Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 3.djvu/187

 PROMINENT PERSONS

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jjopularit}-. Her second volume of poems, "Old Songs and New," came out in 1870; this work including poems from Hebrew and Greek story. In 1887 she published "For Love's Sake,"' and "Colonial Ballads." In addition she wrote "Cartoons," "Mono- graphs," and "Aunt Dorothy." For many years she gratuitously aided in editing sev- eral of the best papers of the south, in order to advance southern literature. The New York "Evening Post" characterized her joetry as "belonging to the school of Browning;" and Paul H. Hayne said that she was "one of the best writers of sonnets in America." She died March 28, 1897. at Baltimore, Maryland.

Daniel, John Moncure, son of Dr. John Moncure Daniel and Elizabeth Mitchell, his wife, was born in Stafford county, Vir- ginia, October 24, 1825, died in Richmond, Virginia, March 30, 1865. His father was the son of Dr. John M. Daniel, an eminent surgeon in the United States army, who married Mary Eleanor Stone, a daughter of Thomas Stone, of Maryland, signer of the Declaration of Independence. John Mon- cure Daniel was educated mainly by his father, studied law with Judge Lomax in I'redericksburg, Virginia, but did not com- plete his studies, his father's death render- ing it necessary to earn support for himself and aid his brothers. In 1845 he went to Richmond where he obtained a position as librarian, which, while not lucrative, gave opportunity for indulging his passion for reading. The first exhibition of his skill as a writer was on an agricultural monthly, "The Southern Planter," to which he at- tracted so much notice that he was offered a place on a new Democratic newspaper

(J847), the "Richmond Examiner." which siieedily became the leading paper of the south. The brilliant invective of the paper led to his fighting several duels. Mr. Dan- iel's "Democratic" principles were of the philosophical European school, and he was enabled to harmonize his pro-slavery radi- calism with these by the adoption of Car- Ivle's theory (in "The Nigger Question") which he interpreted as meaning that ne- groes were not to be considered as men in the same sense as whites. He was an ad- mirer of Emerson and Theodore Parker. The literary character of the "Examiner" vvas very high. He was a friend of Edgar Allan Poe, whom he aided in many ways, r.nd of whom he wrote a remarkable sketch in the "Southern Literary Messenger." In 1853 he was appointed by President Buchan- an minister to the court of Victor Emanuel, and while there took high ground in de- manding the same immunities for an Italian naturalized in the United States and visiting Sardinia as for any other American, and was indignant that Mr. Marcy did not sup- port him in threatening a rupture of diplo- matic relations. Garibaldi requested Daniel to annex Nice to the American republic, which Daniel declined to do on the ground that it was contrary to the Monroe doc- trine. After seven years abroad he returned hc.me at tlie beginning of the civil war and served on the staff of Gen. A. P. Hill. Be- ing incapacitated from further service by a wound in his arm he resumed the editorship oi the Richmond "Examiner." He was an- tagonistic toward Jefferson Davis and Mr. Elmore (Confederate treasurer), attacking them with great severity in his paper, and was challenged to a duel by the latter, in 1864. He was unable to point his pistol on