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Child, Francis James

educator, author, was born Feb. 1, 1825, in Boston, Mass. He was a professor at Harvard university in 1851-96, and the foremost authority upon all matters pertaining to ballad literature. He edited the American edition of The British Poets, in 130 volumes; English and Scottish Popular Ballads; The Debate between the Body and the Soul, and other specimens of mediæval literature. As a Chaucerian scholar he had few equals. He was the author of Observations on the Language of Chaucer; and Observations on the Language of Gower's Confessio Amantis.