EULOGY. XXI 



the highest degree, practical. The value and importance 

 he attached to a thing were deduced from his estimate 

 of its uses ; and those uses consisted of tlie number and 

 importance of the applications which he perceived could 

 be made of it, to the common purposes of life. He re- 

 garded life as being more made up of daily duties, than 

 of remarkable events ; and his estimate of the value of a 

 principle, or proposed plan of operations, was derived 

 from the extent to which application could be made of it 

 to life's everyday matters. He presented the rare occur- 

 rence of a mind originally conversant with the most com- 

 mon concerns, arising, by its own inherent energies, from 

 them to the comprehension of principles, and coming 

 back, and applying those principles to the objects of its 

 earlier knowledge. 



As a writer, the merits of Judge Buel have already 

 been determined by a discerning public. It is here wor- 

 thy of remark, that he never had but six months' school- 

 ing, having enjoyed fewer advantages, in that respect, 

 than most of our farmers' and mechanics' sons. He, 

 however, had the good fortune to possess a mind that 

 could improve itself by its own action. Although, there- 

 fore, he lacked the advantages of that early education, 

 which can polish, point, and refine, good sense, where it 

 happens to be found, and endeavors to supply its absence 

 by some imperfect substitute, where it is wanting ; yet, 

 by dint of study and practice, and of strong original en-« 

 dowment, he succeeded in the attainment of a style ex- 

 cellently-well adapted to the nature of his communications. 

 It consisted, simply, in his telling, in plain language, just 

 the thing he thought. The arts of rhetoric ; the advan- 

 tages of skilful arrangement in language ; the abundant 

 use of tropes and figures ; he never resorted to. He 

 seemed neither to expect nor desire, that his communica- 

 tions would possess, with other minds, any more weight, 

 than the ideas contained in them would justly entitle 

 them to. With him, words meant things, and not simply 

 their shadows. He came to the common mind, like an 

 old familiar acquaintance ; and, although he brought to it 

 new ideas, yet they consisted in conceptions clearly com- 



