RICHARD HENRY DANA. 401 



first book, in which he records the pleasant recognition of old ac- 

 quaintances in the Bay of San Francisco, and gives the reader all 

 that is known of the liistory of his former shipmates, and of tlie ship 

 itself, until it sank, a victim to the Confederate cruiser "Alabama." 



In 1850 Mr. Dana edited "Lectures on Art, and Poems by Wash- 

 ington Allston." He wrote for the *• Law Reporter," "the American 

 Law Review," and the '' North American Review." His eulogy on 

 Edward Everett, pronounced at the request of the municipal authori- 

 ties of Cambridge, on Feb. 22, 18G5, and his oration at the centennial 

 celebration, in 1875, of the revolutionary struggle in Lexington, rose 

 to the height of the subject and the occasion, and fulfilled the promise 

 of his youth as a writer and orator. 



But these literary works, fascinating to young and old, and these 

 orations, elegant in style and eloquent in delivery, were only epi- 

 sodes in the chosen life-work of their author. Mr. Dana was admitted 

 to the Bar in 1840, and rose rapidly to eminence in his profession. 

 He was familiar with maritime law, and acquired a large practice in 

 questions of admiralty. He had opportunities, which he never lost, to 

 befriend the common seaman, for whom he felt more than a senti- 

 mental sympathy. As a lawyer he trusted more to principles and 

 less to precedents. Some of the cases in which he was engaged 

 attracted an unusual share of public attention. In that of the Presby- 

 terian Synod against the Parish of Dr. Channing, he discussed the 

 title to public and religious charities. In Maine he defended the 

 compulsory use of the Bible in the public schools. In 1845 he was 

 engaged in a case of homicide which led to the revision of the crim- 

 inal statutes in more than one State. He was interested in the 

 Church, and employed to take part in disputes involving its relations 

 to the State. In 1852 he acted in the Prescott controversy, and 

 argued the bearing of the canon law of the Protestant Episcopal 

 Church. After he had carefully prepared himself for his cases, he 

 was ready and glad to meet the most eminent counsel that could be 

 opposed to him. 



In public life he realized the ideal scholar in politics. With no 

 aptitude or taste for the practices of the politician, he had the qualities 

 of a statesman. In the Free-Soil movement he was early associated 

 with Charles F. Adams, Edmund Quincy, and John G. Palfrey, being 

 a delegate to the Buffalo Convention of 1848. He was one of the 

 counsel on the side of free dom in the fugitive-slave cases of Shadrack 

 in 1853, and of Burns in 1854. As a member of the Constitutional 

 Convention of Massachusetts in 1853, and as a speaker in the Repub- 



VOL. XVII. (n. 8. IX.) 26 



