Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VI.djvu/344

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336 DWIGHT Oakham, and about the age of 7 years, when 18 in. high, wus taken into the service of the duke of Buckingham. From the age of 7 to 30 he grew no taller, hut afterward shot up to 3 ft. 9 in. He was served up in a pie at a royal en- tertainment, from which he suddenly sprang forth in full armor. Sir William Davenant wrote a poem called "Jeffreidos" on a battle between him and a turkey cock, when a woman rescued him from his furious antagonist. The courtiers teased him about the story till he challenged a young gentleman, Mr. Crofts, who had affronted him. That gentleman appeared at the rendezvous armed only with a squirt, which so enraged the dwarf that a real duel ensued. The combatants were on horseback, and at the first fire Jeffery shot his antagonist dead. He was afterward taken prisoner by a Turkish rover, and was for a time a slave in Barbary. At the beginning of the civil war he was made captain in the royal army, but he closed his life in prison, into which he had been cast shortly before his death on suspicion of being privy to the popish plot. Charles I. of England attended the marriage of Richard Gibson and Anne Shepherd, each of whom measured 3 ft. 10 in. Waller wrote a poem on the occasion, and Sir Peter Lely painted the couple at full length. Gibson rose to celebrity as a painter. In 1710 Peter, czar of Russia, celebrated a marriage of dwarfs with great parade. All the dwarf men and women with- in 200 miles, numbering about 70, were ordered to repair to the capital. He supplied carriages for them, and so managed that one horse should be seen galloping into the city with 12 or more of them. All the furniture and other prepa- rations were on a miniature scale. Gen. Tom Thumb (Charles S. Stratton), the celebrated American dwarf, was born in Bridgeport, Conn., in 1837, and at the age of 5 years was not 2 ft. in height and weighed less than 16 Ibs. ; and he had grown but very little for three or four years. He had fine talents, and was remark- able for agility and symmetry, while his lively sense of the ludicrous gave him excellent suc- cess in performances suited to his character. In 1842 he was exhibited in New York, his age being announced as 11 years. He visited England in 1844, was several times exhibited to the queen and court at Buckingham palace, gave levees, and was invited to parties of the nobility. In Paris he gained applause as an actor. He returned to the United States in 1847, and was exhibited in the principal cities of the United States and in Havana. He again visited England in 1857. In 1863 he married Lavinia Warren (born at Middleboro', Mass., Oct. 31, 1842), also a dwarf, who had been placed on exhibition in 1862. Since their mar- riage they have travelled extensively in the United States and Europe. DWIGHT, Edmund, an American merchant, born in Springfield, Mass. Nov. 28, 1780, died in Boston, April 1, 1849. He graduated at Yale college in 1799, and studied law. In 1815 he founded in Boston a mercantile house which afterward built up the manufacturing villages of Chicopee Falls, Cabotville, and Holyoke. He was the first to propose the establishment of normal schools in Massachusetts, to secure which, in 1838, he pledged $10,000 provided the state would appropriate a like sum, which was accepted by the legislature. DWIGHT, John Sullivan, an American author and critic, born in Boston, Mass., May 13, 1813. He graduated at Harvard college in 1832, and studied theology in the divinity school at Cam- bridge. In 1840 he was ordained as pastor of the Unitarian congregation in Northampton, Mass., where he remained but a short time, re- linquishing the ministry to devote himself to literature, and especially to musical criticism. In 1838 he published, in Ripley's " Specimens of Foreign Standard Literature," "Transla- tions of Select Minor Poems from the German of Goethe and Schiller, with Notes." His translations are distinguished for their grace- ful diction, and not less for their conscientious adherence to their originals, and especially for their musical rhythm. Subsequently he de- livered lectures in many cities upon Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Mozart, and other great composers, which did much to awaken popular attention to what is called classical music, and to develop the love and appreciation of it in this country. He also contributed many articles to the " Christian Examiner," the "Dial," the " Harbinger," and other periodicals, and mu- sical critiques of a far higher character and range of thought than were then common to the newspapers of the day. He was one of the founders of the Brook Farm association, where he resided for nearly seven years. In April, 1852, he commenced in Boston the pub- lication of " D wight's Journal of Music," an in- dependent journal of criticism of music, art, and literature, which is still in existence. DWIGHT. I. Timothy, an American divine and scholar, horn in Northampton, Mass., May 14, 1752, died in New Haven, Conn., Jan. 11, 1817. From his earliest years, under the train- ing of his mother, a daughter of Jonathan Edwards, he gave indications of a thirst for knowledge and great facility of learning. He is said to have been able at the age of four to read the Bible correctly and fluently. He graduated at Yale college in 1769, and took charge of a grammar school in New Haven, where he remained for two years. From 1771 to 1777 he was a tutor in Yale college: in the latter year, when on account of the revolu- tionary troubles the students of the college were dispersed, he went with his class to Wethersfield, where he remained till autumn, and in the mean time was licensed to preach by an association in Hampshire co., Mass. Soon after this he was appointed chaplain to a brigade of the division under Gen. Putnam, and joined the army at West Point, where he remained for more than a year, not only labor- ing for the spiritual interests of the soldiers,