EULOGY. Xlll 



when compared and contrasted with this highest attain- 

 ment of a laudable ambition. To those, acquainted with 

 the arcana of politics, it will be sufficient to observe, that 

 Jesse Buel never merged the man in the politician ; 

 that he never gave up his independence of thought, of 

 expression, or of action ; and that he preserved, through- 

 out, that perfect integrity of purpose, that never, through 

 his whole life, ceased to be the guide of his action. To 

 those ignorant of such arcana, I can only say, that, 



*' Where ignorance is bliss, 'twere folly to be wise." 



It is in the labors of Judge Buel, in the advance- 

 ment of agricultural and horticultural pursuits, particu- 

 larly the former, that the people of this Union have a 

 deep and abiding interest. He retired to his farm, at 

 the age of forty-three ; a period of life, when the mind 

 has attained the full maturity of its varied powers. He 

 carried with him a sound body, the result of a good ori- 

 ginal constitution, of strictly temperate habits, and much 

 active exercise in the prosecution of his business ; and a 

 mind well stored with valuable information, of a character 

 the most available for the common uses and purposes of 

 life. So far as his pecuniary circumstances were con- 

 cerned, he might, at this period of time, have been jus- 

 tified, in dispensing with further labor, either of body or 

 mind. He was no longer compelled to act under the 

 spur of necessity. But his ready perceptions, and ac- 

 curate feelings, convinced him of a truth, which others 

 are often doomed to acquire from a sad experience, — 

 that a life of labor is, of all other kinds of life, the last 

 that should be terminated by an age of inactivity. Men 

 violate the laws, impressed by God upon the condition of 

 things, when they assign, to their declinMig years, an in- 

 glorious ease in the expenditure of that fortune, which the 

 successful industry of their manhood had accumulated. 

 There is, also, in all highly-gifted minds, that are endow- 

 ed with clear, strong intellect, combined with conscien- 

 tiousness, a deep feeling of responsibility, for the due ex- 

 ercise of their powers, in a manner the most advantageous 

 to their fellow-men. God has placed a double safeguard 

 B XV. 



