d for nothing else;
who have been courted by the mercenary, and flattered by the fawning
sycophant; who, with their hoardings, have passed away, and no grateful
memory remains of their lives; their hoards are dissipated, and they
are only remembered to be despised. And yet others, who swam in the
creek and sported on the play-ground with all of these, whose vicious
propensities were apparent then--whose after lives were as their
boyhood promised, a curse to society in evil deeds and evil
example--have gone, too, unwept, unhonored, and luckily unhung.

Mirabeau B. Lamar was the son of John Lamar, of Putnam County, Georgia,
and received his education principally at Milledgeville and at Putnam.
From his earliest boyhood, he was remarkable for his genius and great
moral purity. His ardent, poetical temperament was accompanied with
exquisite modesty, and a gentle playfulness of disposition; with an
open, unaffected kindness of heart, which as a boy rendered him popular
with his fellows at school, and beloved by his teachers. There was in
him a natural chivalry of character, which characterized him above all
of his early compeers, and made him a model in conduct. Truthful and
manly, retiring and diffident, until occasion called out the latent
spirit of his nature; then the true greatness of his soul would burst
forth in an impetuous eloquence, startlingly fierce and overwhelming.
Nor was this excitement always wasted in words--not a few, when yet a
boy, have regretted the awakening of his wrath. It was upon occasions
like this, that his eye assumed an expression which I have never seen
in the eye of any other human being. His eyes were beautifully blue,
large, and round, and were always changing and varying in their
expression, as the mind would suggest thought after thought; and so
remarkable were these variations, that, watching him in repose, one who
knew him well could almost read the ideas gathering and passing through
his mind. There was a pleasant vein of satire in his nature, sometimes
expressed, but always in words and in a manner which plucked away its
sting:

An abstract wit of gentle flow,
Which wounds no friend, and hurts no foe.

He was my school-fellow and companion in childhood, my friend and
associate in early manhood; our intimacy was close and cordial, and in
after life this friendship became intense--and I knew him perhaps
better than any man ever knew him.

All the peculiarities of the boy remain