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C U R I C O- -CURTIS
Curtis, George Ticknor (1812-1894), American legal writer and constitutional historian, was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, 28th November 1812. He graduated at Harvard University in 1832, became a lawyer, and practised his profession in Boston, New York, and Washington. He was the nephew and close friend of George Ticknor, the historian of Spanish literature, and his association with his uncle was influential in developing his scholarly tastes; while his other personal friendships with eminent Bostonians during the period of conservative Whig ascendancy in Massachusetts politics were of direct influence upon his political opinions and published estimates. After preparing a number of law-books, one of which—on the Rights and Duties of Merchant Seamen— elicited the hearty praise of Mr Justice Story, he issued in 1855-58 the first of the two works upon which his place in literature depends : A History of the Origin, Formation, and Adoption of the Constitution of the United States, with Notices of its principal Framers. This history, which had been watched in its earlier progress by Daniel Webster, may be said to present the old federalist or “ Webster-Whig ” view of the formation and powers of the constitution; and it was natural that Mr Curtis should follow it with a voluminous Life of Daniel Webster (2 vols., 1870). Both these works were characterized by solidity CuriCO, a city of Chile, capital of the province and and comprehensiveness rather than by rhetorical attractivedepartment of the same name, 114 miles from Santiago by ness or literary perspective. In his later years Mr Curtis, rail, situated in 34° 58' S. lat. and 71° 19' W. long. like so many of the followers of Webster, turned towards Population, 15,000. the Democratic party • and he wrote, among other works of minor importance, an exculpatory life of President James Curitiba, a city of Brazil, and capital of the state Buchanan (2 vols., 1883) and two vindications of General of Parana. The population is 20,000, of whom over George B. M‘Clellan’s career (1886 and 1887). He died 12,000 are foreign-born (4000 Germans, 4000 Italians, in New York, 28th March 1894. 2000 Poles, and from 2000 to 3000 Portuguese, Spaniards, &c.). Nearly all the wholesale trade is in the Curtis, George William (1824-1892), hands of Germans. In the vicinity of Curitiba are American man of letters, was born in Providence, R.I., prosperous colonies of Italians, Germans, Poles, &c. 24th February 1824. He came of old New England stock, and at the time of his birth the New England Curling, Thomas Blizard (1811-1888), community was at its best. His mother died when he British surgeon, was born in London in 1811. Through his uncle, Sir William Blizard, he became assistant- was two years old. At six he ^ was sent with his elder surgeon to London Hospital in 1833, becoming full brother to school in Jamaica Plain, Mass., where he resurgeon in 1849. After filling other important posts in mained for five years. Then, his father having again the College of Surgeons, he was appointed President in married happily, the boys were brought home to Provi1873. In 1843 he won the Jacksonian prize for his dence, where they stayed till, in 1839, their father investigations on tetanus; and he became famous for his removed to New York. Three years later, Curtis, being skill in treating diseases of the testes and rectum, his allowed to determine for himself his course of life, and published works on which went through many editions. being in sympathy with the spirit of the so-called Transcendental movement, became a boarder at the community of He died on 4th March 1888. Brook Farm. He was accompanied by his brother, whose Curtea d’Argesh, a town in Rumania, on the influence upon him was strong and helpful. He remained • southern slopes of the Carpathians (population in 1900, there for two years, brought into stimulating and service4210), north-west of Pitesti, connected by railway with able relations with many interesting men and women. Bucharest. It derives its name from Courtea (the Court), Then came two years, passed partly in New York, partly having been the residence of Radu Negru early in the 13th in Concord, in order mainly to be in the friendly neighbourcentury. It contains two interesting churches, one of which hood of Emerson, and then followed four years spent in was constructed by Radu himself. About 1£ miles north of Europe, Egypt, and Syria. Curtis returned from Europe the town is the cathedral, a magnificent and unique speci- in 1850, handsome, attractive, accomplished, ambitious of men of Byzantine art. There are myths connected with its literary distinction. He instantly plunged into the whirl foundation, which have been put into beautiful and pathetic of life in New York, obtained a place on the staff of the verse by the Rumanian poet, B. Alexandri, but as a matter Tribune, entered the field as a popular lecturer, set himof fact it was constructed by the Prince NTagul Bassaraba, self to work on a volume published in the spring of 1851, who governed Wallachia from 1512 to 1522, and who under the title of Nile Notes of a Howadji, and became studied architecture while a hostage at Constantinople at a favourite in society. He wrote much for Putnams the court of the Sultan Selim. Aided by another architect, Magazine, of which he was associate editor ; and a number Manoli, he erected this cathedral, which was completely of volumes, composed of essays written for that journal reconstructed with great taste and success at the expense and for Harper's Monthly, came in rapid succession from of the Rumanian Government between 1875 and 1885, his pen. The chief of these were the Potiphar Papers, a under the direction of a French architect, M. Lecomte de satire on the fashionable society of the day; and Prue Nbuy. It was reconsecrated with great pomp in the and I, a pleasantly sentimental, fancifully tender and humorous study of life. In 1855 he married Miss presence of the king on 12th October 1886.
an Introduction to his Exegetical Lessons on the Gospels. In 1879 and 1880 appeared his edition of the Hew Testament, in the preface to which he made some severe remarks on the neglect of the study of the Scriptures among the Italian clergy. In the meantime he had commenced the campaign against the Vatican which has made him famous. In his II Moderno Dissidio tra la Chiesa e VItalia (1878) he advocated an understanding between Church and State. In his La Nuova Italia ed i Vecchi Zelanti (1881) he inveighed against the condition of the Vatican at that period. In 1883 he published his Vaticano Regio, in which he accuses the Church of making merchandise of the holiest things, and declares that her worldliness was due to the false principles she had embraced. He still kept up his sympathy with the working class, and expressed it in a striking treatise on Christian Socialism, in which he invoked State interference to check the inequality with which profits were shared between employer and employed. Excommunicated and deprived, he was reduced to beggary, and in 1884 he retracted “all that he had said contrary to the faith, morals, and discipline of the Church.” He passed the remainder of his life in retirement, and died at Villa Careggi, near Florence, on 8th June 1891. (j. J- l*.)
