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Among the Thinkers and Writers of Dixie RICHARD HENRY WILDE. A merchant yet in his teens, a student burning the midnight oil, a jurist reforming the laws of his land, a statesman thrilling his peers with his eloquence, a scholar enriching the fame of a Tas so with his life of the witching bard, a poet stirring the heart of humanity wdth songs that shall never die—such was the character of Richard Henry Wilde, the subject of the following sketch. Richard Henry Wilde was the son of a hardware merchant of Dublin, and was born in the Irish Capital, Sept. 24, 1789. The family remained in the Old Country till Richard was eight years old, but becoming involved in the political turmoils of 1797, was obliged to flee from Ireland, leaving its commer cial interests in the hands of friends. Settling in Baltimore, the father began a prosperous business, but dying before it was firmly established, left the family in straitened circumstances. Realizing that the support of the family of six devolved upon him, and having no regular employ ment in Baltimore, Richard, now turning into his teens, went to Augusta, Ga., to accept a clerkship in a dry goods store. This position he held for sev eral months, giving perfect satisfaction to the pro prietor and making friends among the people who frequented his place of business. Finally, believ ing himself equal to the undertaking, he persuaded his mother to come to him, and opened a store of his own. In spite of his youth, he succeeded well, and soon placed his household upon their feet again. Easy on this point, he now set about to procure an education. He longed for a course a college; but feeling this desire unattainable, he resolved to edu cate himself at home. Such a course required a deal of pluck on the part of the handsome strip ling; but having made up his mind to rise, he, while his comrades revelled and slept, read and thought and dreamed. His name was never written on a college roll; yet few of his contemporaries excelled him in scholastic attainments. With a firm literary foundation laid in the si lence of the night, he now resolved to prepare, him self for the legal profession, borrowed books from a generous attorney, and within two years obtained a license to practice in the courts of his common wealth. His knowledge of theoretical law surprised his learned examiners; and yet so very modest was he that he went to another county to take his ex amination, fearing to humiliate his mother by fail ing. Hardly had he opened his office, however, when clients began to clamor for his services; and, in fact, the people of his state were so impressed with his ability that they made him their attorney general before he was twenty-five. Thus elevated, he set to work to reform the false jurisprudence then in vogue; and during his regime the legal life of Geor gia underwent a course of careful r; novation. Not content with these dignities, Wild 3 plunged into politics; and such was his popularity that he was elected to Congress just after his twenty-fifth birthday. Erudite in law, deliberate in council, elo quent in debate, he soon commanded the respect of the representatives; and his influence steadily in cieased till he was recognized as one of the most potent factors in the National Assembly. Proud of his splendid record, his constituents returned him to Congress for several terms; but owing to his resolute stand against President Jackson and the Force Bill, he was finally defeated. In social circles, too, Wilde was a general favor ite. Endowed with a fine physique, radiant with wholesome humor, bubbling over with sparkling wit. rich in repartee, he was always one of the most con spicuous characters in the social life of his day. But weary at length of the drawing room and out of the political arena, the poet soon found him self possessed with a longing for something thrilling and new, and accordingly set out across the seas for a tour through the European States. He re mained abroad for about five years, spending much of the time in Italy, studying Italian literature, and collecting materials for lives of Tasso and Dante. While in Florence, he discovered a portrait of the By DAVID E. GUYTON. The Golden Age for August 16, 1906. author of the Divine Comedy, the only likeness of Dante in existence. . With the publication of his “Life and Works of Tasso,” Wide’s literary career really began. He had written a few essays of merit, it is true, and had likewise delivered a number of orations worthy of lofty praise; he had even given voice to a few of his sweetest and rarest sones; but his writings had not attracted universal attention. His work on the Italian minstrel, however, brought him prom inently before the literary lights of the land, and from that time forward, he enjoyed the distinction of being considered a master among Southern men of letters. Returning from Europe, he settled in New Or leans. When the department of law was added to the University of Louisiana, he was made Profes sor of Constitutional Law in the institution, remain ing in this position until his death. The poet had a robust constitution; but exces sive work in his younger days had undermined his strength; so having fallen a victim to the yellow fever, which desolated New Orleans in 1847, he found himself unable to combat the attack, dying Sept. 7, 1847. Before having gone from Augusta, Wilde had married, and had left one of his little ones buried in the garden of his country home at Summerville. He had always expressed a desire to be laid beside his boy; and accordingly was taken from the Cres cent City and interred by the grave of his son. No slab of any kind marked the spot where the heart of the singer slept; but his body has since been, re moved to Augusta; and although his grave is