added to the enjoyments of social intercourse. Though visited with his portion of mortal frailty, yet he was a kind master, an indulgent parent, and. a devoted patriot. }

Adversity presented him a chalice often overflowing, yet he abandoned neither hope nor his equanimity, and after a life of utility and vicissitude, calmly sunk into that sleep where ambition cannot excite, nor the pains of misfortune again invade.

He died October 29, 1824, at the advanced age of sixty-six years. )

PINCKNEY, WILLIAM, an eminent lawyer and statesman, was born at Annapolis, in the state of Maryland, March 17, 1765.

At an early age, he exhibited proofs of extraordinary talents, which were afterwards improved by a classical education. He particularly excelled in a profound knowledge of the classical writers of antiquity.

Under the patronage of the late judge Chase, he commenced the study of the law, and was admitted to the bar in 1786, where, at his first appearance, he gave those promises of ability and greatness, which he subsequently fulfilled.

In 1789, he was elected a member of the Maryland legislature, and in 1792, was called to a seat in the executive council.

(In 1796, soon after the ratification of the British treaty, , he was appointed by president Washington a commissioner in accordance with the provision of the treaty, to reside in London.

In 1804, he returned home. During his stay in London, he pursued his professional studies with increased ardour, and was a close attendant of the English courts of law.

In 1806, he was appointed envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary, in conjunction with Mr. Monroe, to the court of Great Britain./ The treaty which was procured did not answer, however, the expectations of president Jefferson, and he returned it on his own responsibility, without consulting the senate.

After vainly endeavouring for three years to negotiate a more favourable treaty with that power, he returned to the United States, and in 1812, was appointed attorney-general of the United States.

In this capacity he shone with conspicuous lustre. Ever prepared, and never off his guard, he encountered his subject with a mind rich in all the gifts of nature, and fraught with all the resources of art and study. He entered the list with his antagonist armed like the ancient cavalier, cap a pe. In cases which embraced all the complications and intricacies of law, where reason seems to be lost in the ocean of technical perplexity; and darkness and obscurity assume the dignified character of science, he displayed an extent of research, a range of investigation, a lucidness of reasoning, and a fervour and brilliancy of thought, that excited wonder and elicited admiration. On the driest, most abstract, and uninteresting questions of law, when no mind could anticipate such an occurrence, he would blaze forth in all the enchanting exuberance of a chastened, but rich and vivid imagination. In the higher grades of eloquence, where the passions and feelings of our nature are roused to nature or lulled to tranquillity, he was still the great magician whose power was resistless, and whose touch was fascination. His eloquence was sublime, majestic, and overwhelming.

His order was lucid, his reasoning logical, his diction select, magnificent, and appropriate, and his style was flowing, oratorical, and beautiful,

The most laboured and finished composition could not be better than that which he seemed to

utter spontaneously, and without effort. His satire was keen, but delicate; and his wit scintillating and brilliant. He possessed the most extensive and varied information, and was never at a loss to ornament and illustrate whatever subject he touched. He was ever the same; he used no common place artifice to excite a momentary thrill of admiration. He was not obliged to patch up and embellish a few ordinary thoughts, or set off a few meagre and uninteresting facts. His resources were unlimited as those of nature, and fresh powers and new beauties were exhibited whenever he employed his eloquence. A singular copiousness and felicity of thought and expression, united to a magnificence of amplification, and a purity and chastity of ornament, gave to his eloquence a sort of enchantment which it is difficult to describe.)

In 1816, he was appointed minister to the courts of Naples and Russia.

On his return home he was elected a member of the senate of the United States.

In February, 1822, while engaged in an important cause, in the supreme court of the United States at Washington, from too great exertions, he was seized with a fit of illness which in two days put a period to his life-aged fifty-seven years.

PAINE, ROBERT TREAT, a distinguished poet, was born at Taunton, Massachusetts, December 9, 1773. After receiving the honours of the university of Cambridge, he entered the counting-house of Mr. James Tisdale, and after a year or two relinquished it for the muses.

He now bent his whole attention to literature until the year 1799, when, at the solicitation of his friends, he commenced the study of the law, in the office of the late chief justice Parsons.

In 1802, he was admitted to the bar, and for several years received as much business as he could well attend to, and was fast rising to eminence in his profession, when unfortunately he became negligent, and was forsaken by his patrons.

He now resorted to publishing, but after contending with the storm of adversity for several years without realizing the golden harvest which his fine genius had arrayed before him, he gradually sunk under disappointment and disease, and expired without a groan, November 12, 1811.

As an author, he will always rank high among the poets of this country.

His genius was certainly of an high order, and his poetry is marked for brilliant imagery and originality.

His poetry has been published in one large volume octavo.

PAINE, THOMAS, a poetical and infidel writer of great notoriety, was born in England about the year 1737. He was by profession a staymaker. About the year 1774, he came to this country, and was employed as editor of the Philadelphia Magazine..

In the next year, at the suggestion of Dr. Rush, he wrote his celebrated pamphlet, entitled "Common Sense," for which he received £500 from the legislature of Pennsylvania; and soon after this was honoured with a degree of M. A. from the university of Pennsylvania, and was chosen a member of the American Philosophical Society.

He was afterwards appointed a clerk in the office of the secretary for foreign affairs, but was shortly after dismissed for a scandalous breach of trust.

In 1780, the assembly of Pennsylvania chose him as clerk.

In 1782, he printed at Philadelphia a letter to the Abbé Raynal, in which he undertakes to clear up the mistakes in Raynal's account of the American revolution.

In 1785, as a compensation for his revolutionary writings, congress granted him three thousand dollars, and New-York gave him an estate of three hundred acres of land.

In 1787, he visited England, and before the end of that year published a pamphlet, entitled "Prospects on the Rubicon."

In 1789, he visited France, and on his return to England in 1790, wrote the first part of his "Rights of Man," and in 1792, the second part. In the following year he again returned to France, and was chosen a member of the French convention. As soon as Robespierre had gained the ascendency, he sent Paine and the enthusiast Cloots to prison at the Luxembourg, and narrowly escaped being guillotined.

It was during his imprisonment of eleven months that he composed his blasphemous pamphlet called the "Age of Reason," the first part of which was published at London in 1794, and the second part the year following. This work has been ably refuted by a Watson, a Scott, a Wakefield, and others, and the ignorance of Paine completely exposed.

His subsequent publications were "The Decline and Fall of the English System of Finance;" a most impudent letter to general Washington, whom he had the ingratitude to revile as an apostate and an impostor; "Agrarian Justice opposed to Agrarian Law, and to Agrarian Monopoly," "Letter to Lord Erskine on the Prosecution of J. Williams, for publishing the Age of Reason."

He continued in France till 1802, where he debased himself by debauchery and drunkenness, and was so filthy in his person as to be avoided by all men of decency.