culiarities were striking, and in them we perceive his most
observable traits, whether of the intellect or the heart.

"I know not whether it were most of nature, or habit, that our friend
was so distinguished for acuteness, directness, and singleness of the
mind,--a mind not especially intuitive and rapid, not noticeably free
in its conceptions, wide in its survey, or comprehensive in its
generalizations, moving rather on an extended line than an enlarged
area, but subtle and clear as light; sharp, piercing and
discriminating as electricity; pointed, direct, and exact as the
magnet; conclusive, positive, and decisive as the bolt of heaven. His
processes were simple, natural, easy, and continuous, not stiffly
regulated by scholastic laws, but strictly conformable, and his
results inevitable. Give him his definitions and his postulates which,
though not given, he would, like other resolved reasoners after his
method, sometimes take, at his own risk, and he would go round or
through the circle, or make his traverses in darkness and storm, and
never lose his meridian, or be confused in his reckoning; and he would
come back precisely to his starting-point laden with success, his
points all proved. It was well said of him by a curious and critical
observer of scholars, that, as a logician, he was not exceeded in the
country.

"Our professor had made large attainments in the science to which he
was especially devoted,--the Metaphysics. He read whatever was worth
the reading, of which, however, he chose to be an independent judge,
but he thought more, so that his attainments were emphatically his
own. He was not like what so many now become in this department of
study,--a mere follower, imitator, panegyrist,--but a searching critic
and judicious commentator. He had a higher range of speculative
inquiry than most of the more ambitious men who have exceeded him in
popular effect, and he corrected his inquiries by a better logic, and
a more simple faith. But I have sometimes thought him too much of a
recluse for his greatest profiting in this respect. He loved best the
retirement of his own study, and was rarely seen outside of it, except
when required by his official duties. He abjured the artificial forms
and fashions of social life, the bustling confusions of trade and
commerce, and the whirl and finesse of political agitations. He never
would stand on a platform, nor be seen at an anniversary, nor harangue
a popular assembl