Bessemer's process for manufacturing steel. He took out a patent for his
invention of forcing air through liquid molten iron. Other inventions of
interest were Brewster's prismatic stereoscope, Garcia's laryngoscope (a
mirror for examining the throat), and Drummond's light, patented by Captain
Thomas Drummond. Captain Robert Le Mesurier M'Clure of the "Investigator"
received the L5,000 prize for the discovery of the Northwest Passage and
was knighted. Famous English books of the year were Robert Browning's "Men
and Women," Charles Kingsley's "Westward Ho!" and George Henry Lewes' "Life
of Goethe."

[Sidenote: Death of Charlotte Bronte]

Charlotte Bronte, the novelist, died on the last day of March. She was born
in 1824, the daughter of the Rev. Patrick Bronte of Haworth in Yorkshire.
In June, 1854, she married her father's curate, the Rev. Archer Bell
Nicholls. Under the pseudonym of Currer Bell she published several novels,
in which she displayed great power in the delineation of character. The
most important of these were "Shirley," "Villette" and the celebrated "Jane
Eyre." At the same time her sister, Emily Jane, who published under the
name of Ellis Bell, won fame by her novel "Wuthering Heights." She died six
years earlier.

[Sidenote: Corot]

This year Jean-Baptiste Corot, the famous French painter of "Paysage
Intime," and follower and modifier of the new realistic schools under the
lead of Courbet, exhibited his "Souvenir de Marcoussy," which was purchased
later by Napoleon III.

[Sidenote: Death of Rogers]

Samuel Rogers, the English poet, wit and patron of art, died, on December
18, in his ninety-second year. The son of a banker, he travelled
extensively while a young man, and applied himself to the study of art and
letters. His first published essays and poetry were an "Ode to
Superstition" and "The Pleasures of Memory." The death of his father in
1793 left him in the possession of an ample fortune, and he lost no time in
retiring from active business. In 1798 he published "The Epistle to a
Friend" and other poems. During the early part of the Nineteenth Century,
Rogers figured in the foremost rank of the literary and artistic society in
London, where he went by the name of "The Banker Bard of St. James's
Place." In 1812 he brought out an epic on "The Voyage of Columbus," which
met with indifferent success. This was followed by "Jacqueline" and "Human
Life." His last and largest publication was his des