NEAL, JOHN (1793-18761. An American poet and novelist of English-Quaker descent, born ill Portland, Maine. Neal was self-educated, and studied law at Baltimore, supporting him self by literary work with an energy that eharac terized him throughout his long and varied life. Between 1817 and 1519he published Keep Cool, a novel in two volumes, two volumes of verse, and a five-act tragedy, Who. Meantime he was admitted to the Maryland bar. In 1823 he paid a visit to England. here he was a pioneer of Aune•ican letters, attracting and compelling attention, the first American to contribute to the great quarterlies and to land,- rood, and secret a ry of Jeremy ltentha In. Return ing to America in 1827. he took up the practice of law in Portland, and in 1828 begon to edit the Yankee, contributing much to various other magazines and newspapers. earnestly opposing capital punishment, and being an early advocate of woman's suffrage. lie established a gymnasi um, said to have been the first in the United States, and he was himself skilled in all the arts of exercise, and a sympathetic teacher and adviser of young men, notable whom was E. A. Poe,
\\•bile engaged energetically in journalism, he poured out a steady stream of novels, interspersed with other The more noteworthy 44 his chaotic, Byronic are Randolph ( 1823) and LOyll lb ( 1523) ; Rachel Dyer ( 1828) and The Downeasters (1833) are soberer but not memor able production,. The intere,ting autobiography, Recollections of it Somewhat Busy Life (18(i9), was practically the last of his voluminous writings, all of which arc character ized by baste, but not less by an ebullient genius and distinctive nationality.
NEAL, J9SL•'I'1t CLAY (1507-17 ). An Ameri can humorist, horn at Greenland, N. 11. Ile settled in Philadelphia, where in 1831 he became editor of the Pcnnsylranian, a Democratic jour nal. In 1844 he founded the Saturday (Pr., tte, which had a large circulation. Ilis best-known book, l'harc•orr1 Shetehrs; or•, Scenes in u lIctropo lis (1837: second series 1549), enjoyed a con siderable degree of popularity, and was repub lished in London. He wrote also Peter Ploeldy and Other Oddities (1844).