The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-03-04
cENrENARIEs IN 1898.

birthday of August Comte the founuer
of Positivism, who first saw the light
at Montpelier on January 49, 1898.
Comte was one of those men to whom
fame comes early in life. He entered
the Polytechnic of Paris at seventeen,
and two years later took up such de-
termined stand against the dictatorlal
manner of one of the tutors that he
was expelled, after rousing the whole
of the students to general protest.
Later on he commenced a course OF
lectures in exposition of new system
of philosophy, now known as POSITIVE
ism, which were attended by many of
the most eminent Frenchmen of his
day, but the lectures were brought to
an abrupt termination by fit OF in
sanity. His brilliant intellect was not
lost, however, for in a few months
Comte began his great work on Posi-
tivism, which runs into six volumes,
and which Miss Martineau has trans
lated into English in a condensed form.
Comte was never rich, and was latter
ly dependent on the help Of friends, in
Guiding John Stuart Mill. He died in
his sixtieth year, on September 5, 1857,
etlld lies WILL Lie SAC eIl oV1a VI 4 AesiASS
in the cemetery of Pere la Chaise.
Three hundred years ago, on April
Is, the Huguenots received their free
dom at Nantes, where Henry w, sign
ed the famous edict which Louis XIV.
revoked nearly century later, driving
half a million French into exile. The
shame of Louis XIV. is more indelibly
stamped upon the memory of mankind
than the act Of Henry ", but the
granting to the Huguenots of the COM
mon rights of humanity is an event
which the IIuguenot societies of the
world will not allow to be forgotten.
The chief celebration of the tercenten-
airy is to be in New York, on April 10,
when delegates from England and
France will be welcomed by the HUI
guenot Society of America, the invita-
lions having been sent out in the name
of Prof. Baird, the historian of the
Huguenots.
Three centenaries of great import
ance will be celebrated in May. To one
of them-the Irish celebration of the
1898 ebellion-lengthy reference has
already been made in these columns.
The Portuguese and the Italians have
also their May cenenaries, both of
widely different kinds. The chief cities
of Portugal win be en- fete on May 20 in
honor of the discovery of Vasco da
Cana, the intrepid navigator, who
made his country famous by discovering
the Cape route to India, an achieve
ment which has been described as only
second to the discovery of America,
which had been made six years before.
Tho fa t,1o Of a G q a cd
by the great cruelties which he per-
mitted; but this, at least, is his due-he
was a courageous explorer, and render
ed mankind no mean service. His voy-
age to India via the Cape was complet-
ed on May TO- 149S, when he arrived at
Calicut. His discovery was rightly re-
garded as an immense Importance at
the time, and on his return to Lisbon
he was styled Admiral of the Indies,
and there We're popular rejoicings, such
as are to take place next May, 400
years after Gama's achievement.
The martyrdom of Savonarola will be
commemorated on May 90 at Florence,
where the great preacher was brutality
done to death on that date four centur-
les since. Savonarola. was in his prime
when he died at the hands Of his enc
mics, being only forty-five years of
age. Yet he had achieved a revolution
and overthrown a dynasty in the short
space of life that was granted to him,
Jealousy and prejudice and hate were
surely, if slowly, fastening the mar
tyrs death. Savonarola was expelled
from the Church of Rome, the Medici
dynasty was established in the re-
public, the people listened to another
preacher, and forsook the great re-
former, their idol of a too brief day
Savonarola, the greatest figure in the
history Of his race, was strangled amid
| the applause of the people, who, but a
year before, had worshipped him as
| their king. He died on May 90, 1893,
| the blacklist day in the history of
Rome; and Florence, where he was tor
tured and murdered, will hold his MEM
DRY in reverence when the sacred ami
| versary comes around.
| Literature is to have it's centenary at
Ancona, Italy, where one of that coun-
| try's greatest poets Giacomo Leopard,
| was born on June 20, 1898. 1t has been
| said of Leopard that Dante alone, Of
all Italians, was his equal in express
| siveness of character and genius, and,
lIlOuSH lie SOuiluS ID ptSSlIIilSllC HOIe III
| all his poems, his work reveals great
| depth of thought, and places him in the
| front rank of the great thinkers of
| Italy. He died in anguish at Naples,
when thirty-n mine, after brief life of
struggle against hapless fate Born
| into poor unhappy home, the domin-
| ant note of Leopardi's life was note
of hopelessness and misery, and there
| is little wonder that he took the pes
| simistic view. His genius showed IT.
| self at sixteen, when he wrote a COM
mentary on Plotinus, and at the same
| age he had read through all the Latin
| and Greek classics, and could write in
| five languages. The hundredth cele-
bration of his birthday will take place
| on June 20, when there will be festivi-
| ties in Ancona, in which some of Italy S
greatest writer's will participate.
| Two months later there will be cele-
brated in Paris the centenary of Jules
MicheIet, the printers son, who became
| the greatest historian of France. At
twenty-three Michelet was professor
of history, and at forty he was elected
to the Academy. His monumental
work-the history of France in nineteen
volumes-occupied him forty years, and
| then only death interrupted his
scheme. He had intended bringing the
| history up to his own time, but he died
at Hyeres on February 9, 1874, when he
| had carried the work down to Water
| loo. Michelet was man of powerful
| intellect and strong character and at