Stephen Collins Foster, an American ballad composer, born in Pittsburgh, Pa., July 4, 182(3, died in New York, Jan. 13, 1804. Early in life he evinced a fondness for music, learned unaided to play on several instruments, and, having a good voice, delighted to sing songs of his own composition. In 1842, while he was a merchant's clerk in Cincinnati, his song "Open thy Lattice, Love was published in Baltimore, and was very favorably received. It was followed by"Old Uncle Ned" and"O Susanna," written for the negro minstrels, which achieved such popularity that he determined to devote himself thenceforth to music alone. He wrote in rapid succession a number of negro melodies, among which were Louisiana Belle,"Camptown Races,"My old Kentucky Home,"Massa's in the cold, cold Ground,"Nelly Bly,""O Boys, Carry me 'Long," Old Folks at Home," and many others. These became familiar not only throughout the United States but in many distant lands, and won for him a reputation as a composer of simple melodies unsurpassed in his day. Between 300,000 and 400,000 copies of "The Old Folks at Home were sold, and others attained an almost equal popularity.

During the last years of his life he dropped the negro dialect and wrote many songs of sentiment, such as "Come where my Lovelies Dreaming,"Willie, we have Missed You,"

"Jennie with the Light Brown Hair,"Farewell, my Little Dear," "O Comrades, Fill no Glass for Me,"Come with thy Sweet Voice again," and Old Dog Tray." Besides a critical knowledge of music, Foster possessed a general and extensive intellectual culture. He composed both the music and the words of most of his songs, of which he published over 100. His ballads have been translated into many foreign languages and published with his music, which is marked by a sweetness and an indefinable grace and tenderness which everywhere reaches the popular heart.