good report, who emigrated from Scotland to America, about the commencement of the eighteenth century. His mother, whose original name was Margaret Holmes, was left a disconsolate widow, when this son, her only child, was about four years old. For his education, he was chiefly indebted to the industry and exertions of his pious mother and the patronage of the rev. doc. Cotton Mather. At the age of seven years, he entered the ancient Latin school in Boston, under the care of the rev. Nathaniel Williams, the worthy successor of the venerable Ezekiel Cheever. He was graduated at Harvard college, in 1723, and immediately became usher of the school, where he had had his first rudiments of classical learning.

Having become a licentiate, he was ordained, at Stoughton, 15 November, 1727. His plain and pungent preaching, unadorned with the graces of composition, was enforced by a peculiar zeal and pathos. He had a most powerful and commanding voice, and spake as one having authority. In pray➡ er he was pertinent, copious, and fervent.

Mr. Dunbar had a critical knowledge of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages. He was remarkably studious, and, during his long ministry, wrote more sermons, than almost any one has ever done since. He composed with ease and committed his thoughts to paper in a short hand of his own invention. For more than half a century, he was never absent from the sanctuary, through ill health. He was much esteemed as an able and prudent coun

зeilor. Blessed with a vigorous mind, he was a strenuous advocate for the civil and religious liberties of his country. In 1755, he was chaplain to colonel Brown's regiment in the expedition against Crown Point. For sixteen years, he generously relinquished a tenth part of his salary to aid in meeting the expenses of building a new house of worship.

During the revolutionary contest, his zeal and firmness in the cause of freedom and his unwavering faith in the protection and providence of God, even in the darkest and most distressing times, contributed not a little to support the hopes and sustain the sinking spirits of his people. Nor was he unmindful of their pecuniary embarrassments. During the whole war he voluntarily gave his people one moiety of his annual stipend.

Mr. Dunbar lived to see the return of peace and the complete establishment of the independence of the United States. It is worthy of notice that his last official publick act was a prayer, on the 2 of June, 1788, when the people of his charge were assembled at the temple to celebrate that great national event and to give thanks to almighty God, whose outstretched arm had humbled the pride of Britain and rescued his American Israel from an ungenerous oppression.

His last sickness, excruciating in the extreme, he endured with patience and resignation, like a good soldier of Jesus Christ. A little before his departure, he affectionately replied to an inquiring

friend, in the words of Polycarp, I have served a good Master, and he has not forsaken me. He closed his well spent life, on the 15 of June, 1783, in the 79 year of his age and 56 of his ministry.

[The foregoing memoir was principally drawn from the appendix to a sermon, delivered at the ordination of the rev. William Richey, in Canton, by the rev. Elijah Dunbar of Peterborough, grandson of the rev. Samuel Dunbar.]

DEDHAM, MASS.

581. M. S. rev. THOмE THACHER. Vir erat eruditus, præcellens robore mentis et verborum pondere, verbi divini minister indefessus et fidelis. Quam amicis retentus et æquis beneficus dum vixit plurimorum animis diu gratissime insedebit. Obiit kal. Oct. 1812, anno ætat. 56, ministerii 33.

Nole. This inscription was written by the rev. Thaddeus Mason Harris, D. D. of Dorchester. Mr. Thacher was the only brother of the late rev. Peter Thacher, D. D. of Boston and son of Oxenbridge Thacher, esq.

ROXBURY, MASS.

532. Note. The hon. JOHN LOWELL, LL. D. A. A. S. was one of the most eminent civilians, which America has produced. He was a son of the

rev. John Lowell, for many years, the able and excellent pastor of a congregational church in Newburyport. [See art. 414.] A memoir of this distinguished character appears in Eliot's Biog. Dic. The hon. Isaac Parker, in pronouncing his eulogy on the late chief justice Parsons [see art. 560] pays a just, elegant, and highly respectful tribute to the memory of mr. Lowell, who was the chief justice of the federal circuit court for the District of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

The following is a copy of the obituary notice of judge Lowell, which was published in several gazettes, soon after his decease, and is considered as strictly just by all, who knew him.

66

Boston, 6 May, 1802. Died at Roxbury, on thursday last, in the 59 year of his age, the hon. John Lowell, esq. chief justice of the circuit court of the United States for the first circuit.

"Few men ever passed through a long life more generally beloved, or quitted it more sincerely lamented. Of manners mild and conciliatory; of candour almost inimitable; of affection sincere; ef morals irreproachable. With a fancy ardent and fertile; with an understanding acute and penetrating; with feelings animated, yet refined and correct; with a mind enriched by literature and improved by observation; with an eloquence impetuous, yet fascinating and impressive. In the profession and practice of our holy religion sincere and devout; in friendship warm and unalterable; in domestick life amiable and affectionate; in publick employment faithful, intelligent, and upright. Dis

tinguished by such qualities, society sustains no ordinary loss in a magistrate so wise, a husband and parent so affectionate, a friend so sincere, and a citizen so inestimable."

The subject of this article, a graduate of 1760, is supposed to have been one of the writers in the Pietas et Grat. Coll. Har. His eulogy on the late governour Bowdoin, the first president of the Am. Acad. Arts and Sciences, published with the Memoirs of that learned body, is a lasting monument of his talents as a writer.

UNITED STATES.

583. JAMES LAWRENCE, esq. late commander of the United States' frigate, Chesapeake, was mortally wounded in her desperate,sanguinary, and disastrous engagement with his Britannick majesty's frigate, Shannon, on the first of June, 1813, a few leagues from Boston.

He was a native of Burlington in the state of New-Jersey, and was born, on the first of October, 1781. His father, John Lawrence, esquire, was an eminent counsellor at law in that beautiful city. For two years he was devoted to the study of jurisprudence in the office of his brother, the late John Lawrence, esq, at Woodbury. This, however, not being congenial with his taste, he turned his attention to navigation and naval tacticks.

His first cruise was in the character of a midshipman on board the Ganges, with Thomas Tingey, esq. now commodore in the United States' navy. In