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The biographical memoir, annexed to this discourse, we insert entire; as a place for such sketches was reserved in the original plan of this work. Our readers will be gratified with this respectful notice of a literary friend.

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR.

JABEZ KIMBALL was born in Hampstead, in New Hampshire, in the month of January 1772, of respectable parents. He was an object of tender affection; his youth was afflicted with sickness; and he was late in commencing his classical studies. But from the time, that he gave himself to literary pursuits, he was esteemed equally for his abilities and his disposition. Between him and the excellent clergyman, who prepared him for college, the deceased Mr. Merrill of Haverhill, existed a parental and filial attach ment. He had a peculiar felicity in conciliating the esteem and favor of all, who knew him, and who knew how to value genius and worth.

He was admitted a student of Harvard University in 1793; where he distinguished himself by his knowledge and acuteness, especially in the science of the mind, of reason, of morals, of history, and of the laws of nature and nations. Superior to weak compliance, consulting his own judgment, he united, in a high degree, the esteem of his fellow students with the approbation of his instructors. His placid temper, his natural urbanity, his facetious, instructive conversation, his frankness, candor, and disinterested kindness, engaged the one; while his upright conduct and respectful deportment, his solid talents and acquirements secured the other.

He received his first degree in 1797, and applied himself to the study of the law under the Hon. John Prentice of Londonderry. To this gentleman and his family, with whom he lived in unreserved intercourse, his whole con duct, professional and domestic, afforded the highest and uninterrupted satisfaction; and their ardent friendship has followed him through life and death. Here the writer, who

had been a tutor, while he was a student, became more particularly acquainted with him, residing sometime in the same family during his engagements with a congregation in that place. In this agreeable residence he enjoyed that continual flow of a benevolent heart and rich understanding, and that happy faculty of drawing forth the powers and affections of others, for which Mr. KIMBALL was remarkable. He therefore can speak from knowledge and feeling, and is assured, that the people of that vicinity would add their cordial testimony.

In July 1800, having completed the usual term of legal studies, he was appointed a tutor of the University at Cambridge for the department of natural philosophy, geography, astronomy, and the elements of the mathematics. The duties of this office he discharged with distinguished ability, uprightness, and punctuality. Without assuming a dispensing power over the college laws, or substituting novel notions in their stead, he executed them in what he conceived to be their true spirit with inflexible firmness and fidelity.

He resigned his office in the university in July 1801, and after remaining a few months in business with his friend, Mr. Prentice, settled in the practice of the law at Chesterfield in New Hampshire.

He now manifested talents no less adapted to active, than to studious life. His quick and deep penetration, added to the vigor, activity, and comprehension of his mind, qualified him alike for study and for action, and formed at once the solid scholar and successful man of business. His habits of laborious research and investigation, united with unshaken integrity and faithfulness, made him an able and honest advocate, and secured to him extensive and profitable practice in his profession. His superior knowledge of mankind and of civil society, connected with sound principles and active zeal for the promotion of institutions of learning, religion, and charity, rendered him a true patriot, a useful and beloved citizen.

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His prospects at this time were flattering to his fondest hopes. With generous ardor he looked forward to the honors and emoluments of a liberal profession, to the uninterrupted delights of friendship, to all the tender, refined joys of domestic life.

"Oh fallacem hominum spem fragilemque fortunam."

Soon was this bright prospect darkened, and these cherished hopes succeeded by heartrending affliction. His affections were bound by the tenderest ties, which involved all his views of happiness. These ties were broken; lover and friend were put far from him; and his hopes of happiness fled beyond the grave. His own health soon declined; sorrow and sickness became his companions. He now desired life only, that he might be useful. Never for a moment did he lose the ardor of his benevolence, or his zeal in promoting the happiness of his friends.

More fully to enjoy the society and attentions of his friends now become necessary to his health, and to avoid the pressure of business at Chesterfield he removed to Haverhill in 1803, still continuing the practice of his profession. Here during the few remaining days of his life he conduct

ed business in almost constant sickness and distress with resolution and fortitude, and acquired a large portion of public esteem. High however as he stood in general estimation, his intimate friends alone knew his full worth; and during this interesting part of his life were alone acquainted with the real situation of his mind, with its sufferings, its consolations, and its hopes. There was indeed a delicacy, a sacredness in his sentiments and feelings, with which a stranger did not intermeddle. Even to his most intimate friends he had a degree of reserve in conversation; it was in his letters only, that he freely unbosomed himself. A tender melancholy pervaded and softened his mind, while an ardent and firm hope sustained it, and enabled him to perform with cheerfulness his social and professional duties. In a letter to a confidential friend, about a year before his death, speaking of a "dear, departed friend," he thus expressed himself. "I as

"sure you I feel an indescribable, melancholy pleasure in "submitting to the dispensations of Providence; hoping "hereafter to enjoy the presence of that person, when this "corruptible shall put on incorruption. This is my hope; "this my trust; this my consolation. This momentary "suspension of our intercourse has not, and, I trust, never "will for a moment suspend my affection, or cause the object of it to change. I know that the affections without "an object, on which to rest, after wandering over a wide 86 range, return, like Noah's dove, which found no rest for "the sole of her foot. But such is not my case. I have a "little object dependent on me, as dear to me, as ❝cious self."

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This "little object," which animated all his exertions, and now inherits the fruit of them, bears the name, and was a favorite niece of the inestimable friend, whose memory was so dear to him.

In a subsequent letter, expressing his belief, that genuine affection and friendship survive the present life, he said, "did I expect, that death would efface all recollection of near "and dear friends, I should be without consolation; I should "be of all men most miserable. What is life, but a prepa"ration for a future world? What is death, but quitting the "impurities of the flesh, and becoming pure spirit? No; pure, genuine affection can never meet with dissolution." This submission to the dispensations of Providence, and this unshaken confidence in a future state of happiness, sustained his spirits in perfect composure under all his severe sufferings, and in the awful moments of dissolution.

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C. CRISPI SALLUSTII belli Catilinarii et Jugurthini historia. Editio emendatior, juxta editiones optimas diligentissimè inter se collatas; illustrata notis selectis; cum indice copioso. Salem Mass. exc. Josua Cushing, impensis T. C. Cushing et J. S. Appleton, 1805. 12mo, pp. 276.

THE

HE want of correct and at the same time cheap editions of the classics is severely felt by instructors of youth in general. The labor of the young student is rendered doubly difficult by the errors, which are met in almost every page, particularly of the late London editions, intended as copies of the Parisian "in usum Delphini." Each of these professes to be "editio adcuratior et emendatior," notwithstanding every preceding blunder be retained, and many others superadded. The original editions of the correct and learned MAITTAIRE are now rarely to be found, and it generally happens, that these London " Delphini" editions are almost the only guides of American students. It has been therefore with pleasure, that we have seen Virgil, Horace, and Sallust issuing from the CLASSIC PRESS of W. Poyntell and Co. of Philadelphia, and believe their accuracy, as copies of the original French editions for the Dauphin's use, indisputable. But the subject of this article has afforded us much higher gratification, and demands therefore a more particular

attention.

A taste for the ancient writers of Greece and Rome has been perceptibly, although slowly, advancing in the principal seminary of learning in New England for the last ten years. Before that period it had languished. About the middle however of the century past Harvard could boast scholars, who were formed on the Oxford standard, deeply skilled in ancient lore, and burning with the love of glory. Yet even at that period comparative references were made to "the "Fathers of New England" by no means advantageous to modern times. It was said of these venerable worthies, that

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