His grandmother was a daughter of Daniel Crommelin of Amsterdam, and by her the boy, motherless from infancy, was reared. He graduated at Columbia College when only fifteen years of age, and studied law with Edward Livingston, being finally admitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one years, by Chief- Justice (afterwards Chancellor) Kent. Mr. Verplanck was one of those earnest men, of many activities and tireless energy, who undertake seemingly incongruous tasks without hesitation and perform them wdth credit. Such as he are not plentiful in any generation. His first public appearance, we are told, was as a Fourth of July orator. A year or two later we find

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him in trou1)lc with Mayor De Witt Chnton, then writing ])ohtical articles, satires aimed at the Mavor and his friends, and afterwards contributing to Irving 's magazine, TJic Analcctic. He was elected to the Assembly by the "Bucktail" party, and while still a member of that body wrote a book on the Uses of the Evidences of Revealed Religion, and was chosen to fill a professorshi]) in the General Theological Seminary. Several years later. New York elected him to Congress, and his voice was heard on ]:)ublic cjuestions with no uncertain sound. After his retirement from ])olitical life, he gave himself devotedly to literary pursuits, and was for half a century one of the best known writers of the city. Space would fail should we attempt to tell of his occupations or recount his honours. He was Regent of the University of the State of New York ; member, and afterwards Warden, of the Vestry of Trinity Church; President of the Century Clul:); President of the Board of Emigration; and chairman of various charitable bodies. To the task of editing the edition of Shakespeare that bears his name, he added that of making a strenuous and successful fight for the extension of the copyright law^ from twenty-eight to fortyeight years.