oste doceri_; and I must have been
unintelligent, indeed, not to have learned something from the constant
displays of that power which I had so much occasion to see and to feel.

It is the more appropriate duty of the present moment to give some short
notice of his life, character, and the qualities of his mind and heart,
so that he may be presented as an example to those who are entering upon
or pursuing the same career. Four or five years ago, Mr. Mason drew up a
biography of himself, from the earliest period of his recollection to
the time of his removal to Portsmouth, in 1797; which is interesting,
not only for the information it gives of the mode in which the habits of
his life were formed, but also for the manner of its composition.

He was born on the 27th day of April, 1768, at Lebanon in Connecticut.
His remotest ancestor in this country was Captain John Mason (an officer
who had served with distinction in the Netherlands, under Sir Thomas
Fairfax), who came from England in 1630, and settled at Dorchester in
the Colony of Massachusetts. His great-grandfather lived at Haddam. His
grandfather, born in 1705, lived at Norwich, and died in the year 1779.
Mr. Mason remembered him, and recollected his character, as that of a
respectable and deeply religious man. His ancestor on the maternal side
was James Fitch, a learned divine, who came from England and settled in
Saybrook, but removed to Lebanon, where he died. A Latin epitaph, in the
ancient burying-ground of that town, records his merits. One of his
descendants held a large tract of land in the parish of Goshen, in the
town of Lebanon, by grant from the Indians; one half of which, near a
century afterwards, was bequeathed to his daughter, Elizabeth Fitch, the
mother of Mr. Mason. To this property Mr. Mason's father removed soon
after his marriage, and there he died, in 1813. The title of this land
was obtained from Uncas, an Indian sachem in that neighborhood, by the
great-grandfather of Mr. Mason's mother, and has never been alienated
from the family. It is now owned by Mr. Mason's nephew, Jeremiah Mason,
the son of his eldest brother James. The family has been distinguished
for longevity; the average ages of Mr. Mason's six immediate ancestors
having exceeded eighty-three years each. Mr. Mason was the sixth of nine
children, all of whom are now dead.

Mr. Mason's father was a man of intelligence and activity, of
considerable opulence, and highly esteemed by th