A distinguished American publicist, son of R. H. the Elder; born at Cambridge, Mass., Aug. 1, 1815; died on Jan. 6, 1882. Obliged to suspend college studies because of an affection of the eyes, he shipped as a seaman on board a whaling vessel. His observations during the two years of his life as a common sailor are contained in his celebrated narrative “Two Years before the Mast” (1837). Returning to Boston, he studied law and was admitted to the bar. In 1841 he published “The Seaman’s Friend,” often afterwards republished under the title “The Seaman’s Manual.” He details his experiences and observations during a visit to Cuba, in the little volume “To Cuba and Back” (1859). He edited Wheaton’s “Elements of International Law” (1866), and wrote a series of “Letters on Italian Unity” (1871).

Personal

  One lovely afternoon in the spring of the preceding year Mr. Dana had visited, with his wife and daughter, the old Protestant cemetery where stands the pyramid of Caius Cestius, and where Shelley and Keats are buried; a spot than which none is more familiar to English-speaking visitors in Rome. As they stood there under the tall cypress-trees by the ruins of the old walls, looking across them to the city beyond, the air filled with the fragrance of flowers and resounding with the song of nightingales, Mrs. Dana said to her husband: “Is not this the spot where one would wish to lie for ever?” and he answered, “Yes, it is indeed!” And this spot his wife now selected for her husband’s grave…. The stone that now marks it is of rough white marble, on the polished face of which, surmounted by a leaning cross, is cut this inscription:—

  Did ever a man suffer more than Dana from his mental peculiarities, perversities or obliquities, or whatever you choose to call them? He thought anybody could collect authorities, and that to do this was a day laborer’s task; he used Lawrence’s collections, and then despised his notes because they were mere collections of authorities, and at last thought himself under no obligation to him, because the notes were what anybody could have done, and so would not say the soft word that might have turned away wrath, but wrote instead what almost rendered a lawsuit inevitable;—and then Lawrence pursued him with a personal and political vindictiveness which ruined Dana’s career, lost him his only chance, and was to Lawrence, whatever became of his lawsuit, a perfectly satisfactory vindication. Two hundred and fifty dollars paid ——— or some other equally accurate man would have rendered any suit impossible; and a little harmless and truthful flattery would have removed all desire for a controversy from Lawrence’s mind. But, the whole thing was very characteristic of one side of Dana’s mind.

  There were unique combinations in Dana: he was an aristocrat before-the-mast, a haughty and humble Christian. In England he rejoiced in the abandonment of “the aristocratic distinction of the manor pew” (Adams, ii, 76, 91); yet he practically spent his life in such a pew, and never could quite find his way to the handle of the door. In Washington he records with delight the information that the Unitarian church near by has a very thin congregation (i., 109); yet he heartily admired Theodore Parker, thought his sermon on Webster the best tribute paid to that great man (i., 226), and favored Parker’s selection as an honorary member of the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa … on the ground that he was no further from the truth than most of the members of the society, or than Dr. Franklin, its supposed founder. No man of his time could state with equal lucidity or equal compactness, either before a popular audience or in a court-room, any argument involving a principle; and he kept himself in touch with his audience, although, it must be owned, with the very tips of his fingers.

  He was a man of absolute nobility and simplicity of character,—devoted to principle, to duty, to friendship, to his country. One could hardly help criticising and finding fault with him; but the criticisms could only fall on his head and his temper; they could never touch his heart and his conscience, with any one who really knew him. Undoubtedly, he was not in line with the ordinary front of his country’s thought; but the qualities he took away with him can ill be spared, be they popular or unpopular.

Two Years Before the Mast, 1837

  This is, in many respects, a remarkable book. It is a successful attempt to describe a class of men, and a course of life, which, though familiarly spoken of by most people, and considered as within the limits of civilization, will appear to them now almost as just discovered. To find a new subject in so old a sphere of humanity is something; and scarcely second to this are the spirit and skill with which it is handled. It seems as if the writer must have been favored with a special gift for his novel enterprise. It is a young sailor’s narrative at the end of his only voyage. It is his first attempt as an author, and certainly the last which, considering his previous condition and pursuits, he could ever have dreamed of making. Though it was written from a desire and purpose to enlighten people as to the state and evils of a seafaring life, though it constantly offers matter for serious reflection, and is necessarily occupied, a large part of the time, with very humble materials, yet it is as entertaining as a well-contrived fiction, it is as luminous as poetry, and its interest never flags. Thus it is likely to be a standard work in its particular line, at least till it instructs some other adventurer to surpass it. We think we can see, in the good reception it has had, much more than sudden admiration of a novelty; and in the book itself, much more than the rapid fruit of youthful spirits and fancy. Hard labor is necessary to effect any thing considerable in literature; and probably few works ever cost more, if we may reckon the toils, sacrifices, and temptations of a common sailor, as a part of his preparation for a memorable narrative of sea life.

