May 1, 1822. A powerful minority of the citizens decidedly preferred the patriarchal system of the selectmen. Others decidedly advocated reform and energetic measures. In acting out the principles of the charter, Mayor Phillips was kind, conciliatory, and conservative. Such was the general confidence at the time in his taste and judgment, that he could have taken what direction he preferred in regard to the mode in which the mayor should in future bear the forms of office. Some were for display and pomp. Mr. Phillips preferred republican simplicity, and probably, by his example, we are saved the trappings of a lord mayor's day, or any profuseness at an annual organization of the city authorities. Mayor Quincy, his successor, said, "The first administration have laid the foundation of the prosperity of our city deep, and on right principles; and whatever success may attend those who come after them, they will be largely indebted for it to the wisdom and fidelity of their predecessors." The course of his control over the city government was unruffled as Lake Ontario on a calm, sunny day, and a striking contrast to the measures of his successor, whose operations, like the rushings of the resistless Niagara, in its vicinity, washed away the old landmarks, when Boston lost its identity as a town.

As a speaker, Mr. Phillips was clear, forcible, conciliatory and judicious. His voice was strong, without harshness, and his words flowed without any great effort. If he never gave any striking specimen of eloquence, he certainly never mortified his friends by a failure in debate, so often the misfortune amongst those who sometimes reach the sublime. He was not unfrequently, in the course of a week, called to make speeches before several different bodies of men, on various subjects, political, educational, commercial, financial or philanthropic, -and at all times he was listened to with profound attention and pleasure; and probably no cotemporary of any standing, in a moment of rivalry, could say to him, "My advice is as often followed as yours, and the influence you have I have also."

Mayor Phillips was of the common height in stature. His face was oval, with expressive eyes, and his cheeks were of a very ruddy hue; with partially gray hair, like a half-powdered dressing, and very neat attire. His appearance as president of the Senate, or at the meetings of the municipal authorities, was manly and dignified. In his countenance there was a peculiar calmness, indicative of that purity of heart for which he was greatly distinguished. Indeed, from the decease of his excellent mother, there was more than a commonly serious train of

thought in his letters and conversation; and it is not singular that the last impressions of a man should be religious, who learned to pray as he learned his alphabet, in his mother's arms, and, at school, was as careful to commit his biblical lesson as to retain his classical studies. He presided in the Senate on the day previous to his death, and was a spectator at the delivery of the election sermon at the Old South Church. In the course of the succeeding night he became so unwell as to require the attendance of a physician, and in the morning he for a short time appeared relieved, but, on a relapse of spasms, occasioned by an ossification of the heart, at nine o'clock in the morning he expired, May 29, 1823. The clamorous notes of fame, breathed over the conqueror's bier, have no music in them, without the conception of indestructible virtue in his mind, as it shone in Phillips.

The ancestor of the Phillips family of New England was Rev. George Phillips, of Raymond, Norfolk county, Old England, who came to America in 1630, and was the first minister of Watertown. The children of Mayor Phillips were Thomas Walley, H. C. 1814; George W., H. C. 1829; Wendell, H. C. 1831, ever active in the cause of humanity, a graceful speaker and fine classical scholar; Grenville Tudor, H. C. 1836; John C., H. C. 1826, in the ministry; Sarah H., married Alonzo Gray, of Brookline; Margaret W., married Dr. Edward Reynolds, of Boston; Miriam, married Rev. Dr. Blagden, of the Old South Church. The eldest son was for many years clerk of Suffolk Municipal Court. It were glory enough to have had such a family, and lived in the shades of retirement, without being in elevated public stations. Blessings on the memory of the first mayor of Boston! Mr. Otis, a successor, said of him, that "his aim was to allure, and not to repel; to reconcile by gentle reform, not to revolt by startling innovation, so that, while he led us into a new and fairer creation, we felt ourselves surrounded by the scenes and comforts of home."

GEORGE BLAKE.

JULY 4, 1795. FOR THE TOWN AUTHORITIES.

THE impassioned and declamatory oration of Mr. Blake is strongly evincive of the zeal of a youthful politician: "The whole continent of America, according to ministerial calculations, was destined to become a mere appendage to the patrimonial inheritance of George the Third; and the people of America, like the dragon of Hesperides, would have been allowed the honor to cherish and protect the fruit of which they were refused the power to participate. A project so infernal in its design, at the same time so uncertain in its event, could have been generated but by a ministry in the very dotage of wickedness, approved but by a monarch in leading-strings, and seconded only by the unthinking automatons who never move or act but from the impulse of their sovereign. In justice, however, to the more rational part of that deluded people, we shall not forget the feeling remonstrances which were poured forth by the purer spirits of the kingdom. But in vain! In vain did a Chatham, and a Camden, like the oracles of old, foresee and pronounce the fatal issue that awaited the measures of their government." Again Mr. Blake says, "Parliament, by their usual sanctity of pretension, could no longer conceal the malignity of their designs. That secret cabinet of iniquity was now thrown open, and, behold! like the den of the Cyclops, it exhibited a group of demons busied in forging engines of destruction,-in fabricating chains, daggers, and fetters, to enslave or destroy her devoted colonies."

