YOUNG MEN'S LITERARY SOCIETY.

chiefly of men of age and experience. P. PRALL President, J. E. BERRY. Among its members are some of the best Secretary, C. S. Demarest. posted and most progressive men of the State, including Messrs. PATRICK CLARK, Located at Paterson, Passaic County. U. M. OSBORN, WILLARD DENIKE, GAR- Organized July 27, 1866. Number of RET BERRY, J. U. UNDERHILL, J. SHOTWELL, W. D. CARTULME, and the es-GEORGE A. ZABRISKIE and ATPUL members, eighteen. Representatives teemed Vice-President of the State VANRIPER. President, A. VANRIPER; Union, Mr. GALEN M. FISHER. Its Secretary, U. A. FONDA. Box 167, Postorganization dates some ten years office. back. Connected with it are a library and reading room. The Lyceum was, during the winter of 1865-6, declared to be the champion debating society of the State. Its membership exceeds thirty. Its representatives are GALEN M. FISHER, UZAL M. OSBORN, JOHN U. UNDERHILL. President, U. M. OSBORN; Secretary, W. DENIKE.

WASHINGTON LITERARY UNION OF NEWARK.-President, JOHN J. KING; Secretary, NATHAN MINGUS.

WEBSTERIAN LITERARY UNION.-LOcated at Paterson, Passaic County. Contains upward of thirty members. Is composed of energetic young men. The influence of this society was very marked in the formation of the State Union. During the past winter this association revived the challenge debate system on an extensive scale, challenging almost every society of note or strength in the State. It is a new organization, but ranks as first class. W. H. NELSON, of the Press, is its President. Its representatives are A. H. DRURY, U. B. TUCKER, J. C. PAULISON. President, W. NELSON; Secretary, RICHARDSON.

WESLEY CHAPEL YOUNG MEN'S. UNION.-Located at Newark, and attached to the Wesley Chapel M. E. Church. Numbers about eighteen members; was organized March 5, 1855. Its representatives were GEO. B. D. REEVE, JOHN M. GRINNELL. President, G. B. D. REEVE; Secretary, G. H. WHITE, 188 Plane Street.

The following completes the list of literary societies at present known to us. We are as yet without any data concerning them, and for the present must be content with their names only: Everett Literary Union, Jersey City; Hackensack Literary Association, Bergen County; Drakeville Lyceum, Morris County; Haddon Lyceum, Haddonfield; Pluckamin Lyceum, Somerset County; New Bridge Literary Society, Society; Bedminster Literary Associa Bergen County; Pottersville Debating tion, Somerset County; Franklin Lyceum, Hoboken; Philomathic Society, Newark; Morristown Lyceum; Academy Literary Society, Salem; Camden Literary and Library Association, Camden; Young Men's Literary Society, Somerville: People's Lyceum, Vineland; Wayland Literary Junta, Newark; Young Men's Christian Association, Newark.

VALUE OF THE UNION TO ABOVE SOCIETIES AND THE STATE.-The importance to these societies of an Union cannot well be overestimated. For strength, mutual intercourse, and interchange of views, or united effort in any single direction, the State Union supplies a need of which experience alone will adequately demonstrate the full value. Already its fostering care of these interests is shown in the numerous societies which are springing up in various parts of the WOODBRIDGE ATHENÆUM.-This asState. As it is more prominent because sociation is located in Middlesex County.a State Union, so also has it greater It contains, among its membership, influence than could any one society many able young men. The cause of exert, no matter how able or large, intellectual culture among young men has received as much encouragement from this society as any in any other locality. Organized December 8, 1864. Representatives, JAMES E. BERRY, J.

upon

the young mind of New Jersey. Add to the integral parts, and their aggregate capacity will at once be felt in the Union and from it everywhere.

THE lives of literary men are not, in the general acceptation of the term, eventful. Shut out from the busy world in the seclusion of their studies, wedded to thought, and dealing in ideas sometimes an age in advance of the times their careers possess little in common with, or of interest to, the over-practical, sensation-hungering public. But there is a branch of literature, distinctive in itself, and rapidly growing into a profession in this country, which brings the writer in closer contact with those whose opinions are shaped and directed by his potent influence. This department of letters, by far the most effective in its immediate bearings upon the popular will, is Journalism—recently the refuge of broken-down politicians, literary hacks, and other professional failures, but now the peculiar province of earnest men of brains and experience. Among the latter class, prominent for his extraordinary power as a writer, acknowledged ability, and superior scholarly attainments, stands the subject of this sketch.

