ANDREWS NORTON. [Born 1786.] MR. NORTON was born at Hingham, near Boston, in 1786. He entered Harvard College in 1800, and was graduated in 1804. He studied divinity, but never became a settled clergyman. He was for a time tutor at Bowdoin College, and afterward tutor and librarian in Harvard University. In 1819, he became Dexter Professor of Sacred Literature in the latter institution. He resigned that office in 1830, and has since resided at Cambridge as a private gentleman. Mr. NORTON is author of "The Evidences of the Genuineness of the Gospels," published, in an octavo volume, in 1837; and of several other theological works, in which he has exhibited rare scholarship and argumentative abilities. His poetical writings are not numerous. For labouring Virtue's anxious toil, For patient Sorrow's stifled sigh, How cheerless were our lengthen'd way, Did heaven's own light not break the gloom; Stream downward from eternal day, And cast a glory round the tomb! Then stay thy tears; the blest above Have hail'd a spirit's heavenly birth; Sung a new song of joy and love, And why should anguish reign on earth? WRITTEN AFTER THE DEATH OF CHARLES ELIOT. FAREWELL! before we meet again, Perhaps through scenes as yet unknown, That lie in distant years of pain, I have to journey on alone; To meet with griefs thou wilt not feel, But ne'er a deeper pang to know, But who the destined hour may tell, But chance what may, thou wilt no more Or charm with friendship's kindest smile Each book I read, each walk I tread, Whate'er I feel, whate'er I see, All speak of hopes forever fled, All have some tale to tell of thee. I shall not, should misfortune lower, And stood the guardian of my tomb. Servant of Gon! thy ardent mind, With lengthening years improving still, Striving, untired, to serve mankind, Had thus perform'd thy Father's will. Another task to thee was given; "T was thine to drink of early wo, To feel thy hopes, thy friendships riven, And bend submissive to thy blow; With patient smile and steady eye, To meet each pang that sickness gave, Dost thou, amid the rapturous glow With which the soul her welcome hears, Dost thou still think of us below, Of earthly scenes, of human tears? Perhaps e'en now thy thoughts return We framed no light nor fruitless talk. We spake of knowledge, such as soars As nature spreads before her sight. How vivid still past scenes appear! I feel as though all were not o'er; Whose setting sun I may not view, Thine will at last be heard anew. We meet again; a little while, And where thou art I too shall be. And then, with what an angel smile Of gladness, thou wilt welcome me! HYMN. MY GOD, I thank thee! may no thought E'er deem thy chastisements severe; But may this heart, by sorrow taught, Calm each wild wish, and idle fear. Thy mercy bids all nature bloom; Full many a throb of grief and pain Thy frail and erring child must know; But not one prayer is breathed in vain, Nor does one tear unheeded flow. Thy various messengers employ; There are paleness, and weeping, and sighs below; While old friends press to meet him. O! honour'd, beloved, to earth unconfined, We will follow thee by heaven's light, A WINTER MORNING. THE keen, clear air-the splendid sight- "T is winter's jubilee-this day His stores their countless treasures yield; See how the diamond glances play, In ceaseless blaze, from tree and field. The cold, bare spot where late we ranged, A shower of gems is strew'd around; The flowers of winter, rich and rare; Rubies and sapphires deck the ground, The topaz, emerald, all are there. The morning sun, with cloudless rays, His powerless splendour round us streams; From crusted boughs, and twinkling sprays, Fly back unloosed the rainbow beams. With more than summer beauty fair, The trees in winter's garb are shown; What a rich halo melts in air, Around their crystal branches thrown! And yesterday-how changed the view From what then charm'd us; when the sky Hung, with its dim and watery hue, O'er all the soft, still prospect nigh. The distant groves, array'd in white, Might then like things unreal seem, Just shown a while in silvery light, The fictions of a poet's dream; Like shadowy groves upon that shore O GoD of Nature! with what might RICHARD H. DAN A. [Born 1787.] WILLIAM DANA, Esquire, was sheriff of Middlesex during the reign of Queen ELIZABETH. His only descendant at that time living, RICHARD DANA, came to America about the middle of the seventeenth century, and settled at Cambridge, then called Newtown, near Boston. A grandson of this gentleman, of the same name, was the poet's grandfather. He was an eminent member of the bar of Massachusetts, and an active whig during the troubles in Boston immediately before the Revolution. He married a sister of EDMUND TROWBRIDGE, who was one of the king's judges, and the first lawyer in the colony. FRANCIS DANA, the