living man; and in the general strength,
clearness, and quickness of his intellect, we think all who knew him well
will agree with us that he was not excelled by any editor in the
country." He was not a profound reasoner: his imagination and brilliant
fancy played the wildest tricks with his logic; yet, considering the way
by which he reached them, it is remarkable that his conclusions were so
often correct. The tendency of his mind was to extremes. A zealous
Calvinistic church-member, he became an equally zealous opponent of
churches and priests; a warm politician, he became an ultra non-resistant
and no-government man. In all this, his sincerity was manifest. If, in
the indulgence of his remarkable powers of sarcasm, in the free antics of
a humorous fancy, upon whose graceful neck he had flung loose the reins,
he sometimes did injustice to individuals, and touched, in irreverent
sport, the hem of sacred garments, it had the excuse, at least, of a
generous and honest motive. If he sometimes exaggerated, those who best,
knew him can testify that he "set down naught in malice."

We have before us a printed collection of his writings,--hasty
editorials, flung off without care or revision, the offspring of sudden
impulse frequently; always free, artless, unstudied; the language
transparent as air, exactly expressing the thought. He loved the common,
simple dialect of the people,--the "beautiful strong old Saxon,--the talk
words." He had an especial dislike of learned and "dictionary words."
He used to recommend Cobbett's Works to "every young man and woman who
has been hurt in his or her talk and writing by going to school."

Our limits will not admit of such extracts from the Collection of his
writings as would convey to our readers an adequate idea of his thought
and manner. His descriptions of natural scenery glow with life. One can
almost see the sunset light flooding the Franconia Notch, and glorifying
the peaks of Moosehillock, and hear the murmur of the west wind in the
pines, and the light, liquid voice of Pemigewasset sounding up from its
rocky channel, through its green hem of maples, while reading them. We
give a brief extract from an editorial account of an autumnal trip to
Vermont:

"We have recently journeyed through a portion of this, free State; and it
is not all imagination in us that sees, in its bold scenery, its
uninfected inland position, its mountainous but fertile and verdant
surface, t