John Foster Kirk:
An Appreciation
By the Editor
❦
JOHN FOSTER KIRK, whose long life closed in his home at Chestnut Hill, September 21, 1904, was editor of this Magazine from 1870 to 1886, and as author, editor, and critic had held a long and intimate association with the house of Lippincott, being, indeed, one of the workers upon their New Dictionary at the time of his death. Mr. Kirk was of English parentage, was born at Fredericton, New Brunswick, on March 22, 1824, then lived at Halifax, and was educated at Truro under the Rev. Mr. Burnyeat, an Oxford graduate and a fine classical scholar. Leaving Halifax in 1842, he went first to Quebec, then came to the United States and settled in Boston, where for the next five years he continued to study, meanwhile trying his powers 1n different directions. To this period belongs his acquaintance with Macready, who advised him to become an actor, predicting his taking a first rank in the profession. His strongest bent was, however, towards literature, and his career was fixed when, in 1847, at the age of twenty-three, his friend, Robert Carter, who had been for a few months secretary to Prescott, the historian, recommended him for that position. Mr. Kirk’s facility in languages and his capacity for pains-taking and accurate research made him instantly recognized as a xaluable coadjutor.
“I have been overhauling my Philip the Second treasures and making a catalogue of them,” Mr. Prescott wrote at this date to Don Pascual di Gayangos. “It is as beautiful a collection, printed and manuscript, I will venture to say, as history-monger ever had on his shelves.” Three volumes of the “Life of Philip the Second” were given to the world before the death of Mr. Prescott in 1859, besides the emended edition of Robertson’s “Charles the Fifth.” In the preface to the two volumes of “Philip,” published in 1855, Mr. Prescott makes an acknowledgment “to Mr. John Foster Kirk, whose familiarity with the history and languages of Modern Europe has greatly aided me in the prosecution of my researches, while his sagacious criticism has done me no less service in the preparation of these volumes.”
Mr. Kirk accompanied Mr. Prescott to England in May, 1850, and while the historian became the lion of the London season, the younger man had his own glimpse of the wider horizons of life and thought.
189