George Blake was a descendant of William Blake, the common ancestor, who died at Dorchester, Oct. 25, 1663, and bequeathed by his will funds for keeping a fence or wall around the burying-ground in Dorchester, to keep hogs and other vermin from rooting up the bodies of the saints. George, the subject of this outline, was born at Hardwick, Mass., 1769, and graduated at Harvard College in 1789, when he took part in a conference with Samuel Haven - "Whether unlimited toleration be prejudicial to the cause of religion." He was a student at law under Governor Sullivan, and admitted to the bar in 1794. He settled in the practice of law in Boston, when he delivered the oration at the request of the town. On the same day, Gov.

Samuel Adams laid the corner-stone of the State-house in Boston, who said, "May the principles of our excellent constitution, founded in nature and in the rights of man, be ably defended here;" and in the year previous, Gov. Adams said, in Faneuil Hall, at the celebration of the destruction of the Bastile in Paris, "May the laurel of victory never wither on the brow of republicanism." Mr. Blake married Rachel Baty, who died in early life, and he married a second time Sarah Murdock. On the fourth of February, 1800, Mr. Blake delivered a eulogy on Washington, for St. John's Lodge. In 1801 he was appointed the United States District Attorney for Massachusetts, at which time he was a representative in the State Legislature. Mr. Blake was a delegate to the Massachusetts State convention for the revision of the State constitution, in 1820. His speeches on important topics were frequent, and no man displayed a keener jealousy for the democracy, or readier adroitness of conception. In his speech on senatorial apportionment, he remarked that he considered the constitution of this commonwealth the purest and most perfect model of republican government that ever existed on the face of the globe. There cannot be found in any State, or in the world, a constitution so free and so liberal as that of Massachusetts, which we now have, independent of any amendments which may be proposed. He had been a republican in the most gloomy times, it was fashionable to be republican now,— and he should not be disposed to desert republicanism at such a time. He said that he had used the other day a very improper figure, when he called the Senate the rich man's citadel. It was no more the citadel of the rich than of the poor man. It was the only branch of the government which was particularly designed for the protection of property, and the protection was as important for those who have little as for those who have much. Mr. Blake opposed the investiture of Boston into a city corporation, and also opposed the city charter, as subversive of democracy. He was the first Democratic candidate for the mayoralty. In 1829 Mr. Blake resigned his office of District Attorney, and was again elected to the House, until his advance to the Senate, in 1833. He was profound in legal acquirement, and his forensic powers were of a high order. often irresistible. The propriety and fervor in debate, excited admiration. Democratic party, and a frequent National Ægis, edited by his brother, Francis Blake, and a decided

His control over the jury was elegance of his diction, and his He was an active leader of the contributor to the Worcester

advocate of the measures of Jefferson. His speeches in General Court, and learned arguments at the bar, were often published. All that Mr. Blake said was delivered

"in such apt and gracious words
That younger ears played truant at his tale,
And older hearings were quite ravished,
So voluble and sweet was his discourse."

He died October 6, 1841.

JOHN LATHROP, JR.

JULY 4, 1796. FOR THE TOWN AUTHORITIES.

IN the nervous and patriotic performance of our orator, we have this happy exordium: "It is now acknowledged as a fact in political biography, that Liberty descended from heaven on the 4th of July, 1776. We are assembled on this day, the twentieth anniversary of her advent, to sympathize in those pleasures which none but freemen can enjoy, to exchange those mutual congratulations which none but freemen can express.

"The first promulgation of the gospel of liberty was the declaration of American independence. Her apostles, the venerable Congress, whose mode of evangelizing made many a Felix tremble, sealed the doom and issued the death-warrant of despotism. The measure of her iniquity was filled up. The decree was gone forth, and Americans were elected by God to redeem from bondage the miserable victims of arbitrary power. But it would have been of no avail for them to publish to the enslaved the beauties of freedom, describe her charms, and urge the duty of possessing her, while they themselves were declared, by an act of the British legislature, liable to be bounden by the will and laws of that overbearing kingdom, 'in all cases whatsoever.' They disdained an inconsistency of character,— they presented the world with a glorious example, by effecting their own emancipation. Yes, my fellow-countrymen! you indignantly refused a base submission to the usurpation of Great Britain - to the impositions of her Parliament, and the insolence of her ministry. After opposing reasoning and argument to her absurd pretensions, and digni