American poet and critic, born at Salem, MA, on the 28th of August 1813; graduated at Harvard in 1836; Greek tutor in the university for two years thereafter; licensed as a Unitarian minister by the Cambridge Association in 1843, but never undertook a charge. In his youth he made several voyages to Europe with his father, who was a sea-captain. In 1839 he published a volume of Essays and Poems. His essays are specimens of earnest, scholarly and sympathetic criticism, while his sonnets are regarded as among the best ever produced in America. In his temperament he was religiously melancholy and mystical. He lived a retired life at Salem from the time of leaving college, contributing to the Salem Gazette and the Unitarian periodicals. He died at Salem, on the 8th of May 1880. An edition of his Poems, with an introductory memoir by William P. Andrews, was published in 1883, and an edition of his Essays and Poems, with a biographical sketch by J. F. Clarke, in 1886. See also Literary Criticism.