still without a stone, a noble monument has been raised to his memory on one of the principal streets of the city. Wilde wrote a volume of verse, much of it of a high order. His fame as a poet, however, de pends especially upon his little three-stanza Ivric, “My Life is Like the Summer Rose.” These lines, which were part of a longer poem never completed by the inimitable poet, were hailed everywhere as a masterpiece when they first found their way into print; and no less a celebrity than the author of Childe Harold wrote the minstrel a personal letter in which he declared that the lay was the very fin est of the century. Other writers have claimed the authorship of these lines, but the Georgia Historical Society has established the truth of the matter,, showing beyond the shadow of a doubt that they came from the heart of Richard Henry Wilde. “My life is like the summer rose, That opens to the morning sky; But ere the shades of evening close, Is scattered on the ground—to die! Yet on the rose’s humble bed The sweetest dews of night are shed, As though she wept such waste to see; But none shall weep a tear for me!” “The Sage of Golden Gate” Turns Poet at Four Score Years. By WILLIAM D. UPSHAW. Youth is generally counted the “poetic age”— and love is the universal spark that ignites the poet ic flame. Or, if the figure be changed, it is yet love that waxes the heart, they say, into poesy and song. Scotia’s best beloved bard declared that he nev er thought of writing poetry until he fell heartily in love “and then,” he says, “rhyme and song were the spontaneous language of my heart.” Burns said he liked that quaint old couplet: “As toward her cot he jogged along Her name was frequent in his song.” But it is neither the glow of youth nor the rosy realm of romance that has awakened the heart and tuned the lyre of one of Atlanta’s patriarchal citi zens Mr. J. J. Richards, who celebrated his eighty fifth birthday on August Bth, is an unique and thor oughly interesting character in that his favorite pastime for the last five gr six year§ has been writ ing and singing hymns, When the editor of this paper was a sandy-hair ed, freckled-faced, bare-footed boy, he used to buy school books and marbles from the then prominent book store of J. J. and S. P. Richards. The subject of this sketch was then an old, gray-haired man, inspiring the boys and girls with reverence as white hairs always do, and hence the recent visits to the office of The Golden Age have held peculiar interest for the one-time boy who got the beginning of an unfinished education from the books bought in Rich ards’ Book Store and studied in old Crew Street School. ‘‘ I have written a new song—a paraphrase of an old piece I used to sing when a boy,” he will say. “Let me sing it to you,” and with his face aglow, voice strikingly clear for one of his advanced years, he will sing beautiful religious words to an old time air. One time it is a paraphrase of “Annie Laurie,” another it is “Old Folks at Home;” an other time perhaps “Lorens,” and yet again that religio-patriotic strain, “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.” This poet-patriarch has not waited, however, un til the evening of a long, eventful life to discover his love for books and high class literature. He has not only sold books, but has read them with eager ness and assimilation and his choice of words is excellent, whether as shown in paraphrasing an old familiar song or in the creation of new thought and new measure. Many of his old friends will recognize him by the picture here given, but he still clings to his nom-de-plume, the Sage of Golden Gate, the name under which all his published articles have appeared in the newspapers. He has a volume in manuscript which he expects to have printed. The introductory verses to his book, which will bear the title, “Mus ings of the Sage of Golden Gate,” will be some lines from the poet Gay: “Remote from cities lived a swain, ( Unvexed with all the cares of gain; His head was silvered o’er with age, And long experience made him Sage.” Don’t Like Osler and Chloroform. When Dr. Osler made his notorious assertion, that “meh at the age of forty were at their best, and should be retired, and at sixty, should be chloro formed,” our poet-patriarch was writing a series of what he termed “Thank Hymns,” in one of which he says: I thank Thee, 0 my God, For my long lease of life; And pray I may from day to day Be with Thy Spirit rife. I thank Thee, 0 my God, That I am not retired; 1 ' , Nor think it best, for me to rest, By chloroform inspired! The Soldier’s Friend. Away back in the sixties our venerable friend and his brother published a religions paper, known as “The Soldier’s Friend,” intended especially to carry good cheer and spiritual blessing to the sol diers facing temptation and death in camp and on the field. And around many a camp fire this pa per went in those troublesome days like a white winged messenger of inspiration and salvation where both were so much needed. Love’s Inspiration. After all, it is Love that inspires this “Father in Israel.” But it is Love Divine. Converted at fifteen he has been a devoted member of a Baptist Church for seventy years. Now in the sweet sim plicity of his sustaining Faith and in the beautiful evening of a life well spent for God and Ilis cause, he lingers by the “crystal River’s brink,” catches visions and songs of Beulah Land and echoes them back to the world ere he shall cross over to join “the song of Moses and the Lamb.” George Irving, the last surviving nephew of Washington Irving, marvelously hale and active at 82, is living at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Mr. Irving is practically the sole remaining member of the Irving family. He is one of the best, yet most modest, story tellers of the Amen Corner. 7