1778. He entered Williams College at the age of seventeen, and at the end of the Freshman year was transferred to Yale College, where he graduated in 1799. He delivered, at the Commencement, an Oration on the " Origin of Alphabetical Characters." Among his classmates were Dr. Eli Ives, afterwards one of the founders and professors of the Medical Institution at New Haven, and Moses Stuart, soon afterward pastor of the First Church in New Haven, and subsequently the distinguished Professor in the Theological Seminary in Andover. The former of these through life was his neighbor, physician and friend. He had also much to do with the latter, and although they sometimes appeared to the public as antagonists, Mr. Kingsley always maintained a deep interest in the welfare of his class mate, and an appreciation of his many virtues. After teaching in Wethersfield and Windham, Mr. Kingsley became, in 1801, a tutor in Yale College, and from that time onward till his resignation, just fifty years later, he was a devoted officer of the institution. In 1805, he was appointed Professor of the Hebrew, Greek and Latin Languages, and of Ecclesiastical History. "It may surprise some," says Professor Thacher, "that he should have been set over so extensive a province; but it appears less strange when we learn, that up to the time of this appointment, there had never been a professor of any language in the college. All the instruction in that department of learning had been given by the tutors, with some aid from the president. Indeed, it may be added, that up to the time when Mr. Kingsley was appointed an officer of the College, there had been in the whole course of its history, but five professors in all, including President Stiles, who, when president, acted as Professor of Ecclesiastical History."

After 1816, the title of Professor of Ecclesiastical History ceased to be connected with his name. In 1831, a separate chair of Greek was established, to which Mr.

Woolsey, now President Woolsey, was appointed. In 1835, Professor Gibbs, who had been invited, in 1824, to the Theological Department, assumed the instruction in Hebrew. In 1842, Mr. Thacher was appointed assistant Professor of Latin, and in 1851, Mr. Kingsley gave up all responsibility as an instructor. His resignation was accepted by the Corporation, in a complimental vote, requesting him to remain connected with the College as a Professor Emeritus. During seven years after he became Professor, that is, until his marriage, Mr. Kingsley was also Tutor, taking the entire charge, according to the custom of the day, of one division of a class. He was also Librarian of the College from 1805 to 1824, and retained until the close of his life a deep interest in the enlargement and improvement of the collection of books. In 1845 he went to Europe at his own expense to make purchases for the Library, visiting, for that purpose, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Leipsic, in a trip which extended through about eight months.

These are the chief changes in the official career of one who has fitly been characterized "as a truly academic man," and whose outward life was consequently devoid of stirring incidents.1

In order to appreciate Prof. Kingsley's power as a writer, some of his personal characteristics should be borne in mind.

1 Prof. Kingsley's domestic history was almost equally even in its flow. He was married, Sept. 23, 1811, to Lydia, the eldest daughter of Daniel L. Coit of Norwich. His eldest son, George Theodore, graduated at Yale College in 1882, and after a brief practice of the profession of Law in Cleveland, Ohio, was drowned in the harbor of Sandusky city in 1842. His second son, Henry Coit, graduated at Yale College in 1834, and in 1862 succeeded Mr. Herrick, as the Treasurer of the college. The third son, William Lathrop, graduated at Yale College in 1843, and is the editor of the New Englander, a quarterly review, published in New Haven. A married daughter, Mrs. H. T. Blake, resides in the house which for so many years her father owned and occupied. The death of Mr. Kingsley occurred after an illness of about a week, at his home in New Haven, Aug. 31, 1852. Nine years afterward, Dec. 2, 1861, Mrs. Kingsley, having for many years been in feeble health, was called to her rest.

In the first place, he was minutely accurate. He loved the truth for its own sake, and avoided in his own statements, quite as much as he condemned in the statements of others, exaggeration, vagueness, and pretense. He gave no impression which was not based on fact. "His anxiety to be right," says President Woolsey, "and his fear of making mistakes, led him to look through every part of a subject; and he never ventured upon expressing an opinion, especially upon a contested matter of fact in history, without fully exploring the ground beforehand. From this quality, and from perspicacity, flowed his exactness, which was carried along by a memory that retained even the minute details of things." Prof. Thacher likewise bears testimony to the fact that Mr. Kingsley's influence was ever felt in College "cutting through shams in style, as well as shams in scholarship."

Mr. Kingsley was also remarkably modest and retiring. This trait sometimes made him appear to be diffident and even shy. He would shrink with sensitiveness from appearing in public. Although he did not allow this reluctance to restrain him from the performance of any duty, which seemed to him to belong to his office, yet he was kept from volunteering his services, and even from bestowing them when it seemed to him that others were willing and able to perform the task. He rarely officiated in later years in the worship at the college chapel, which, at evening prayers, was conducted by one of the Professors. He gave up the delivery of his course of lectures on History and Language because he fancied that the students were not interested in them. very rarely, through his life, made a public address, excepting the short Latin discourses which he gave officially on academic festivals. Even the editions of classical authors which he published as text-books, and the articles which he contributed to quarterly and monthly periodicals were commonly anonymous. It is true that he was often discovered

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as the author by those who knew his learning and his wit, but he rarely referred to his own performances, especially while they were fresh, and then he did so in a confidential tone as if he were imparting a very great secret. Sometimes he would insist that his contributions

to a magazine should appear among the book notices, where he thought the question of authorship was less likely to be raised, or he would publish a criticism in the columns of a newspaper, where it would soon be forgotten.

But notwithstanding his exactness and his self-distrust, his style was attractive and polished in a high degree. Many writers in history who aim to be precise become dry annalists. Many critics, in their desire to be keen and cautious, are harsh, cramped or pedantic. Professor Kingsley did not fall into such errors. His style was formed on classical models. He not only loved and studied the idioms of his native tongue, but the best writers in Greek and Latin were almost as familiar to him as Shakspeare and Milton. He was also well acquainted with modern continental authors. From them all he derived instruction in regard to modes of expression and arrangement, but he never employed the peculiarities of one language when he wrote in another. Latin phrases, German terminology, French idioms, were avoided when he was writing English as carefully and as naturally as errors in syntax and orthography. His writings were usually clear, finished, and forcible, rather than ornate and brilliant. The study of the classics disciplined his judgment and refined his taste, so that whether he wrote in English or in Latin, his words were carefully chosen. As a writer of English, Dr. Dwight called him the American Addison; in Latin, Prof. Thacher says that "Cicero was his model, and he was certainly a successful imitator of his style,

surprisingly successful, when we consider how he was dependent on himself for instruction." From these various circumstances it naturally resulted that Pro