American poet, born in Litchfield, CT, on the 6th of April 1785; graduated at Yale College in 1804; commenced to practice law in 1812 at Newburyport; entered the Theological School of Harvard University in 1816; and in 1819 was ordained pastor of the Hollis Street Church, remaining there nineteen years, when, some differences arising between him and the congregation, he resigned. After residing in Boston he was, in 1845, called to the Unitarian Church in Troy, NY; and in 1849 took charge of a church at Medford, MA. In 1861 he became chaplain to the Twenty-second Massachusetts Infantry, and later accepted a clerkship in the Treasury Department at Washington, during the next four years compiling in one volume a Digest of the Decisions and Instructions of the Treasury Department, to Collectors of Customs, a work of inestimable value. From 1823 to 1854 he published a series of class readers, which were extensively used. But his fame rests on his volume of poems entitled Airs of Palestine, the first edition of which appeared in 1816. This work was well received by the critics in America and in Great Britain. New editions appeared until 1854. He died in Medford, MA, on the 27th of August 1866. See also Literary Criticism.
