vaded their country, and threatened destruction to their government. On the first favorable contingency, the enthusiastic energies of reviving Freedom burst the cerements which had confined it for two thousand years, and the Gothic fabric of feudal absurdity, with all its pompous pageants, colossal pillars and proscriptive bulwarks, the wonder and veneration of ages, was instantly levelled with the dust.

"An astonished world viewed with awful admiration the stupendous wreck. They beheld, with pleasing exultation, the fair fabric of Freedom rising in simple proportion and majestic grace upon the mighty ruin. The gloomy horrors of despotism fled before the splendid effulgence of the sun of liberty. The potent rays of science pierced the mist of ignorance and error, 'republican visions were realized, and the reign of reason appeared to commence its splendid progress.' But the whirlwind of discord threatened to raze the fabric from its foundation. The lowering clouds of contention hung around, and darkened the horizon. Fayette, the apostle of liberty, was abandoned by the people whom he saved, and became a victim to despotic cruelty and cowardice. The damp, poisonous exhalations of a gloomy dungeon now encircle and chill that bosom, whose philanthropy was coëxtensive with the universe, whose patriotism no power could extinguish, no dangers appal. But, illuminated by the rectitude of thy heart and the magnanimity of thy virtue, the trickling dews of thy prison-walls shall sparkle with more enviable lustre than the most luminous diadem that glitters on the brow of the haughtiest emperor." The apostrophe to Lafayette was uttered at the precise time when the patriot was languishing in the dungeon of Olmutz.

John Phillips, a son of William Phillips and Margaret, a daughter of Jacob Wendell, was born in Boston, Nov. 26, 1770. His mother was a lady of fervent piety; and Rev. Dr. Palfrey relates that her son informed him that his mother, at the last interview when she was able to sustain a connected conversation, on the occasion of an assurance from him that her directions should be strictly fulfilled after her death, raised herself, and, addressing him in a manner of the most emphatic solemnity, she charged him to remember then the many official oaths he had taken. His birthplace was on the ancient Phillips estate, now known as No. 39 Washington-street, where his widowed mother kept a dry-goods shop for many years.

When seven years of age, he entered Phillips' Academy, at Andover, founded, by his relatives, where he received instruction, residing

in the family of Lieut. Gov. Samuel Phillips, until he entered Harvard College in 1784. After his graduation, when he gave the salutatory oration, he read law with Judge Dawes, the successor of Oliver Wendell, in Suffolk Probate. On being of age, he was admitted to practice in the Suffolk bar, and in 1794 married Sally, daughter of Thomas Walley, a merchant and selectman of Boston.

In the year 1800, says Knapp, the population of Boston had so much increased that it was found necessary to petition the Legislature to establish a Municipal Court of criminal jurisdiction for the county of Suffolk. The Supreme Judicial Court, and the Common Pleas, had become burdened by the numerous entries on the criminal side of the docket; and parties in civil actions suffered tedious delays, while the courts were engaged in jail delivery. The Municipal Court was established in 1800, and George Richards Minot became its first judge, and John Phillips was selected as a public prosecutor, to vindicate the majesty of the laws. He was annually elected town advocate for this purpose, until he was succeeded by Peter O. Thacher. In 1803 he was elected a representative, and in 1804 he was sent to the Senate, which station he occupied for twenty years, and was president of this body for ten years. In 1809 he became a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, until that court was abolished for another on a new model. In 1820 Mr. Phillips was elected to the convention for revising the constitution of the State, where he displayed great wisdom and playful humor. In remarks on the third article of the bill of rights, on which there was great diversity of opinion, he urged its indefinite postponement, saying it was well to remember the adage, When you know not what to do, take care not to do you know not what. He hoped they should not resemble the man who had the epitaph on his tombstone, "I was well; I would be better, and here I am."

In 1812 Mr. Phillips was elected a member of the corporation of Harvard College, which station he filled until his decease, and was frequently moderator of the town-meetings of the old town of Boston.

