students, as is natural
to young persons who are most impressed by aesthetical manner and
accomplishment, did not dignify him as a leader or an oracle. But a
deeper insight convinced his teachers that, whatever partial observers
might think wanting in respect to artistic excellence, was well
supplied by more substantial and enduring qualities. Their eye
followed him, while here, as a sound-minded, true-hearted young man,
and a thorough scholar; and, after he had graduated, as a teacher at
the South, and in two of the oldest academies of New England. In these
different relations he fully justified the good name which he had left
behind him at the college, till, the proper occasions serving, he was
called back to be first a tutor, and then professor of the
Mathematics. The subsequent course of Mr. Chase proved that his
instructors had not miscalculated his powers, nor over-estimated his
qualifications for one of the most difficult and trying positions in a
learned institution.

"Professor Chase performed the duties of his office without
interruption till the close of the last term, during a period of about
thirteen years; and died, after a short illness, in vacation, while
yet a young man. He was scarcely thirty-eight years of age. Yet he was
old, if we measure time, as scholars should, not by the motion of the
heavenly bodies, but the succession of ideas. He had made great
proficiency in knowledge. Well he might; for he had great
susceptibilities. His temperament was ardent, his instincts were
lively, his perceptions keen, his thoughts rapid, his reasoning
faculties sharp, his imagination fiery, and his will determined. No
man has all his active powers proportioned; for that would constitute
perfection, which exists not in this world any more in physical than
in moral natures. But his balance was less disturbed than most, and,
consequently, he was capable of various and large attainments. What he
could he did, for his spirit was earnest, and his industry untiring.
He had become well founded and extensively versed in most departments
of liberal study, and it would be difficult to say in what branch of
knowledge he would have been most competent to excel. He was not a
genius; that is, no one power of the mind absorbed the others, and his
culture was not unequal. Therefore he would not have glared for a
while, like a meteor, and then exploded, but he would have stood one
of the pillars of learning, and a true conservator o