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FRANCESCA CANFIELD (FRANCESCA ANNA PASCALIS) a daughter of
Dr Felix A. Pascalis -1762 France-July 1833 at 71 Liberty St NY,NY-
New York, Death Newspaper Extracts, 1801-1890 (Barber Collection- Felix Alex Cuviere Pascalis MD Publication: 22 Jul 1833) an Italian physician and scholar who had married a
native of Philadelphia, Elizabeth, and resided several years in Philadlephia.
Francesca was born in August 1803 in Philadelphia. In 1810 NY NY
her father had a boy and a girl under 10. While she was a child her
parents removed to New York where Dr Pascalis was conspicuous
not only for his professional abilities but for his writings upon various
curious and abstruse subjects in the medical field and philosophy
and was intimate with many eminent persons among whom
was Dr Samuel L Mitchill who was so pleased with Francesca that in 1815,
when she was in the twelfth year of her age, he addressed to her the
following playful and characteristic Valentine -
Descending snows the earth o'erspread
Keen blows the northern blast
Condensing clouds scowl over head
The tempest gathers fast
But soon the icy mass shall melt
The winter end his reign
The sun's reviving warmth be felt
And nature smile again.
The plants from torpid sleep shall wake
And nursed by vernal showers.
Their yearly exhibition make
Of foliage and of flowers
So you an opening bud appear
Whose bloom and verdure shoot
To load Francesca's growing year
With intellectual fruit
The feathered tribes shall flit along
And thicken on the trees
Till air shall undulate with song
Till music stir the breeze
Thus like a charming bird your lay
The listening ear shall greet.
And render social cireles gay
Or make retirement sweet
Then warblers chirp and roses open
To entertain my fair
Till nobler themes engage her hope
And occupy her care
In school Miss Pascalis was particularly distinguished for the facility with
which she acquired languages. At an early period she translated with ease and elegance from the French
Italian Spanish and Portuguese and her instinctive appreciation of the
harmonies of her native tongue was so delicate that her English
compositions in both prose and verse were singularly musical as well as
expressive and correct. The version of a French song
Quand reverrai je en un jour ete
is among the memorials of her fourteenth year and though much less
compact than the original it is interesting as an illustration ol her own
fine and precocious powers. While yet at school Miss Pascalis translated
for a friend a volume from Lavater and soon afterward she made a
beautiful English version of the
Roman Nights from Le Notti Romane al Sepolcro Dei Scipioni
of Ales sandroVerri. She also translated The Solitary and The Vine Dresser
from the French and wrote some original poems in Italian which were
much praised by judicious crities. She was a frequent contributor under
various signatures to the literary journals and among her pieces for this
period that are preserved in Mr Knapp's biography is an address to her
friend Mitchill which purported to be from Le Brun. A marriage of
convenience was arranged for Miss Pascalis with Mr Canfield a broker
who after a few months became a bankrupt and could never retrieve his
fortunes. She bore her disappointments without complaining and when
her husband established a financial and commereial gazette she labored
industriously to make it attractive by literature but there was a poor
opportunity among tables of currency and trade for the display of her
graceful abilities and her writings probably attracted little attention.
She was a good pianist and she painted with such skill that some of her
copies of old masters deceived clever artists. Her accomplishments
however failed to invest with happiness a life of which the ambitious
flowers had been so early blighted and yielding to consumption which
can scareely enter the home of a cheerful spirit she died on the 28th
of May 1823 before completing the twentieth year of her age.
Dr Pascalis whose chief hopes were centred in his daughter abandoned
his pursuits and after lingering through ten disconsolate years died in
the summer of 1833 and the death of her husband in the following autumn
prevented the publication of an edition of her works which he had
prepared for that purpose.
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