Chapter M: Taine, the Author

OMAHA, Neb.

Can you give me some information regarding M. Taine, author of a
“History of English Literature?” 2. Where does Louis Kossuth reside?

DON QUIXOTE.

_Answer._—Hippolyte Adolphe Taine, one of the foremost essayists and critics of our time, was born at Vouziers in Ardennes, France, April 21, 1828. After completing his education at the College Bourbon and the normal school of Paris, he published several works which attracted attention, and marked him as a polemic writer of power. In 1864 he was given the professorship of æsthetics in the School of Fine Art, Paris. Besides his controversial writings he has published several works on art and literature. 2. In Turin, Italy.

FATHER TAYLOR.

VESPER, Wis.

Please give a short sketch of, “Father Taylor,” the sailor-preacher
in Boston.

S. BOYNTON.

_Answer._—Edward T. Taylor, better known as “Father Taylor,” was a sailor during the war of 1812, and first acted a preacher while a prisoner at Dartmoor, England. In 1819 he was ordained by the American M. E. Church, and in 1828 was appointed to the Seamen’s Bethel, in Boston. Warm-hearted and quick-witted, he won the hearts of the rough men there, and from them received his “title.” He revisited England in 1832, and traveled in Palestine in 1842. During the famine of 1846 in Ireland he was chaplain in the United States relief frigate. He was born in 1794, in Virginia, and died in 1871.

LONDON.

COLUMBUS, Wis.

Please give us the derivation of the word “London.”

WILL SMITH.

_Answer._—There is a fable that London was founded by Brute, a descendant of Æneas, and called New Troy, or Troy-novant, until the time of Lud, who surrounded it with walls and named it Caer Lud, or Lud’s town. But Haydn’s “Dictionary of Dates” contradicts this statement, and writes the old name Llyndin, meaning “the town on the lake.” The name is evidently of Celtic origin. It is claimed by some that there was a city on that same spot 1107 B. C., and it is known that the Romans found a city there called Londinium, A. D. 61.

THE HULLS—ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

LAWLER, Iowa.

1. Was General Hull, who surrendered at Detroit, a relative of
Commodore Hull, of the United States frigate Constitution? 2. Of
what nationality was Alexander Hamilton?