having been for years the political antagonists of Mr. Brock,
and having braved his hostility when living, our tribute to
his memory cannot be looked on as other than the genuine
offspring of our feeling and our judgment.

"Mr. Brock was not an ordinary man. He was constituted of
materials which would have led their owner to distinction in
whatever sphere he might have been placed. Indebted but little
to early education, he possessed within himself a faculty of
extracting knowledge from every thing that came within his
observation; and, gifted with a powerful memory, a reflecting
mind, and the art of methodizing and arranging the ideas and
information which he acquired, he was enabled at all times to
bring a mass of well digested and pertinent knowledge to bear
upon and illustrate any subject which he was required to
discuss. He had a singular talent for comprehending principles
and for seizing information, and arranging and applying it; so
that there were few subjects upon which he entered on which he
could not lay down sound principles, and illustrate and
maintain them by sound arguments. Too confident of his
strength, and perhaps over-elated with his many victories, he
would sometimes venture on untenable ground, and expose
himself to the inroads of an able enemy; but these
indiscretions were of rare occurrence, and the memory of his
temporary checks was generally cancelled by the skilfulness of
his retreats.

"If Mr. Brock was thus distinguished for his mental powers, he
was no less so by the strength and felicity of his style of
writing. He had the rare talent of putting proper words in
their proper places. He wrote English with English plainness
and English force. There was nothing affected or _modish_ in
his manner. He gave his readers an impression that he was
clear in the conception of his own meaning, and he made it
equally so to them. He aimed at no ornament: the beauty of his
writings consisted in their perspicuity and strength. A verbal
critic might discover inaccuracies in his compositions, but
the man of sense would find in them nothing unmeaning---
nothing useless--nothing vapid. He was not a turner of fine
periods--he was not a _fine writer_--but he wrote with
strength, precision, and lucidity; and his compositions, even
where they failed to pro