DUTTON, HENRY. 



DYCE, ALEXANDER. 



227 



a labor as a dictionary of medical science he 

 was particularly fitted by his close and accu- 

 rate philological culture, the wideness of his 

 scientific acquirements, and the persevering 

 industry which no labor could appall. It has 

 therefore passed through numerous editions, 

 and, as an acknowledged authority wherever 

 the English language is spoken, it is his appro- 

 priate literary monument. Yet the sphere of 

 his activity was by no means confined to pro- 

 fessional labor. The wide sympathies of his 

 active intellect led him to assume the presi- 

 dency of the Musical Fund Society of Phila- 

 delphia, and the vice-presidency of the Penn- 

 sylvania Institution for the Blind. To this 

 latter, much of his attention was directed in 

 later years, and he was very successful in 

 promoting the printing of books in raised let- 

 ters for the use of the blind. In private life 

 Dr. Dunglison was greatly esteemed. He had 

 few superiors in the attraction of his conver- 

 sation and the charm of his manners, which 

 were those of a thorough gentleman and man 

 of the world. He received the honorary de- 

 gree of LL. D. from Yale College in 1825. 



DUTTON, HENRY, LL. D., a jurist, and for- 

 merly Governor of Connecticut, born in Ply- 

 mouth, Litchfield Co., Conn., Feb. 12, 1796; 

 died in New Haven, April 26, 1869. He was a 

 grandson of Captain Thomas Dutton, of Revo- 

 lutionary memory. His youth was spent in the 

 cultivation of his father's farm, and in study. 

 Having by dint of great industry, under unfa- 

 vorable circumstances, qualified himself for 

 admission to college, he entered the junior 

 class at Yale, and there graduated with honor, 

 in 1818. After leaving college, he studied law 

 with the Hon. R. M. Sherman, at Fairfield, 

 supporting himself in the mean time by teach- 

 ing in the academy of that town. From 1821 

 to 1826 he was tutor in Yale College, and at 

 the close of that period he established himself 

 in the practice of his profession at Newtown, 

 Connecticut. After remaining here fourteen 

 years, he removed to Bridgeport, and for ten 

 years occupied a leading position at the bar of 

 Fairfield County, being Attorney for the State. 

 Subsequently he was appointed Professor of 

 Law in Yale College, and removed to New 

 Haven, where he continued to reside until his 

 death. He was five times a member of the 

 House of Representatives, and in 1849 was 

 a member of the State Senate. He was also a 

 Judge of the County Court for one year after 

 his removal to New Haven. In 1854 he was 

 elected Governor of Connecticut, which office 

 he held for one year. In 1861 he was appointed 

 Judge of the Superior Court, and of the Su- 

 preme Court of Errors, wnich position he 

 continued to occupy until 1866, when, by 

 reaching the age of seventy years, he be- 

 came, under the provisions of the constitu- 

 tion, disqualified from longer retaining it. On 

 his retirement from the bench he resumed his 

 practice at the bar, and continued to pros- 

 ecute it with great assiduity until his failing 



health compelled him to withdraw substantially 

 from business. Judge Dutton published, in 

 1833, an analytical digest of the Connecticut 

 Reports and a revision of Swift's Digest, and 

 was a member of the commissions of 1849 

 and 1866, to whom the General Assembly, 

 in 1847, intrusted the duty of revising the 

 Statutes of the State, and was chairman of 

 the committee which, in 1854, prepared a new 

 compilation of the Statutes of the State. 



DYCE, Rev. ALEXANDER, a learned and in- 

 dustrious critic and commentator on the poetic 

 literature of England, born in Edinburgh, June 

 30, 1798; died in London, May 15, 1869. He 

 was educated in the high-school of his native 

 city, and afterward at Exeter College, Ox- 

 ford, where he took the degree of B. A. in 

 1819. He took orders in 1821, and officiated 

 as curate, first at Lanteglos, Cornwall, and af- 

 terward at Nayland, Suffolk. His tastes led 

 him to prefer a literary to a clerical life, and 

 in 1827 he abandoned his rural charge and 

 settled in London, where he devoted himself 

 to literary and critical studies. He had already, 

 even while still an undergraduate, been a con- 

 tributor to the Gentleman's Magazine, and 

 other literary periodicals. One of these con- 

 tributions, published in the Gentleman's Maga- 

 zine, in February, 1818, had for its subject the 

 " Plagiarisms of Lord Byron." His first work 

 after coming to London was a translation of 

 the continuation of the " Iliad," by Quintus 

 Smyrnseus. But, subsequently turning his at- 

 tention to the previously undeveloped treasures 

 of early English poetry, he determined to de- 

 vote himself to a critical review and study of 

 the ancient writers. The results of these stud- 

 ies were given to the world in a succession of 

 volumes, comprising the works of George 

 Peele, Robert Greene, John Webster, Thomas 

 Middleton, Beaumont and Fletcher (1843-'45), 

 Kit Marlowe (1849), John Skelton, Sir Henry 

 Wotton, and Michael Drayton. The prepara- 

 tion of an edition of the plays and poems of 

 James Shirley had been undertaken by Gifford, 

 but was left incomplete. This work was taken 

 in hand by Mr. Dyce, and published complete 

 in 1850. All these works manifest by their 

 acute criticisms of the texts, and their happy 

 elucidations or emendations of doubtful and 

 obscure passages, a vast amount of study, and 

 the possession by the editor of remarkable 

 literary acumen. The whole series is much es- 

 teemed in England, and has formed the basis of 

 all subsequent editions of these authors. These 

 works, also, have had a beneficial tendency, 

 apart from their direct influence in awakening 

 public attention to the brilliant poetic genius 

 of the older writers. Mr. Dyce, however, did 

 not neglect the writers of a more recent period, 

 having prepared an excellent edition, in three 

 volumes, of the works of the great scholar, 

 critic, and theologian, Dr. Richard Bentley. 

 For Pickering's famous and elegant edition of 

 the " Aldine Poets," Mr. Dyce furnished re- 

 vised texts of Pope, Collins, Beattie, and Aken- 



