The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-03-18
SOME LITERARY cENTENARIANs.
Six Notable Men to Be Honored This
Year.

From the New York Evening Journal
Those who know somewhat of the lit
erature of the last five centuries in vari-
Gus languages. will find some food for
reflection in the six literary centenaries
which render the year 1906 notable in the
line of anniversaries.
Six notable men will be honored
wherever the thoughts of great men find
readers. Four of these men were born
100 years ago, one of them 800 years ago.
and the sixth 400 years ago.
As to nationality, they are all well dis
tributed. One is Scotch. two are Eng
lish, one is Danish, one is French and one
Is German. Here are their names. They
are worth remembering, and no man who
calls himself student can afford to be
ignorant of their works. Fame has writ
ten them large upon her gilded scroll.
Who will not recognize John Knox, Hans
Anderson, James Martineau, Frederick
Won Schiller Alexis de Tocqueville and
Sir Thomas Browne?
Perhaps of all these Knox led the most
strenuous life. Educated at st. Andrews
and ordained a protest, he declared him
self Protestant. Five years later he was
carried a prisoner to France, but he es-
capped and became a preacher at Berwick
and Newcastle.
In 1862 he became chaplain to King
Edward VI, but when Mary came to the
throne two years later he fed for his
life to Geneva. Later lie returned to
Scotland. but his utterances made the
country unsafe for him, and he was
forced to spend three years more In
Switzerland. He finally returned to
Scotland in 1859. His history of the realm
of Scotland is his most important work,
but probably his best known is 1.-THE
First Blast of the Trumpet Against the
Monstrous Regiment (Rule) of Women"
Over his grave the Regent of Scotland
made the utterance often quoted since:
There lies he who never feared the
face of man."
Sir Thomas Brownies name is, perhaps
the most famous of the six in purely
literary sense, because he was the author
of the "Religio Medici." He was born
in London in 1905 and is held by the lat
ter-day literary critics to be one of the
most remarkable writers of English.
whose books will never pass out of date.
Alexis de Touqueville, the French his
torian, came over to America in 1881,
with a commission from his government
to examine the prisons OF this country.
He wrote a famous book on Democracy
in America and it scored a great sue
cess. Subsequently his other historical
works gained equal fame.
Martineau, distinguished as a philoso-
pher and preacher. lived to be 80 years OF
age. He was a younger brother of the
famous Harriet Martineau, and wrote
many books on theological subjects. his
TYPES of Ethica Theory being as
beautiful in language and sentiment as
anything of Emerson.
Hans Anderson, whose fairy tales have
won him fame in every corner of the earth
where there is a written language. was
the son of a Danish shoemaker. and had
to support himself after ice death of his
father, which occurred when the son
was II years old.
He was 30 years old before he published
the first of the tales that have made his
name a family byword all over the world.
Last, but not by any means least comes
the great Schiller. poet and dramatist.
acknowledged to be second only to Goethe
in his wonderful power to express Won
derful thoughts. To select any one work
of Schiller as his best would be too great
task for any one n IN. but IL he had
done nothing else, the fact that he assisted
to create the infiuel- ees which made for
greater and freer national life for the
German people, would be need of honor