Page:In Memoriam. Matthew Fontaine Maury.djvu/9

 up all at the call of our native land. And for ourselves, we will be dead to the sweetness of friendship, the love of virtue, and the admiration of Christian piety, when we cease to cherish the memory of him whose death we here record.

The life of Commodore M will furnish ample materials for a lofty biography in future. We would not undertake, in these pages, even to touch upon this field. It is proper, however, that we should here make an authentic register of the most important facts of his crowded life, with the accurate dates belonging to them.

M F M, the son of R M, of Huguenot descent, was born on the 14th of January, 1806, in Spottsylvania County, Virginia. In his fourth year his father emigrated to Tennessee, establishing himself near Franklin, a village in the vicinity of Nashville. In his sixteenth year, young M entered Harpeth Academy, then under the charge of the Rev. J H. O, afterwards Bishop of Tennessee.

In 1825 he was appointed Midshipman in the Navy of the United States, making his first cruize