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 178 FIELD FIELDFARE ed ; and the Great Eastern took it on board, and sailed to the west. Over 1,200 miles had been laid, when by a sudden lurch of the ship the cable snapped and was lost. The bottom of the sea was dragged for days in vain, and the expedition returned defeated to England. The year 1866 saw still another expedition, which this time proved successful. The cable, 2,000 miles long, was safely stretched across the ocean, and the communication proved per- fect. After landing this the Great Eastern re- turned to the middle of the ocean in search of the cable lost the year before, and after a month's labor finally succeeded in grappling it at a depth of two miles and bringing it to the surface, and, joining it to the cable on board, carried it safely to the western shore. Thus, after 12 years of incessant labor, in which he had crossed the ocean some 50 times, Mr. Field saw the great object of his life ac- complished. Congress voted unanimously to present him a gold medal, with the thanks of the nation ; while the prime minister of England declared that it was only the fact that he was a citizen of another country that prevented his receiving high honors from the British government. John Bright pronounced him " the Columbus of modern times, who by his cable had moored the new world alongside the old." The great exposition in Paris in 1867 gave him the grand medal, tlie highest prize it had to bestow. Since that year two other cables have been successfully laid, and tele- graphic communication across the Atlantic ocean has never been interrupted for a single hour. V. Henry Martyn, an American clergy- man, brother of the preceding, born at Stock- bridge, Mass., April 3, 1822. He graduated at Williams college at the age of 16, and after four years' study of theology became pastor of a church in St. Louis in 1842. After five years he resigned his charge to go abroad. In 1847- '8 he was in Europe, and after returning he published a historical sketch of the Italian revo- lutions, and a letter from Eome on " The Good and the Bad in the Roman Catholic Church." In January, 1851, he was settled at West Springfield, Mass., whence he removed in 1854 to New York, to become one of the editors of the " Evangelist," a religious journal, of which he subsequently became proprietor. In 1858 he again made a tour in Europe, which he described in a volume entitled "Summer Pictures from Copenhagen to Venice" (New York, 1859). In 1867 he went abroad again to the great exposition in Paris, and as a delegate to the Free church of Scotland and the Pres- byterian church of Ireland. His last book is a "History of the Atlantic Telegraph." He has also published "The Irish Confederates, a History of the Rebellion of 1798 " (1851). FIELD, John, a British composer, born in Dublin, July 26, 1782, died in Moscow, Jan. 11, 1837. His father was a violin player in the orchestra of the Dublin theatre. He re- ceived his first instructions upon the piano- forte from his grandfather, who was an organ- ist. Subsequently he became a pupil of Muzio Clementi, whom he accompanied to Paris, Vienna, and finally to St. Petersburg, where Field took up his residence, remaining after dementi's departure in 1804. In 1822 he re- moved to Moscow, where as at the former city his concerts were attended with success and pupils flocked to him in great numbers. He visited London and Paris in 1832, proceeded thence to the south of France, passed a por- tion of 1834 and 1835 at Naples, where he was for nine months in a hospital, and in the latter year returned to Russia, broken down by sickness and poverty, the result of his two besetting faults, idleness and intemperance. His laziness was so great that it is related of him that when he dropped his cane in the street he stood till some good-natured passer- by picked it up for him. As a pianist he was almost without a rival in respect to delicacy, poetic feeling, and grace of style. He es- pecially excelled in the finish with which he rendered the works of Sebastian Bach, which he made popular even in Paris. Among his chief compositions, which are not numerous, are seven concertos for piano and orchestra, three sonatas dedicated to Clementi, and 18 nocturnes. Of the last named form of com- position, afterward so extensively used by Chopin, Kalkbrenner, and other composers, Field was the inventor ; and his nocturnes are the most popular as well as the most meri- torious of his works. FIELDFARE, a European bird of the thrush family, the turdus pilaris (Linn.), in form, size, proportions of parts, and characters of the plu- Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris). mage, resembling the migratory thrush or Amer- ican robin (T. migratorius, Linn.). The length is between 10 and 11 in., the extent of wings 17^, the tarsus 1 J, and the weight about 4 oz. ; it is a stout bird, and from its long tail and wings rather elegant in form. The bill, which