aithful, and benignant human
being--true to the best instincts of religion, the highest principles of
citizenship, the most pure aspirations of character--are cherished the
influence and memory of Jay.

His personal appearance is familiar to us through the masterly portraits
of Stuart: that in judicial robes has long been a favorite examplar of
this eminent artist, exhibiting as it does his best traits of expression
and color: although destitute of those vivid tints which Stuart
reproduced with such marvellous skill, the keen eyes, fine brow,
aquiline nose, pointed chin, and hair tied behind and powdered, with the
benign intelligence pervading the whole, render this an effective
subject for such a pencil: it is a face in which high moral and
intellectual attributes, dignity, rectitude, and clear perception
harmoniously blend: the lineaments and outline are decidedly Gallic: one
thinks, in looking at the portrait, not only of the able jurist,
Christian gentleman, and patriot--but also of his Huguenot ancestor, who
fought at Boyne, urbanely accepted exile rather than compromise faith,
and suffered persecution with holy patience and adaptive energy of
intellect and character.

The political opinions of Jay were obnoxious to a large party of his
countrymen; but had we not so many examples in history and experience of
the blind prejudice and malicious injustice generated by faction, it
would seem incredible, as we contemplate, in the impartial light of
retrospective truth, his character and career, that any imaginable
diversity of views on questions of state policy, could have bred such
false and fierce misconstruction in reference to one whose every memory
challenges such entire respect and disinterested admiration. As it is,
the record of his life, the influence of his character seem to borrow
new brightness from the evidences of partisan calumny found in the more
casual records of the past. Singularly intense and complicated is the
history of the period when Jay's prominence and activity in the
political world were at their height. On the one hand, the triumph of
freedom in the New World; on the other, the atrocities committed in her
sacred name in the Old: the American and French Revolutions, considered
in regard to their origin, development, and results, seem to have
brought to a practical test all principles of government and elements of
civic life inherent in human society: so that they have since afforded
the tests