Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/272

This page needs to be proofread.

264 CHANGING of slavery by a winter's residence on the island of Santa Cruz in 1830. His first efforts were to arouse the moral feeling against slavery, and it was not till 1837 that he deemed special po- litical action needful. In that year, by address- ing a public meeting in Faneuil Hall, he be- came closely identified before the public with the abolition movement, into which he sought to infuse his own spirit of calmness and candor. His work on " Slavery," published in 1841, had a wide circulation, and the last public act of his life was to deliver an address at Lenox, Mass., Aug. 1, 1842, on the anniversary of the eman- cipation in the West Indies. During the latter years of his life he resided in winter in Boston and in summer in Newport, and his death was caused by an attack of typhus fever while pur- suing a mountain excursion. Dr. Channing be- longed to the poetic order of philosophic minds. His words as well as his opinions were usually chosen from among those which express the sunny, hopeful, and possible view of things. He was buried at Mount Auburn, where a monument designed by his friend Washington Allston was dedicated to his memory. The most complete edition of his works was pub- lished in Boston in 1848, in 6 vols. 12mo, and between 1870 and 1872 200,000 copies were issued by the American Unitarian association. In England a selection of his works appeared in 1849 under the title, " Beauties of Channing." Many of his essays have been translated into German at various times, and a more complete selection from his works was translated by Sydow and Schulze (15 vols., Berlin, 1850-'53). His nephew, the Rev. William Henry Chan- ning, prepared " Memoirs of William Ellery Channing, with Extracts from his Correspon- dence and Manuscripts " (3 vols., Boston, 1848). Edouard Laboulaye published (Enures sociales de W. E. Channing^ precedees d'tin essai #ur a Tie et ses doctrines (Paris, 1854) ; and the trans- lations, De Vesclavage (1855), and Traitfs reli- gieux, also preceded by introductions (1857), were favorably reviewed in the leading French periodicals. In 1857 appeared, from the pen of an English lady, a French work founded upon the " Memoirs" by the Rev. W. II. Chan- ning, and entitled Channing, a rie et ses (Butres, with a preface by M. Charles de Remusat, of which an enlarged edition was published in 1861. "The Perfect Life, in Twelve Dis- courses," edited from Channing's MS. by his nephew and biographer, was published in 1873. The French academy of moral and political sciences offered a prize for the best essay or etude on Channing, for which in 1873 there were three competitors. CHIMING, William Ellery, an American au- thor, son of Dr. Walter Channing, born in Boston, June 10, 1818. He was sent in his 8th year to the Round Hill school at Northampton, and afterward to the Boston Latin school, where Charles Sumner was one of his instruc- tors. On leaving the Latin school he entered Harvard college, but did not remain there suf- ficiently long to graduate. In 1839 he re- moved to Illinois, and lived for a year and a half in a log hut built by himself on a prairie. In 1840 he went to Cincinnati, and was for a short time connected with the " Gazette." In 1842 he returned to Massachusetts, and having soon after married a sister of Margaret Fuller, established his home in Concord, where with short intervals of absence he has since contin- ued to reside. In 1844-'5 he was employed on the editorial staff of the New York "Tribune." In 1846 he made a brief visit to Europe. In 1855-'6 he was one of the editors of the New Bedford " Mercury," and lived for a while in that city. Mr. Channing began at the age of 18 to contribute verses to the Boston " Jour- nal," in which he also published a series of essays on Shakespeare. He wrote much in prose and verse for the "Dial" (1841-'4), in- cluding an unfinished romance entitled "The Youth of the Poet and Painter." In 1848 he published a volume of poems ; a second volume in 1847; a third, " The Woodman," in 1849: and two other volumes of verse, " Near Home " (1858), and " The Wanderer " (1872). He has also published two prose volumes, " Conversa- tions in Rome " (1847), and " Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist " (1873). ( IIAM<;, William Henry, an American clergy- man, cousin of the preceding, born in Boston, May 25, 1810. His father, Francis Dana Chan- ning, died when he was very young. His early education was received at an academy in Lancaster, Mass., and at the Boston Latin school. He graduated at Harvard college in 1829, and at the Cambridge divinity school in 1883, and was ordained at Cincinnati in 1835. He has been pastor of several religious socie- ties in America, and in 1857 succeeded James Martineau as minister of the Hope street Uni- tarian chapel, Liverpool, England. He re- turned home soon after the beginning of the civil war, and was settled for a time as pastor of the Unitarian church in Washington. For many years he took a conspicuous part in the socialistic movement, editing "The Present" and "The Harbinger," and in 1848 was presi- dent of the Boston union of associationists. He has been connected with the press as ed- itor of several journals, and as contributor to the "North American Review," the "Dial," and the "Christian Examiner." He has trans- lated Jouffroy's "Ethics" (2 vols., Boston, 1840), and written the "Memoir of William Ellery Channing" (3 vols., Boston, 1848), "Me- moirs of the Rev. James II. Perkins" (2 vols., 1851), the "Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Osso- li " (in conjunction with R-. W. Emerson and J. F. Clarke, 2 vols., 1852), and a work on "The Christian Church and Social Reform." In 1869-70 he delivered a course of lectures be- fore the Lowell institute, Boston. In 1872 he published in London "The Perfect Life," a posthumous volume of Dr. Channing's ser- mons, for which he wrote a preface. At pres- ent he lives in England.