WILLIAM GALE. JULY 4, 1815. FOR THE WASHINGTON SOCIETY. WILLAM GALE was born at Waltham in the year 1792, and graduated at Harvard College in 1810. He became a counsellor-at-law, and practised in the old State-house. He was a warm adherent of the Democratic party, and a frequent contributor to the Chronicle. The papers of the day said of the oration (delivered at the Columbian Coffee-house, for the Washington Society, of which Mr. Gale was president in 1817), that it was a patriotic, spirited and elegant performance. Mr. Gale was the legal solicitor of the Republican Institution, on its foundation, in 1819. Possessing talents tending to an honored eminence, it is related that he descended to habits of inebriation, an infirmity peculiar to men of literary genius, which reduced him to poverty, and doomed him to the House of Industry, which, according to the records, he last entered Nov. 6, 1839, when, being attacked with the small-pox, he was removed to Rainsford Island on the 19th inst., where he died, Nov. 21, 1839, aged forty-seven years. "Now there he lies, And none so poor to do him reverence." GEORGE SULLIVAN. JULY 4, 1816. FOR THE TOWN AUTHORITIES. WAS a son of Gov. Sullivan, and born in Boston February, 1782; entered the Latin School in 1791, and graduated at Harvard College in 1801, when he engaged in a discussion on the importance of national character to the United States. Was a counsellor-at-law; and married Sarah Bowdoin, a daughter of Hon. Thomas L. Winthrop. He was secretary to Hon. James Bowdoin, when minister to Spain. Was the governor's aid-de-camp, and a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, in 1811. Was captain of the New England Guards. Judge-advocate of the first military division. Was president, in 1813, of Boston Fuel Society for the Poor. Was a representative, and a senator, in the State Legislature. His residence has been, for many years, in New York. General Humphries, who gave a speech at the dinner of the town authorities, remarked of Mr. Sullivan's performance, at the head of this article: "The orator of the day has been your faithful organ, in pronouncing conciliatory doctrines, in inculcating liberal and independent sentiments, and recommending a just and wise system of policy." Unlike his eminent brother, William, he was a republican of the Democratic school. He is a member of the New England Historical Society. He is a gentleman of polished manners and truly estimable reputation, and the honored brother of the Hon. Richard Sullivan, of this State. ASHUR WARE. JULY 4, 1816. FOR THE WASHINGTON SOCIETY. WAS born at Sherburne, and son of Joseph Ware, a respectable farmer, and born in 1783. He graduated at Harvard College in 1804, at which time he took part in a forensic disputation, Whether the law of nature be equally applicable to individuals and nations. He was a tutor at Cambridge from 1807 to 1811, and professor of Greek from that period to 1815. He was an attorney-at-law in Boston, 1816, and an editor of the Boston Yankee, in company with Henry Orne. In 1817 Mr. Ware removed to Portland, and delivered another oration on our national independence, in that town. In 1820 he was elected a member of the corporation of Bowdoin College, which he occupied until 1844. In 1834 he was president of the Portland Athenæum, and was an officer of the Maine Historical Society. He has been many years, from 1822, Judge of the U. S. District Court of Maine. In 1830 Judge Ware married Sarah Morgridge, and has one son at college. In 1839 he published Reports of Cases argued and determined in the District Court of the United States for the District of Maine, from 1822 to 1839, printed at Port land. This is a work of great legal learning. Judge Ware was the first Secretary of State for Maine, on its separation, in 1820. Judge Ware, in early life, entered the field of democracy, and warmly espoused its cause. His brilliant talents, displayed in the two orations, show him a devoted champion for the war with Great Britain, and a decided opponent to the Hartford Convention. They are valuable records of the party feeling of the day. He said of Samuel Dexter, that he indignantly frowned on all attempts to impair the constitution, or sever the Union. We do not believe the judge indulges, after an experience of thirty years, views like the following, extracted from the Portland oration: "Mr. Ames, the oracle of our aristocratic junto, feelingly lamented that we had not in this country the materials for establishing a monarchy similar to that of England. We had no old and great families who were looked up to with that submissive reverence which is inspired by the inherited greatness, the family pictures, if I may so remark, of ancient nobility. But the times are much improved since he wrote. All difficulties vanished before the enterprising geniuses of 1814. This man will surely make a very good Duke of Norfolk, and here is an Earl of Essex waiting for his patent of nobility. A hopeful train of titled great could be quickly formed. But for the king! Who shall