Adventurer and satiric poet, born at Plymouth, MA, on the 10th of June 1762, died in Boston on the 20th of October 1827. He graduated at Harvard in 1782, and after studying law went to England, where he fell in with gamblers, lost his money, was sent to jail, and earned his release by playwriting. He was by turns an actor, importer, soldier (in Shay’s rebellion), lawyer and a member of the Maine legislature. He delivered an original poem, Physiognomy, at a meeting of the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Society, and at a Fourth of July celebration at Boston recited a poem entitled The New Vicar of Bray, which became famous. In 1805 he edited the Freeman’s Friend.
