing himself by writing for news- 

 papers, periodicals, and magazines, on social 

 and ephemeral topics, generally over the nom de 

 plume of " Carl Benson." In this way he was 

 a frequent and welcome contributor to Prater's 

 r/n, the Knickerbocker, the Whig Re- 

 N"ew York Spirit of the Times, Clipper, 

 Galaxy, and New York Evening Post. There 

 was, nevertheless, a cynical tone to his writ- 

 ing, which increased as he grew older. He 

 d'nl not hesitate to discuss any topic, great or 



small, \vhi<-h struck his fancy, and hi wide 

 culture and profound Mcliolunthip ma.; 

 essays always attractive to ruudi-m of light 

 literature. At times be essayed the < 

 labor of book-making. Ilia published works 

 comprise an edition of ' Sd.-ctioiis from < 

 his" by an Eton assistant master, which he re- 

 vised, adding notes of his own ; a " Letter to 

 the Hon. Horace Mann," a reply to his tract 

 entitled " Thoughts for a Young Man ; " a 

 series of sketches of New York society life, 

 first printed in Prater's Magazine, which ap- 

 peared in book-form in 1852, under thu title 

 of "The Upper Ten Thousand;" and what 

 was probably the most useful as well as the 

 most extended of his works, " Five Years in 

 an English University," which told the story of 

 university-life in an entertaining and instruc- 

 tive way. To this last volume were added, in 

 an appendix, his college orations and essays, 

 together with specimen examination papers, 

 the whole making a work of considerable in- 

 terest to scholars, as the interior movement of 

 an English university was then even more 

 novel to American readers than now. A new 

 edition of this work was published, with con- 

 siderable additions, in 1873. Mr. Bristed was 

 one of the trustees of the Astor Library from 

 its origin. After spending many years in Eu- 

 rope, at its gayest capitals and resorts, where 

 he was the associate of many of the most emi- 

 nent men of the time, he returned, a few years 

 since, to this country, and latterly made his 

 home in Washington, where he was constantly 

 in society. He suffered much from ennui dur- 

 ing the latter years of his life. 



BROWN, JOHN OABTEB, a wealthy and be- 

 nevolent citizen of Providence, R. I., a liberal 

 patron of education, born in Providence, in 

 1797; died there June 10, 1874. He was a 

 descendant of Rev. Chadd Brown, a Baptist 

 minister, who fled from persecution in Massa- 

 chusetts in 1636, and was the son of the late 

 Nicholas Brown, the liberal benefactor of 

 Brown University, and the grandson of the 

 first Nicholas, who aided in its organization. 

 Mr. Brown graduated from Brown University 

 in 1816 in the same class with Mr. Robert H. 

 Ives (subsequently his partner), Bishop Smith, 

 of Kentucky, Dr. J. Mauran, Rev. Dr. Solomon 

 Peck, and others. The year of his graduation 

 he entered his father's counting-house, and in 

 1832 became a partner in the firm, which has 

 continued to bear the same title Brown Se 

 Ives for more than eighty years. But, though 

 an active business-man, and deeply interested 

 in great enterprises of commerce and manu- 

 factures, Mr. Brown never relinquished his 

 scholarly habits. He was a man of remark- 

 able intellectual culture, and kept himself con- 

 stantly informed on all scientific topics of the 

 time. He early commenced the collection of a 

 library, at first of the Aldine and other rare 

 editions of the classics, and early copies of the 

 Bible in all languages; but soon drifted into 

 the specialty of American history, general and 



