DR.W.J.RQLFE DEAD 



Famous Shakespearean Scholar 

 Passes Away at His Son's Sum- 

 mer Home— Sketch of His Life. 



[uch genuine regret is felt in Cam- 

 bridge at the death, on Thursday, of 

 William J. Rolfe, Litt.D., which oc- 

 red at the hoime of his son, Charles 

 J. Rolfe, at Tistoury, on Martha's Vine- 

 yard. Death was due to old age. 

 Few men, if any, did more to popu- 

 rize standard English literature in 

 America than William J. Rolfe, and 

 the popularity of Shakespeare as a 

 classic in the schools of America was 

 due in great measure to Dr. Rolfe. 



WILLIAM J. ROLFE, Litt.D., 

 Who Passed Away on Thursday. 



Bor nearly 50 years he had been re- 

 garded as one of the world's greatest 

 Shakespearean scholars and he was 

 tfic editor of any number of special 

 editions of the great dramatist's works. 

 He also edited special editions of most 

 of the great 'English, authors from 

 Wilton to Tennyson-Seditions that were 

 regarded as peculiarly fitted for school 

 purposes. He was a public writer on 

 'Hterary topics for the magazines and 

 literary journals all his life. 



William James Rolfe was born in 

 Newlburyiport, December 10. 1827. His 

 boyhood was passed mainly in Lowell, 

 where he fitted for college. While in 

 the high school he read proof on the 

 Lowell Courier and did his first writ- 

 ing for the press on that paper. Later 

 he was a clerk in a counting room in 

 Lowell, but kept up his studies, and in 

 1845 entered Amherst College, where h? 

 regained three years. 



'' Afier sending for a year as assistant 

 teacher in Kirkwood Academy, Mary- 

 land!, he became principal of Day's 

 Academy at Wrentham, Mass., where 

 he remained from Aipril, 1850, to De- 

 cember, 1852, when he became head- 

 master of the Dorchester High School, 

 and later of high schools at Law- 

 rence, Salem and Cambridge. In the 



latter city he was principal from 1862 

 to 1868, when his literary work de- 

 manded the whole of bis time. But 

 he continued to live in Cambridge the 

 rest of his life. 



When he began teaching, the study 

 of English literature and supplemen- 

 tary" reading had not been introduced 

 in the schools. He was one of the 

 very first to see the necessity of such 

 a course and he introduced it in his 

 schools, so that those who received 

 their education under Mr. Rolfe had a 

 distinct advantage and got an unusual 

 impetus toward good reading. One of 

 his pupils in the Dorchester High 

 School was the late Henry Austin 

 Clapp, the well known theatrical critic 

 and lecturer. 



When at Wrentham he had to teach 

 all the grammar and high school 

 branches, including the fitting of boys 

 for college, and his pupils ranged from 

 10 years old to those two or three 

 years older than himself. He was the 

 only teacher and heard from 15 to 20 

 classes a city, which included classes 

 in Latin, French, Greek and German. 

 He had pupils out of school in Spanish 

 and Italian; adding to all this tne sys- 

 tematic teaching of English with the 

 study of English writers. 



With J. A. Gillet he prepared the 

 "Cambridge Course in Physics" in 10 

 volumes. With J. H. Hanson he pub- 

 lished in 1S65 a "Handbook of Latin 

 Poetry." He was the author of an 

 "English History for Schools," "The 

 Elementary Study of English," a "Life 

 of Shakespeare" and "Shakespeare, the 

 Boy." His first Shakespearean work 

 was the bringing out of the edition pf 

 "Craik's English of Shakespeare," in 

 1867. Since then he may be said to 

 have "given his days and nights to 

 William Shakespeare." 



In 1870 he made a school edition of 

 "The Merchant of Venice," which was 

 followed by editions of "The Tempest," 

 "Julius Caesar" and "Henry VIII." An 

 insistent call for more came from every 

 quarter and the edition was finally 

 ootmlpleted) in 40 volumes. No other 

 American edition has ever met with 

 such sales— more than half a million 

 volumes finding ready market. It 

 pleased 1 Mary Cowden Clarke-, an Eng- 

 lish Shakespearean, to call this the 

 "Friendly edition." 



For nearly 20 years he had charge of 

 "Shakesperiana" in the Critic (now 

 Putnam's Monthly), the Literary 

 World, and recently had been perform- 

 ing the same duty for "Poet Lore." 

 He had edited volumes of Milton, Gray, 

 Wordsworth, Golldsmlth, Browning, 

 Scott's complete works, offered both a 

 Cambridge and an edition de luxe of 

 Tennyson, and supervised the publica- 

 tion of the "New Century edition die 

 luxe" of Shakespeare. 



After many years of pleasant corre- 

 spondence with the poet Tennyson and 

 his son, he was a guest of both at 

 different times, one memorable visit 

 occurring only six weeks previous to 

 the poet laureate's death. Dr. Rolfe's 

 pursuits led to correspondence with 

 many celebrities of the century, but, 

 fllwsvs retiring, he avoided rather than 

 sought personal interviews with such. 

 He had been an editor of the Popular 

 Science News, and frequently contrib- 

 uted to the Arena and North American 

 Review. He was the author of the 

 "Satchel Guide to Europe." which was 

 published anonymously for 28 years. 



| In dealing with the minor poets Dr. 

 Rolfe proved a most accurate editor 



I and compiler, discovering and correct- 

 ing strange perversions of the original 

 with microscopic nicety. 



Harvard bestowed the honorary de- 

 gree of A.M. upon Mr. Rolfe in 1859, 

 as did Amherst a little later. In 1887 

 Amherst further honored him with the 

 degree pf doctor of letters. 



Dr. Rolfe married one of the gradu- 

 ates of the Dorchester High School, 

 Miss Eliza J. Carew, who died some 

 years ago. Their three sons are all 

 graduates of Harvard, and the eldest, 

 Jlohm C. Rolfe, Ph.D., professor of 

 Latin in the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania, is coeditor, with his father, of 

 Macaulay's "Lays of Ancient Rome." 

 The second son, George William, is an 

 instructor in the Institute of Techn >1- 

 ogy, while the third son, Charles Jo- 

 seph, is a lawyer, practicing in Boston. 



