are. Those who knew him only during the last twenty or thirty years of his life, speak of the religious serenity with which he looked upon the world and its convulsions; estimating and using aright its good and evil, and fearing little from man, either as to himself or nations. "The Lord reigneth," were the words with which he usually ended whatever he had to say, of public sufferings and dangers here and abroad.

To the young he was dear, for good, cheering counsel, and almost youthful sympathy. His mind and affections never seemed to grow old, but only to ripen with age. His conversation never lost its humour, richness and variety-its freedom and temperate earnestness, and the originality of a thoroughly sincere and natural mind; nor his advice its authority; nor his opinions the marks of wide and deliberate observation and thought. It was a privilege to be with him; and next only to that, to enjoy his familiar correspondence. This, we believe, was almost confined to his connexions. We have seen but few of his letters; of which thousands, perhaps, are still preserved, though he frequently expressed a wish, some years: before his death, that they might be destroyed. They are said to be remarkably happy specimens of letterwriting. They were written, principally, after he had retired from public life, but are full of observations upon the past as well as the present, and marked with the same variety of sedateness and mirth, and wisdom and domestic interest, which were observable in his conversation. His grave or tranquil

manner, always so becoming in age, gave proper weight to his serious remarks, and sometimes had an air of indescribable archness or covert humour, when he allowed it to run into his lighter conversation or writings. He continued to correspond with some of his young relatives till the close of his days. Only three weeks before his death, he wrote a long letter, containing remarks on Latin prosody; on the faults of public speakers at the present day, with expressions of the kindest and most familiar interest in his friends and their concerns, written too in a strong, close hand, that might be expected from one in middle life.

In stature, he was of moderate height, his person neither spare nor corpulent, but indicating perfect health, and an easy mind. His head and features were large and impressive. He was not fond of bodily activity, and always walked with a regular, measured step, as if he were consulting his ease, as far as he could, in doing a thing for which he had small relish. His mind kept pace with the world; his courtesy and hospitality could not have altered but for the worse; but his habits of life, his dress, and many things that belong to one's comfort, and yet may not be worth enumerating, appear to have undergone little if any change for years, and to have shown, as well as the cast of his conversation, that he was of another generation.

SAMUEL ADAMS.

WITH the names of Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin, stands inseparably united that of Adams; and they form together the brightest constellation which illumines the revolutionary annals of our country. It was the last, however, alone, which was borne by two individuals, each perhaps equally conspicuous and equally serviceable in the cause, though differing much in their course of life, their opinions and their dispositions.

SAMUEL ADAMS, who is the subject of the present notice, was, without doubt, one of the most remarkable men connected with our history, and there is scarcely a great event of the revolution, with which he was not in some way connected. He was born at Boston, in the province of Massachusetts, on the twenty-second of September, 1722, and was descended from a family of much respectability which had settled in New England, at a very early period. His father was for many years a representative for the town of Boston, in the Massachusetts house of assembly, in which he was annually elected till his