Reggio is a city about sixteen miles northwest of Modena.

The Orsini.  A famous Italian family in the Middle Ages.

Zampieri, Domenichino (b. 1581, d. 1641), was one of the most celebrated of the Italian painters.

XCVI.  INVENTIONS AND DISCOVERIES. (344)

John Caldwell Calhoun, 1782-1850.  This great statesman, and champion of southern rights and opinions, was born in Abbeville District, South Carolina.  In the line of both parents, he was of Irish Presbyterian descent.  In youth he was very studious, and made the best use of such opportunities for education as the frontier settlement afforded.  He graduated at Yale College in 1804, and studied law at Litchfield, Connecticut.  In 1808 he was elected to the Legislature of South Carolina; and, three years later, he was chosen to the National House of Representatives.  During the six years that he remained in the House, he took an active and prominent part in the stirring events of the time.  In 1817 he was appointed Secretary of War, and held the office seven years.  From 1825 to 1832 he was Vice President of the United States.  He then resigned this office, and took his seat as senator from South Carolina.  In 1844 President Tyler called him to his Cabinet as Secretary of State; and, in 1845, he returned to the Senate, where he remained till his death.  During all his public life Mr. Calhoun was active and outspoken.  His earnestness and logical force commanded the respect of those who differed most widely from him in opinion.  He took the most advanced ground in favor of “State Rights,” and defended slavery as neither morally nor politically wrong.  His foes generally conceded his honesty, and respected his ability; while his friends regarded him as little less than an oracle.

In private life Mr. Calhoun was highly esteemed and respected.  His home was at “Fort Hill,” in the northwestern district of South Carolina; and here he spent all the time he could spare from his public duties, in the enjoyments of domestic life and in cultivating his plantation.  In his home he was remarkable for kindness, cheerfulness, and sociability. ###

To comprehend more fully the force and bearing of public opinion, and to form a just estimate of the changes to which, aided by the press, it will probably lead, politically and socially, it will be necessary to consider it in connection with the causes that have given it an influence so great as to entitle it to be regarded as a new political element.  They will, upon investigation, be found in the many discoveries and inventions made in the last few centuries.

All these have led to important results.  Through the invention of the mariner’s compass, the globe has been circumnavigated and explored; and all who inhabit it, with but few exceptions, are brought within the sphere of an all-pervading commerce, which is daily diffusing over its surface the light and blessings of civilization.