WALLACE, William Ross, poet, born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1819; died in New York city, 5 May, 1881. He was educated at Bloomington and South Hanover college, Indiana, studied law in Lexington, Kentucky, and in 1841 removed to New York city, where he practised his profession, and at the same time engaged in literary pursuits. His first work that attracted favorable criticism, a poem entitled "Perdita," published in the "Union Magazine," was followed by " Alban," a poetical romance (New York, 1848i, and "Meditations in America, and other Poems" (1851). Other fugitive verses that attained popularity include " The Sword of Bunker Hill," a national hymn (1861);" Keep Step with the Music of the Union" (1861); and "The Liberty Bell" (1862). William Cullen Bryant said of his writings: "They are marked by a splendor of imagination and an affluence of diction which show him the born poet."