end. Mr. Brooks's death was attended by no sickness or suffering. It was the natural decay of the physical powers, the mere suspension of sensation. The silver cord was gently loosed. The motion of the wheel at the cistern grew faint and feeble. It stopped and made no noise. Without fluttering, the vital spark departed, and the mortal was clothed with immortality.

In early life, Mr. Brooks was a distinguished member of this commercial and industrious community. He was not technically a merchant; but was initiated, while yet a boy, in the maxims, laws, and operations of Insurance. When he became a man, he opened an insurance office in Boston, on his own responsibility. Of course his business relations were chiefly with merchants and that class of people, whose intelligence and enterprize connects realm to realm, spreads knowledge, science and luxury across the globe, and opens, to the favorites of fortune, the avenues to competence, riches, and independence. As an underwriter, generally on marine risks, -it is understood that Mr. Brooks laid the foundation of the wealth for which he was renowned. But we believe that the basis of his prosperity was laid deep in the virtues of his heart, and the wisdom of his judgement, -in prudence, economy, an untainted love of justice, and an inflexible adherence to the unalterable laws of integrity, the unmistakeable dictates of the spirit of uprightness. As a man of business, he was exact, but not illiberal, — conscientious, but not narrow in his dealings. Honorable and open-hearted in all his transactions, and scrupulous in the performance of

every obligation, he enjoyed the unlimited confidence of his fellow-citizens.

Mr. Brooks was often called to the discharge of important public trusts. He was several times placed in the senate of the commonwealth, where his sober judgement and sagacious foresight obtained a more than common share of influence. He was also repeatedly a member of the executive council, and the personal and confidential friend of Caleb Strong and John Brooks, - and no man need to covet higher honor. He was an active member and officer of several religious and philanthropic societies, the records of which bear testimony that he not only devised liberal things, but that he was among the foremost to contribute of his substance for the promotion of their benevolent designs.

It is many years since Mr. Brooks withdrew from public employment, and from the bustling scene of mercantile traffic. The improvement of his farm at Medford, inherited, we believe, from his father,was a favorite occupation. His researches into the theory, his skill in the practice, and his successful experiments in the science of agriculture, rendered his example contagious among his neighbors, the farmers of the county of Middlesex. He was an original member of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society, and was careful to extend the influence of that institution, and to elevate the character of the husbandman. He was a practical believer in the doctrine that the earth was made for man, and that man was made for the earth, "to dress and to keep it." The grounds about his residence, where Nature

has been aided rather than changed by art and labor, illustrate the beautiful force of his obedience to that divine command, and the elegant simplicity of unsophisticated taste in rural retirement.

Mr. Brooks was reputed to be the wealthiest man in New-England. We know not how that may be, but no possessor of riches was ever more unostentatious than he. With the undoubtedly amplest means for the gratification of a disposition for that display, which fixes the gaze, and feeds the envy of unthinking millions, he was proverbially modest and unassuming. There was no gaudy show in his equipage, no arrogance in his talk, no swagger in his gait, no averting of his eye from those he knew and knew to be poor, no jostling of the aspiring young whom he might meet on the Exchange. In his personal appearance and public demeanor there was no indication that he thought himself better than those who deemed themselves respectable, no manifestations of that pride which communicates discomfort and disgust to all who are brought within the circle of its vision. To those who had occasion to borrow and availed themselves of his ability to lend, (and the number of such was not small,) Mr. Brooks was uniformly courteous and obliging, and we hazard no contradiction in saying, that he never took advantage of times of scarcity to increase his wealth, by taking unlawful interest, or made the necessity of his neighbor contribute to his affluence.

In the domestic establishment of Mr. Brooks, sobriety and temperance were strictly and conscientiously observed; but his sobriety was not stinginess, his

temperance was not abstinence; his prudence was not parsimony, nor his economy avarice. His hospitality was without stint, his welcome without disguise. His deportment at the social board was cheerful, pleasant, and sometimes sportive. With a willing disposition to communicate happiness whenever he came in contact with his fellow-men, Mr. Brooks could not be otherwise than loving, affectionate, beloved, and honored in his family. But of the parental and filial relations, it does not become us to speak. Their character, and the efficacy of his example and instruction, may be seen in the characters and habits of his children, who, we presume, are the inheritors of the principal part of his wealth, and on whom the mantle of his integrity and honor descends. To them he has left a legacy better than silver and gold, -the fragrance of an unspotted life and the remembrance of an undisturbed and gentle death, illustrating the description of the sacred poet:

His hands, while they his alms bestowed,
His glory's future harvest sowed,

Whence he shall reap wealth, fame, renown,
A temporal and eternal crown.

His justice, free from all decay,
Shall blessings to his seed convey.
The sweet remembrance of the just,
Like a green root, revives, and bears
A train of blessings for his heirs,
When dying nature sleeps in dust.
January, 1849.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

THE ENTRANCE OF THE NEW CENTURY, 1ST JANUARY, 1801.

Translated from the German of Schiller.

་

BY THE REV. N. L. FROTHINGHAM.

To *

Noble friend! where now to Peace, worn-hearted,
Where to Freedom is a refuge-place?

The old century has in storm departed,
And the new with carnage starts its race.

And the bond of nations flies asunder,
And the ancient forms rush to decline;
Not the ocean hems the warring thunder,
Not the hill-god and the ancient Rhine.

Two imperious nations are contending
For one empire's universal field;
Liberty from every people rending,
Thunderbolt and trident do they wield.

Theirs the wealth of every country's labor;
And like Brennus in the barbarous days,
See, the daring Frank his iron sabre
In the balances of justice lays.

The grasping Briton his trade-fleets, like mighty
Arms of the ocean polypus, doth spread,
And the realm of unbound Amphitrite
Would he girdle like his own homestead.

To the south pole's unseen constellations
Pierce his keels, unhindered, resting not;
All the isles, all coasts of farthest nations,
Spies he, all but Eden's sacred spot.