A year ago, if the diligent hunter of metropolitan literary lions had possessed the courage requisite to penetrate the innermost sanctum of that old editorial labyrinth situated at the juncture of Nassau and Liberty Streets, and known as the office of the Evening Post, he would have been confronted by an individual whose personal aspect involuntarily suggested a Titan in spectacles and pantaloons. If by mere curiosity led, with no more apparent object than that which actuates the great army of bores besetting every place in general and newspaper offices in particular, the character of such visitor's reception would have been uncertain; possibly a hint in not the mildest terms of the incomparable value of room over company in that apartment; but if, on the other hand, the visit was sanctioned by a motive, and related to any matter of public or private concern, there would have been no loss of time or waste of words in coming to a decided and definite understanding. This man of heavy frame, surmounted by a huge head and face, molded in bold defiance of all Grecian or Roman lines of beauty, with grim moustache and grizzled, shaggy beard, a thick, short nose of indescribable architecture, but broad-bridged and bestridden by large gold glasses, through which a pair of clear, searching blue eyes looked out from under a brow of glacial ice-this Vulcan in outward form, and possessing an intellectual vigor corresponding to his rough exterior, was Parke Godwin, son-in-law to the poet Bryant, and editor-in-chief of one of the best known and most influential daily journals in America.

Born at Paterson, in this State, more than half a century ago, of Revolutionary ancestors, identified with its interests and honor from our earliest history, educated in the college halls of Princeton-for which he still cherishes the happiest recollections-Parke Godwin, although a metropolitan by long residence, and a cosmopolitan by natural instinct, is a Jerseyman from necessity, if not from choice. And he is one of those rare men, in the honoring of whom New Jersey honors herself. Godwin's early life was very like the lives of ambitious American youths ordinarily; or those at least who are fortunate enough to be surrounded by favoring circumstances. His father, Abram Godwin, served with distinction as an officer in the war of 1812, and was much respected and esteemed by his fellow-citizens. His mother was a daughter of John Parke, a successful Paterson manufacturer and politician of some note, out of respect for whom, the first-born of her flock of five children was christened "Parke." Young Godwin attended school for a time in his native town, where he was looked upon by his teachers as a pupil of little promise, and by his family as

an uncommonly dull lad. This lack of precocity, however, was more than made up before entering college, and at Caldwell, where he received the greater part of his "fitting," he exhibited an intellectual prowess far beyond his years. At Princeton, the positive character for which he has been so distinguished in later life began to develop itself, and he soon became the authority not of his class only but of the entire college. Endowed with superior oratorical powers, he was looked upon by his fellow-students with an admiration nearly akin to envy. At times, when the inspiration was on him, his intense earnestness, blazing from every feature, made him seem positively handsome, despite his uncouth and unprepossessing appearance. A perfect democrat in his address, meeting every man upon the level of his position and character, he grew as much esteemed as admired. Sometimes the intensity of his temperament rose to something like irascibility in the championship of his settled convictions, but this was received as a necessary consequence of that identification of the man with nature. Even his vehemence partook of largeness and generosity: it was the "noble rage" of a capacious yet ardent intelligence, momentarily carried away by that hatred of error which is the negative form of the love of truth.

After graduating at Princeton "with distinguished honor," Godwin returned to Paterson, and at the solicitation of his parents consented, but not willingly, to adopt the law as a profession. With this view he commenced to study for the bar in the office of A. S. Pennington, Esq., a brother to the late Governor Pennington, and after a year of the closest application was duly admitted to membership in the legal fraternity. The acquisition of a knowledge of legal principles was an easy matter, but the endless amount of pettifogging through which newly fledged practitioners are almost invariably called to pass, before entering upon the broad cruising-ground of the higher courts, was in his case especially distasteful. The gown but illy fitted his impatient limbs. About this time, too, he was seized with the emigration fever-long an epidemic among the young men of the North and East-and carried off to Kentucky. During his temporary residence in that uncongenial clime his professional début was made, though under what circumstances it does not appear; but his almost immediate abandonment of the calling would seem to argue no great measure of success. That his heart was not in his profession it is evident else with his commanding ability, ripe scholarship and indomitable energy, there could have been "no such word as fail.”

From the moment Parke Godwin relinquished the law, his natural