GEORGE

See also:

• PERKINS, CHARLES CALLAHAN (1823-1886)
• PERKINS, JACOB (1766-1849)

PERKINS

See also:

• MARSH (O. F. mersc, for merisc, a place full of "meres" or pools; cf. Ger. Meer, sea, Lat. mare)
• MARSH, ADAM (ADAM DE MARISCO) (d. c. 1258)
• GEORGE PERKINS MARSH (1801-1882)
• MARSH, HERBERT (1757–1839)
• MARSH, NARCISSUS (1638-1713)
• MARSH, OTHNIEL CHARLES (1831-1899)

MARSH (1801-1882)  , American diplomatist and philologist, was born at Woodstock, Vermont, on the 15th of March 18or . He graduated at Dartmouth College in 182o, was admitted to the bar in 1825, and practised law at Burlington, Vermont, devoting himself also with ardour to philological studies . In 1835 he was a member of the Supreme Executive Council of Vermont, and from 1843 to 1849 a Whig representative in Congress . In 1849 he was appointed United States minister resident in Turkey, and in 1852–1853 discharged a mission to Greece in connexion with the imprisonment by the authorities of that country of an American missionary, Dr Jonas King (1792–1869) . He returned to Vermont in 1854, and in 1857 was a member of the state railway commission . In 1861 he became the first United States minister to the kingdom of Italy, and died in that office at Vallombrosa on the 23rd of July 1882 . He was buried in a Protestant cemetery in Rome . Marsh was an able linguist, writing and speaking with ease the Scandinavian and half a dozen other European languages, a remarkable philologist for his day, and a scholar of great breadth, knowing much of military science, engraving and physics, as well as of Icelandic, which was his specialty . He wrote many articles for Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia, and contributed many reviews and letters to the Nation . His chief published works are: A Compendious Grammar of the Old Northern or Icelandic Language (1838), compiled and translated from the grammars of Rask; The Camel, his Organization, Habits, and Uses, with Reference to his Introduction into the United States (1856); Lectures on the English Language (186o) ; The Origin and History of the English Language (1862; revised ed., 1885); and Man and Nature (1865) . The last-named work was translated into Italian in 1872, and, largely rewritten, was issued in 1874 under the title The Earth as Modified by Human Action; a revised edition was published in 1885 . He also published a work on Mediaeval and Modern Saints and Miracles (1876) .

His valuable library was presented in 1883 by

Frederick Billings to the university of Vermont . His second wife, CAROLINE (CRANE) MARSH (1816-1901), whom he married in 1839, published Wolfe of the Knoll and other Poems (186o), and the Life and Letters of George Perkins Marsh (New York, 1888) . This last work was left incomplete, the second volume never having been published . She also translated from the German of Johann C . Biernatzki (1795–1840), The Hallig; or the Sheepfold in the Waters (r856) .