34 
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 
and which grew with the increase of every faculty, and 
lasted to the closing period of his too short career; with 
a purity of mind and heart which made every truth of 
nature a lesson in virtue; with an intrepidity in the 
prosecution of scientific enterprizes which led him out 
of beaten tracks, and taught him to find pleasure in 
threading those very labyrinths from which most other 
travellers in the paths of knowledge, shrink in despair ; 
with a clearness of method which enabled him to com¬ 
municate to others the full advantage of his own dis¬ 
coveries in these mazy haunts of nature ; with a candour 
and fairness which never merged the man of honour in 
an effort unduly to elevate the man of science ; never 
sought, by questionable artifices, to obscure or to hide 
the just reputation of others; with a benevolence of 
disposition which enabled him to find every where, in 
works of creation, the traces of that beneficence, which, 
in his profess onal character, it was his highest plea¬ 
sure to pourtray, and his most ardent desire to imitate; 
with a cheerfulness of disposition, and a suavity of man- 
• ners, which rendered him an object of deep affection in 
every social relation ; with a rectitude of purpose which 
w T on the confidence, while it formed the character of 
youth,—and secured the gratitude, while it watched 
over the interests of age ; with an assiduity which en¬ 
countered the fatigues of many voyages, not always 
without peril, in the service of that cause to which he 
was devoted ; with a patient continuance in years of 
toilsome effort, to extend, by precept and example, the 
benign system of practical goodness and spiritual libe- 
