parting and returning hour; but I have some mercy on you and Susan, and a due conviction of my want of power to beguile your vacant hour with amusement, or improve it by instruction. Even if I were ever so well, and if my spirits did not continually hover on the brink of dejection, my talk could only make you yawn; as things are, my company can only tend to create a gap indeed..

"When have I known that lightness and vivacity of mind which the divine flow of health, even in calamity, produces in some men, and would produce in me, no doubt-at least, when not soured by misfortune? Never; scarcely ever; not longer than half an hour at a time since I have called myself man, and not a moment since I left you.'

Finding these brief excursions productive of no salutary change in his health, he at length complied with the entreaties of his friends, and determined to try the effect of a voyage to Europe in the following spring. That spring he was doomed never to behold. About the middle of November he was taken with a violent pain in his left side, for which he was bled. From that time forward he was confined to his chamber. His malady was not attended with the exemption from actual pain with which Nature seems sometimes willing to compensate the sufferer for the length of its duration. His sufferings were incessant and acute; and they were supported, not only without a murmur, but with an appearance of cheerfulness, to which the hearts of his friends could but ill respond. He met the ap

proach of Death in the true spirit of Christian philosophy. No other dread but that of separation from those dear to him on earth had power to disturb his tranquillity for a moment. But the tem

per of his mind in his last hours is best disclosed in a communication from that faithful partner who contributed more than any other to support him through them. "He always felt for others more than for himself; and the evidences of sorrow in those around him, which could not at all times be suppressed, appeared to affect him more than his own sufferings. Whenever he spoke of the probability of a fatal termination to his disease, it was in an indirect and covert manner, as, 'you must do so and so when I am absent,' or 'when I am asleep.' He surrendered not up one faculty of his soul but with his last breath. He saw death in every step of his approach, and viewed him as a messenger that brought with him no terrors. He frequently expressed his resignation; but his resignation was not produced by apathy or pain; for while he bowed with submission to the Divine will, he felt with the keenest sensibility his separation from those who made this world but too dear to him. Towards the last he spoke of death without disguise, and appeared to wish to prepare his friends for the event, which he felt to be approaching. A few days previous to his change, as sitting up in the bed, he fixed his eyes on the sky, and desired not to be spoken to until he first spoke. In this position, and with a serene countenance, he continued

for some minutes, and then said to his wife, When I desired you not to speak to me, I had the most transporting and sublime feelings I have ever experienced; I wanted to enjoy them, and know how long they would last;' concluding with requesting her to remember the circumstance."

A visible change took place in him on the morning of the 19th of February, 1810, and he caused his family to be assembled around his bed, when he took leave of each one of them in the most tender and impressive manner. He lingered, however, a few days longer, remaining in the full possession of his faculties to the 22d of the month, when he expired without a struggle. He had reached the thirty-ninth year of his age the month preceding his death. The family which he left consisted of a wife and four children.

There was nothing striking in Brown's personal appearance. His manners, however, were distinguished by a gentleness and unaffected simplicity which rendered them extremely agreeable. He possessed colloquial powers which do not always fall to the lot of the practised and ready writer. His rich and various acquisitions supplied an unfailing fund for the edification of his hearers. They did not lead him, however, to affect an air of superiority, or to assume too prominent a part in the dialogue, especially in large or mixed company, where he was rather disposed to be silent, reserving the display of his powers for the unrestrained intercourse of friendship. He was a stranger not only G

to base and malignant passions, but to the paltry jealousies which sometimes sour the intercourse of men of letters. On the contrary, he was ever prompt to do ample justice to the merits of others. His heart was warm with the feeling of universal benevolence. Too sanguine and romantic views had exposed him to some miscalculations and consequent disappointments in youth, from which, however, he was subsequently retrieved by the strength of his understanding, which, combining with what may be called his natural elevation of soul, enabled him to settle the soundest principles for the regulation of his opinions and conduct in after life. His reading was careless and desultory, but his appetite was voracious; and the great amount of miscellaneous information which he thus amassed was all demanded to supply the outpourings of his mind in a thousand channels of entertainment and instruction. His unwearied application is attested by the large amount of his works, large even for the present day, when mind seems to have caught the accelerated movement so generally given to the operations of machinery. The whole number of Brown's printed works, comprehending his editorial as well as original productions, to the former of which his own pen contributed a very disproportionate share, is not less than four-and-twenty printed volumes, not to mention various pamphlets, anonymous contributions to divers periodicals, as well as more than one compilation of laborious research which he left unfinished at his death.

Of this vast amount of matter, produced within the brief compass of little more than ten years, that portion on which his fame as an author must permanently rest is his novels. We have already entered too minutely into the merits of these productions to require anything farther than a few general observations. They may probably claim to be regarded as having first opened the way to the successful cultivation of romantic fiction in this country. Great doubts were long entertained of our capabilities for immediate success in this department. We had none of the buoyant, stirring associations of a romantic age; none of the chivalrous pageantry, the feudal and border story, or Robin Hood adventure; none of the dim, shadowy superstitions, and the traditional legends, which had gathered like moss round every stone, hill, and valley of the olden countries. Everything here wore a spickand-span new aspect, and lay in the broad, garish sunshine of everyday life. We had none of the picturesque varieties of situation or costume; everything lay on the same dull, prosaic level; in short, we had none of the most obvious elements of poetry at least so it appeared to the vulgar eye. It required the eye of genius to detect the rich stores of romantic and poetic interest that lay beneath the crust of society. Brown was aware of the capabilities of our country, and the poverty of the results he was less inclined to impute to the soil than to the cultivation of it; at least this would appear from some remarks dropped in his correspondence in