Edgar W. Nye (1850-1896), best known as “Bill Nye,” was born in Shirley, Maine, and died near Asheville, North Carolina. Educated in Wisconsin, he first turned his attention to the study of law. Abandoning that pursuit after having been admitted to the bar, he dabbled in several different occupations, and finally became a newspaper correspondent. For a short time he travelled with James Whitcomb Riley, the two giving a series of entertainments which proved widely popular. Nye’s published works were many, but they have little chance of permanent life. As good as any are “Bill Nye and the Boomerang” (1881), “A Comic History of the United States” (1894), and “The Railroad Guide” (1888), the last written in partnership with Mr. Riley. Mr. Burdette, the last of the quartette here mentioned together, was born in Greensboro, Pennsylvania, in 1844, and received his schooling in Peoria, Illinois. During the Civil War he was a soldier in the Union Army. At the close of the struggle, Mr. Burdette returned to Peoria, where he was connected with first one and then another of the newspapers published there. Finally, failing in a paper issued under his own proprietorship, he went to Burlington, Iowa, and became a member of the staff of _The Hawkeye_. While engaged in newspaper work, Mr. Burdette began to write funny things to amuse his invalid wife; and these, published later in the columns of the paper, have made him known throughout the United States. He was licensed as a Baptist preacher in 1887, since when he has signed himself Robert Burdette, D., on the ground that the abbreviation _D._ is the next thing to that of _D.D._ Mr. Burdette’s best humorous work may be read in “The Rise and Fall of the Moustache and other Hawkeyetems” (1877) and “Chimes from a Jester’s Bells” (1897).