we clothe with the awful robes of majesty? Where shall we find the sublimity of genius and the transcendent dignity that is worthy to be encircled by the glories of the crown? Nothing so easy. It is a maxim of the British constitution, which is our model, that a pasteboard king is the best of all possible monarchs; and so we will crown-the sage of Northampton! Queen Mab was busy at her fairy work. Mitres and diadems, and stars and ribbons, were dancing before the eager imaginations of these titled dreamers. But the angel of Peace arrived, and the air-drawn phantoms of the fairies vanished before the wand of the powerful enchanter. The exhilarating visions of a heated fancy, the thrones and dominions and princedoms,' the stars and diadems and mitres, just as the pilgrims arrived at the wicket of their political heaven, were taken by this rude cross wind, and, "Upwhirled aloft, Flew o'er the backside of the world far off, Into a limbo large and broad," the ancient receptacle of all the abortive and unfinished works of nature, and all the multiformed follies of men, of politician's dreams, and lover's sighs, and Pope's indulgences, yclept in olden time the 'Paradise of fools.' And there may the sparkling glories of the New England monarchy, the crosses and coronets, that charmed the waking and sleeping fancies of our political regenerator, slumber in undisturbed repose, with the cowls and hoods, the relics and rosaries, of religious delirium, till the day of the general resurrection; "' and in another passage of like satirical vein, Gov. Strong is alluded to as our invincible Washington, in frowning majesty, curbing his impetuous steed, at the head of his Northampton chivalry. His very name was a tower of strength, and of whom Paine thus emphasizes in Rule New England: "Old Massachusetts' hundred hills, Awake, and chant the matin song! The Federal sun returns with Strong." As an offset to the insinuations on the "good Duke of Norfolk," -meaning, we presume, Fisher Ames, we will quote a sentence from his eulogy on Washington, that "government was administered with such integrity without mystery, and in so prosperous a course, that it seemed wholly employed in acts of beneficence;" and this was an opinion formed after being in Congress during the entire administration of Washington. A royalist would not say this; and Samuel Dexter, the great political rival of Fisher Ames, pronounced the eulogy over his unburied remains. EDWARD TYRRELL CHANNING. JULY 4, 1817. FOR THE TOWN AUTHORITIES. WAS born at Newport, R. I., Dec. 12, 1790. He received at Harvard College, in 1819, the degree of A. M.; was the orator for the Phi Beta Kappa Society in 1818; became a counsellor-at-law, and married Henrietta A. S., daughter of William Ellery, Esq., of Newport, April, 1826; has been the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory ever since 1819. At that period he became editor of the North American Review. The oration delivered in 1817 was pro nounced in the presence of President Monroe, who was then on a tour through New England. He was author of the Memoir of William Ellery, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, of whom Dr. Allen states that he died while he was reading Tully's Offices, in Latin. The Rev. William E. Channing has characterized his brother Edward as "the antiquary of the family." Professor Channing resigned his office at the close of the academic year, in 1851, and was one of the oldest of the faculty at that period. The influence he has exercised, in forming and cultivating the taste of so many successive classes, has been surpassed by no one, probably, ever connected with the college. He is himself a writer of a vigorous and singularly pure English style. His taste is severe, and his critical perception keen. The contributions of Mr. Channing, at two long intervals, in the North American and other periodicals, and the admirable lectures delivered to his classes, have impressed the public, both in and out of the college walls, with his rare powers as both writer and critic. One of the most useful of his duties, and at the same time the most laborious and wearisome, has been the reading and correcting the Themes of the students. Perhaps in this way, quiet and unostentatious though it has been, his power has been most genially and permanently felt. FRANCIS CALLEY GRAY. JULY 4, 1818. FOR THE TOWN AUTHORITIES. FRANCIS CALLEY GRAY was born at Salem. He was a son of Lieutenant-governor William Gray; received his preliminary education under the care of William Bigelow and Jacob Knapp, and graduated at Harvard College in 1809, on which occasion he gave an oration in English. He was a private secretary of Hon. John Quincy Adams, in the mission to Russia. He read law with Hon. Judge Prescott, and became a counsellor at Suffolk bar. He has been a representative, a senator, and a member of the Governor's Council. He was a president of the Boston Athenæum; a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and corresponding secretary; a trustee of the State Lunatic |