88 



and entered as a student the office of the Hon. John Sergeant, who 

 had married his mother's sister, on the 3d of April, 1826, and was 

 admitted to practice 7th September, 1829. But the excitement and 

 bustle of the life of an active lawyer were little suited to his retiring 

 and reflective habits; and in 1831, then in his 23d year, he gladly 

 accepted the position of assistant Professor in the Department of Arts 

 of the University of Pennsylvania, tendered him by the Trustees; and 

 on 8th November of the same year he succeeded the Rev. Edward 

 Rutledge as assistant Professor of IMoral Philosophy in the same fa- 

 culty. The task he undertook was a difficult one; the manners and 

 abilities of his predecessor had endeared him to the students; and Mr. 

 Reed was himself too susceptible to the influence of such a character, 

 not to feel the responsibility which he assumed in consenting to re- 

 place him. His success, however, was from the first complete; and 

 in February, 1835, the Trustees of the University elected him to the 

 Professorship of Rhetoric and English Literature, which at their pre- 

 vious meeting they had created in his favour. From this time until 

 his death, during a period of almost twenty years, Mr. Reed devoted 

 himself, earnestly and unremittingly; tasking to the utmost all the 

 powers of body and mind, to the advancement of the interests and the 

 increase of the usefulness of the institution which he loved as an 

 alumnus, and to which he gave honour as a Professor. The depth 

 of his learning, and his success as an instructor, won for him the con- 

 fidence of the Trustees and of the community ; while he endeared 

 himself to the students by the gentleness and dignity of his manner, 

 and the affectionate interest which he always manifested in their 

 welfare. 



The assiduous labours to which he devoted himself, joined to the 

 cares and anxieties inseparable from the condition of an ardent dis- 

 position compelled to seek in its influence over others, the means of 

 satisfying its own sense of right, gradually undermined his health, 

 which reposed on a constitution not naturally strong; and after a 

 tedious and almost fatal illness, finding his duties and anxieties still 

 too great for his slowly returning health, he resolved, under the ad- 

 vice of his physician, to spend the vacation of 1854 in travelling; to 

 gratify the many warm friends which he had made for himself abroad 

 and visit that country dear to him as the home of his ancestors, and 

 as the birth place of the literature which he so loved. He sailed for 

 England in May, and after a visit short indeed, but full of the most 

 gratifying and pleasing incidents, the delights of which drowned his 

 unpleasant recollections, and reinvigorated liis mental and physical 



