DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, an eminent American Presbyterian divine, was born at Northampton in Massachusetts, May 14, 1752. His father was a merchant; his mother was daughter of the celebrated American theologian and metaphysician Jonathan Edwards. From infancy he made rapid progress iu general and scholastic learning ; insomuch that, at the age of seventeen, very soon after taking the degree of B.A. at Yale College, Newhaven, he was appointed master of a grammar-school in that town, and, before he was twenty, one of the tutors of Yale College. He was licensed to preach in 1777, hi which year, the sessions of the college having been stopped by the war of the revolution, he offered his services as chaplain in the American army.
The death of his father in the following year rendered it desirable that he should return to Northampton, and the rest of his life was principally occupied in discharging the duties of tuition, first as master of a private seminary, next as president of Yale College, to which office he was appointed in 1795. He also held tho professorship of theology. He died January 11, 1817.
His early life was extremely laborious. It is stated that while he kept school at Newhaven his time was regularly divided : six hours of each day in school, eight hours iu close and severe study, and the remaining ten hours in exercise and sleep. (' Life,' p. 20.) Over exertion nearly brought on blindness ; from the age of twenty-three ho was continually subjected to acute pain behind the eyes, and was unable for the space of forty years to read longer than fifteen minutes iu the day. This makes the extent and variety of his knowledge, which was acquired almost entirely through the ear, the more remark able ; and the mastery which he acquired over his mental powers by discipline was so complete that he could dictate two or three letters to different amanuenses at once, and he seldom forgot or found diffi culty in producing any fact which was once stored in his memory. In 1774 he resorted to a severe system of abstinence in food and exercise, which had nearly proved fatal. He recovered a vigorous state of
health, chiefly by returning to a daily course of strong exercise, and the benefit thus derived led him in after-life to devote his recreations regularly to a series of excursions, of which we have the fruits in his Travels in New England and New York,' 4 vols. 8vo, 1823. These contain a great quantity of statistical and topographical information, which, considering Dr. Dwight's mental habits and opportunities, there is every reason to pis sume represent accurately the condition of the country during the first quarter of the present century. The historical parts, especially those relating to the Indian history, man ners, and warfare, are of much interest Dr. Dwight's earliest publi catlun.was an epio entitled the ' Conquest of Canaan,' finished in his twenty-second year, and he subsequently published several other volumes of religious verse, which were read in their days, but have long since passed into oblivion. His chief work is his ' Theology Explaiuei and Defended in a Soria of Sermons,' 5 vols. 8vo. It is a course of 173 lectures, delivered by bins as professor of divinity on the Sundays in term-time, so as to occupy about four years. Ilia method of preaching was from very concise notes or heads, his eyes not permitting him to undergo the labour of writing; so that this voluminous body of divinity was not committed to paper till 1605, in which year ho was provided with an amanuensis at the expense of the college. Two more volume. of his sermons, fifty-nine in number, were published in 1S27, and many sermons, essays, &o., remain unpublished. Dr. Dwight was a pleasing as well as a prolifio writer ; but he had little originality or depth of thought, and his florid, diffuse, and uncritical writings are not likely to be of lasting repute, tion. Dr. Dwight is said to have been eminently a useful and effective as well as a learned preacher, and his life bore witness to the efficacy of his own belief.
(Life, prefixed to his Theology Explained.)