A little later there was a coterie of specialists in natural history, such as Bachman, the natural historian, Holbrook, the herpetologist and ichthyologist, John Lawrence Smith, mineralogist, the two Ravenels, McCrady, Gibbes, Porcher and others. Agassiz found very congenial friends here and lent invaluable aid to the Museum of the College of Charleston, and Audubon published jointly with Bachman _The Quadrupeds of North America_, the figures by Audubon, the text by Bachman. Dr. John Lawrence Smith is probably as well known in Europe as in America. He was employed by the Turkish government to explore its mineral resources. He received two decorations from the Sublime Porte, the order of St. Stanislaus from Russia and the cross of the Legion of Honor from Napoleon III., and succeeded Sir Charles Lyell as member of the French Institute. He was also the inventor of the inverted microscope. Simms, the novelist and poet, and Paul Hamilton Hayne and Henry Timrod, the poets, are the three Charlestonians whose names are best known to the world of letters. Their memory will be cherished more and more at the home of their birth, as wealth increases, and all the effects of the fierce struggle for existence which followed war and reconstruction have disappeared. The enthusiastic reception and rapid sale of the recently published memorial edition of Timrod’s poems is a hopeful sign of reawakened interest in the sweetest love poems and most stirring martial lyrics ever penned by a Southern poet. No great artist first saw the light in Charleston, but the city boasts of several of more than mediocre ability. Early in the eighteenth century Henrietta Johnson executed a number of crayon portraits which are still treasured by some of the old families. Portrait painting was indeed almost the only branch of art encouraged for over one hundred years, the local portrait painter Theus having opened his studio in Charleston in 1750, and done much excellent work, some of which is still extant. But if there were no great painters at home, the wealthy Charlestonians brought back art treasures from Europe, and some of their stately homes were beautified by works of Allan Ramsay, Zoffany, Romney, Gainsborough, West, Copley and Gilbert Stuart. “The pride though of the art lovers of Charleston,” says Dr. G. E. Manigault, “in the closing years of the last century as well as the early years of this, was in the miniatures on ivory by Edward Malbone, who ranks as having been the greatest of American miniaturists. He ... first opened a studio here in 1800, where he probably painted more portraits than in any other city. Our own miniaturist, Charles Fraser, should also be mentioned with him. He executed over 300 portraits during a long life and while there is not the same uniform excellence in them all as in those of Malbone, his master-pieces certainly entitle him to a high rank in his art.”