562 MEMOIR OF 
and conduct can supply. Upon his literary character, it will 
be the province of posterity to pronounce ; and to it I willing- 
ly leave to determine the rank he is to hold among the writers 
of his country. To us in these moments, when we are again, 
as it were, leaving his grave, there are other reflections that 
belong ; and there are recollections of no vulgar kind that 
arise, when we review the life of which we have seen the 
close. 
It was a life, in its first view, of usefulness and of honour. 
He was called to fill some of the most important offices which 
the constitution of human society affords,—as a father of a fa- 
mily,—a possessor of property,—a man of letters,—and a 
Judge in the Supreme Courts of his country; and he filled 
them all, not only with the dignity of a man of virtue, but with 
the grace of a man whose taste was founded upon high prin- 
ciples, and fashioned upon exalted models. It was a life, in 
its second view, of happiness as well as of honour: happy in 
all the social relations which time afforded him,—in the esteem 
of his country,—the affection of his friends,—the love and the 
‘promises of his children: happy in a temper of mind which 
knew no ambition but that of duty, and aspired to no distinc- 
tion but that of doing good: happier than all in those early 
and elevated views of Religion, which threw their own radiance 
over all the scenes of man or of Nature through which he pas- 
sed, and which enabled him to enjoy every present hour with 
thankfulness, and to look ferward to every future one with 
hope. 
The records of this Society contain the histories of greater 
men,—of none, I believe, more virtuous, more amiable, or 
more happy: And while the lives of these illustrious men, 
' (written 
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