father of RICHARD H. DANA, after being graduated at Harvard College, studied law with his uncle, Judge TROWBRIDGE, and became equally distinguished for his professional abilities. He was appointed envoy to Russia during the Revolution, was a member of Congress, and of the Massachusetts Convention for adopting the national constitution, and afterward Chief Justice of that Commonwealth. He married a daughter of the Honourable WILLIAM ELLERY, of Rhode Island, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and through her the subject of this sketch is lineally descended from ANNE BRADSTREET, the wife of Governor BRADSTREET, and daughter of Governor DUDLEY, who was the most celebrated poet of her time in America. Thus, it will be seen, our author has good blood in his veins: an honour which no one pretends to despise who is confident that his grandfather was not a felon or a boor. member of the legislature, and was for a time a warm partisan. Feeble health, and great constitutional sensitiveness, the whole current of his mind and feelings, convinced him that he was unfitted for his profession, and he closed his office to assist his relative, Professor EDWARD T. CHANNING, in the management of the "North American Review," which had then been established about two years. While connected with this periodical he wrote several articles which (particularly one upon HAZLITT'S British Poets) excited much attention among the literary men of Boston and Cambridge. The POPE and Queen ANNE school was then triumphant, and the dicta of JEFFREY were law. DANA praised WORDSWORTH and COLERIDGE, and saw much to admire in BrRox; he thought poetry was something more than a recreation; that it was something superinduced upon the realities of life; he believed the ideal and the spiritual might be as real as the visible and the tangible; thought there were truths beyond the understanding and the senses, and not to be reached by ratiocination; and indeed broached many paradoxes not to be tolerated then, but which now the same community has taken up and carried to an extent at that time unthought of. A strong party rose against these opinions, and DANA had the whole influence of the university, of the literary and fashionable society of the city, and of the press, to contend against. Being in a minority with the "North American Club," he in 1819 or 1820 gave up all connection with the RETTS and others, and in 1821 began «The Idle Man," for which he found a publisher in Mr. CHARLES WILEY, of New York. This was read and admired by a class of literary men, but it was of too high a character for the period, and on the publication of the first number of the second volume, DANA received from Mr. WILEY information that he was "writing himself into debt," and gave up the work. " In 1825, he published his first poetical production, "The Dying Raven," in the New York Review," then edited by Mr. BRYANT;* and two RICHARD HENRY DANA was born at Cam-Review, which passed into the hands of the EVEbridge, on the fifteenth of November, 1787. When about ten years old he went to Newport, Rhode Island, where he remained until a year or two before he entered Harvard College. His health, during his boyhood, was too poor to admit of very constant application to study; and much of his time was passed in rambling along the rockbound coast, listening to the roar and dashing of the waters, and searching for the wild and picturesque; indicating thus early that love of nature which is evinced in nearly all his subsequent writings, and acquiring that perfect knowledge of the scenery of the sea which is shown in the "Buccaneer," and some of his minor pieces. On leaving college, in 1807, he returned to Newport, and passed nearly two years in studying the Latin language and literature, after which he went to Baltimore, and entered as a student the law office of General ROBERT GOODHUE HARPER. The approach of the second war with Great Britain, and the extreme unpopularity of all persons known to belong to the federal party, induced him to return to Cambridge, where he finished his course of study and opened an office. He soon became a While DANA was a member of the "North American Club," the poem entitled "Thanatopsis" was offered for publication in the Review. Our critic, with one or two others, read it, and concurred in the belief that it could not have been written by an American. There was a finish and completeness about it, added to the grandeur and beauty of the ideas, to which, it was supposed, none of our own writers had attained. DANA was informed, however, that the author of it was a member of the Massachusetts Senate, then in session, and he walked immediately from Cambridge to the State House in Boston to obtain a view of the remarkable man. A plain, middleaged gentleman, with a business-like aspect, was pointed |