James Gates Percival (September 15, 1795 – May 2, 1856) was an American poet, surgeon, and geologist, born in

Berlin, Connecticut Berlin ( ) is a town in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 20,175 at the 2020 census. It was incorporated in 1785. The geographic center of Connecticut is located in the town. Berlin is residential and industrial, a ...

and died in

Hazel Green, Wisconsin Hazel Green is a village in Grant and Lafayette counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 1,256 at the 2010 census. Of this, 1,243 were in Grant County, and only 13 were in Lafayette County. The village is located mostly within ...

Biography

He was a precocious child, and a morbid and impractical, though versatile, man, with a facility in writing verse on all manner of subjects and in nearly every known

meter The metre (British spelling) or meter (American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its prefi ...

. His sentimentalism appealed to a wide circle. He had also a reputation as a geologist. Percival entered

Yale College Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...

at the age of 16, and graduated at the age of 20 at the head of his class. After graduating he was admitted to the practice of medicine and relocated to Charleston, South Carolina, where he pursued that profession. A volume of his collected poems was published in New York and London in 1823. In 1824 he was briefly a professor of chemistry at

West Point The United States Military Academy (USMA), also known Metonymy, metonymically as West Point or simply as Army, is a United States service academies, United States service academy in West Point, New York. It was originally established as a f ...

, where he resigned after a few months, and subsequently several years of his labor were devoted to assisting

Noah Webster Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...

in editing his great ''

American Dictionary of the English Language ''Webster's Dictionary'' is any of the English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758–1843), as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's ...

'' of 1828. In 1835 Percival was commissioned by the governor of Connecticut to prepare a geological survey of the state, which was completed and published in 1842. In 1854 he was appointed to make a similar geological survey for the state of Wisconsin, with the title State Geologist. The first annual report was issued in 1855, and while preparing the second annual report for the press he succumbed to illness and died in May 1856. Most of his life was spent at his home in

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

. After his death he was the subject of an admiring biography by Julius H. Ward.

Select works

*''Poems'' (1821) *''Clio. No. 1-2'' (1822) *''Prometheus, Part II, with Other Poems'' (1823) *''Poems'' (1823) *''A Geographical View of the World Embracing the Manners, Customs, and Pursuits of Every Nation,'' ed. (1825) *''Poem delivered before the Connecticut Alpha of the Phi Beta Kappa Society'' (1826) *''Clio. No. 3'' (1827) *''Report on the Geology of the State of Connecticut'' (1842) *'' The Dream of a Day'' (1843). *''Annual Report of the Geological Survey of the State of Wisconsin'' (1855-1856) *A short poem by him, " The Language of Flowers", was set to music by the English composer

Edward Elgar Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, (; 2 June 1857 – 23 February 1934) was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestr ...

at the age of fourteen.

Diana McVeagh Diana McVeagh (born 6 September 1926, Ipoh) is a British author on classical music. She has written a biography of Gerald Finzi and several books on Edward Elgar. McVeagh studied at the Royal College of Music in the 1940s and was assistant editor ...

, ''Elgar the Music Maker'', p. 3 "Elgar composed the song 'The Language of Lowers' (1872) when he was not quite fifteen. The verses are by the American poet and botanist, James Gates Percival."}

References

Sources

* *
''Life and Letters of James Gates Percival''
by J.H. Ward (Boston: Ticknor & Fields, 1866). * * *John Hay, "The Limits of Recovery: The Failure of James Gates Percival," ''Early American Literature'', vol. 55, no. 1 (202

External links

* hdl:10079/fa/beinecke.percival, James Gates Percival Collection. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. {{DEFAULTSORT:Percival, James Gates 1795 births 1856 deaths People from Berlin, Connecticut People from Hazel Green, Wisconsin United States Military Academy faculty 19th-century American poets American male poets Poets from Connecticut Poets from Wisconsin American geologists 19th-century American male writers