  About the best sea-book in the English tongue.

  There are some books which it is difficult to class. Thus, Richard H. Dana, Jr., published some thirty years ago a volume called “Two Years Before the Mast,” which became instantly popular, and is popular now, and promises to be popular for many years to come. In reading it anybody can see that it is more than an ordinary record of a voyage, for there runs through the simple and lucid narrative an element of beauty and power which gives it the artistic charm of romance.

  Dana, by way of restoring his infirm health, shipped as a common seaman, and wrote this story of his experiences several years after his return to Boston. It is one of the best, if not the best, true narrative of sea-life ever published: the style is quiet and simple, the descriptions vivid and stirring, and the record of facts so manifestly accurate and impartial, and, at the same time, so thoughtful and intelligent, that the reader feels as if he himself were a participant in the author’s adventures. A hitherto unknown side of life is revealed in all its details: and its veracity and importance are evidenced by the fact that the book is still in print, and is probably read by as many persons to day as at the time of its first appearance.

  “Two Years Before The Mast” is still so much read that it may be called, without Macaulay’s exaggeration, a book that every schoolboy knows…. I need not here speak of its racy idiomatic English, its spice of youthful adventure, its wholesome atmosphere redolent of sea-spray flung up by the breezes. Here was an American author who gave to his facts so much of the charm of Defoe’s fictions that a writer in the “Encyclopædia Britannica” calls him “The Author of the Popular Novel ‘Two Years Before the Mast,’ which is founded on personal experience.”

  Until Richard H. Dana and Herman Melville wrote, the commercial sailor of Great Britain and the United States was without representation in literature. Dana and Melville were Americans. They were the first to lift the hatch and show the world what passes in a ship’s forecastle; how men live down in that gloomy cave, how and what they eat, and where they sleep; what pleasures they take, what their sorrows and wrongs are; how they are used when they quit their black sea-parlors in response to the boatswain’s silver summons to work on deck by day or by night…. Dana lifted the curtain and showed you the sort of life hundreds and thousands of those fellow creatures of ours called “sailors” were living in his day, and had been living long prior to his day, and will go on living whilst there remains a ship afloat. No Englishman had done this. Marryat makes his Newton Foster a merchant sailor; but Marryat knew nothing of the hidden life of the merchant service…. Fenimore Cooper came very near to the truth in his Ned Myers, but the revelation there is that of the individual. Ned is one man. He is a drunken, swearing, bragging Yankee only sailor; very brutal, always disgusting. Cooper’s book is true of Ned Myers; Dana’s of all sailors, American and English…. When you talk of sailors, you do not think of steamers. If you inquire for a seaman, you are conducted to a ship that is not impelled by machinery, but by the wind. You will find the seaman you want, the seaman Dana wrote about, the generic seaman whose interpretation I count among the glories of literature, seeing how hidden he has been, how darkly obscure in his toil and hourly doings,—this seaman you will find in the deck-house or the forecastle of the sailing ship. He is not thrashed across the Atlantic in six days. He is not swept from the Thames to the uttermost ends of the earth in a month. He is afloat for weeks and weeks at a spell, and his life is that of the crew of the “Pilgrim.” Do you ask what manner of life it is? Read “Two Years Before the Mast,” and recognize the claim I make for American literature by witnessing in that book the faultless picture of a scene of existence on whose wide face Richard Dana was the first to fling a light.

  The only class of men who ever found “Two Years Before The Mast” uninteresting was that in which aristocratic feeling is developed more highly than in any other Americans,—namely, the officers of the Navy. To them, the author was a common sailor, and his experiences in the forecastle and on the jibboom were as dull and low as the cook’s in the galley. And perhaps Mr. Dana’s own set in Boston was the only community in history who, feeling themselves gentlemen all over, entertained a positive repulsion to the Army and Navy as professions.