Mr. Phillips was chairman of the committee of twelve who reported a city charter, which was adopted by the town on January 1, 1822. One attempt having been made to elect a mayor, without success, Mr. Phillips was solicited to stand as candidate, in order to effect a union; and he received nearly a unanimous vote. He was inaugurated,

May 1, 1822. A powerful minority of the citizens decidedly preferred the patriarchal system of the selectmen. Others decidedly advocated reform and energetic measures. In acting out the principles of the charter, Mayor Phillips was kind, conciliatory, and conservative. Such was the general confidence at the time in his taste and judgment, that he could have taken what direction he preferred in regard to the mode in which the mayor should in future bear the forms of office. Some were for display and pomp. Mr. Phillips preferred republican simplicity, and probably, by his example, we are saved the trappings of a lord mayor's day, or any profuseness at an annual organization of the city authorities. Mayor Quincy, his successor, said, "The first administration have laid the foundation of the prosperity of our city deep, and on right principles; and whatever success may attend those who come after them, they will be largely indebted for it to the wisdom and fidelity of their predecessors." The course of his control over the city government was unruffled as Lake Ontario on a calm, sunny day, and a striking contrast to the measures of his successor, whose operations, like the rushings of the resistless Niagara, in its vicinity, washed away the old landmarks, when Boston lost its identity as a town.

As a speaker, Mr. Phillips was clear, forcible, conciliatory and judicious. His voice was strong, without harshness, and his words. flowed without any great effort. If he never gave any striking specimen of eloquence, he certainly never mortified his friends by a failure. in debate, so often the misfortune amongst those who sometimes reach the sublime. He was not unfrequently, in the course of a week, called to make speeches before several different bodies of men, on various subjects, political, educational, commercial, financial or philanthropic, -and at all times he was listened to with profound attention and pleasure; and probably no cotemporary of any standing, in a moment of rivalry, could say to him, "My advice is as often followed as yours, and the influence you have I have also."

Mayor Phillips was of the common height in stature. His face was oval, with expressive eyes, and his cheeks were of a very ruddy hue; with partially gray hair, like a half-powdered dressing, and very neat attire. His appearance as president of the Senate, or at the meetings of the municipal authorities, was manly and dignified. In his countenance there was a peculiar calmness, indicative of that purity of heart for which he was greatly distinguished. Indeed, from the decease of his excellent mother, there was more than a commonly serious train of

thought in his letters and conversation; and it is not singular that the last impressions of a man should be religious, who learned to pray as he learned his alphabet, in his mother's arms, and, at school, was as careful to commit his biblical lesson as to retain his classical studies. He presided in the Senate on the day previous to his death, and was a spectator at the delivery of the election sermon at the Old South Church. In the course of the succeeding night he became so unwell as to require the attendance of a physician, and in the morning he for a short time appeared relieved, but, on a relapse of spasms, occasioned by an ossification of the heart, at nine o'clock in the morning he expired, May 29, 1823. The clamorous notes of fame, breathed over the conqueror's bier, have no music in them, without the conception of indestructible virtue in his mind, as it shone in Phillips.

The ancestor of the Phillips family of New England was Rev. George Phillips, of Raymond, Norfolk county, Old England, who came to America in 1630, and was the first minister of Watertown. The children of Mayor Phillips were Thomas Walley, H. C. 1814; George W., H. C. 1829; Wendell, H. C. 1831, ever active in the cause of humanity, a graceful speaker and fine classical scholar; Grenville Tudor, H. C. 1836; John C., H. C. 1826, in the ministry; Sarah H., married Alonzo Gray, of Brookline; Margaret W., married Dr. Edward Reynolds, of Boston; Miriam, married Rev. Dr. Blagden, of the Old South Church. The eldest son was for many years clerk of Suffolk Municipal Court. It were glory enough to have had such a family, and lived in the shades of retirement, without being in elevated public stations. Blessings on the memory of the first mayor of Boston! Mr. Otis, a successor, said of him, that "his aim was to allure, and not to repel; to reconcile by gentle reform, not to revolt by startling innovation, so that, while he led us into a new and fairer creation, we felt ourselves surrounded by the scenes and comforts of home."

"His hand and heart both open and both free,

For what he has he gives, what thinks, he shows;
Yet gives he not till judgment guides his bounty,

Nor dignifies an impure thought with breath.”’

GEORGE BLAKE.

JULY 4, 1795. FOR THE TOWN AUTHORITIES.

THE impassioned and declamatory oration of Mr. Blake is strongly evincive of the zeal of a youthful politician: "The whole continent of America, according to ministerial calculations, was destined to become a mere appendage to the patrimonial inheritance of George the Third; and the people of America, like the dragon of Hesperides, would have been allowed the honor to cherish and protect the fruit of which they were refused the power to participate. A project so infernal in its design, at the same time so uncertain in its event, could have been generated but by a ministry in the very dotage of wickedness, approved but by a monarch in leading-strings, and seconded only by the unthinking automatons who never move or act but from the impulse of their sovereign. In justice, however, to the more rational part of that deluded people, we shall not forget the feeling remonstrances which were poured forth by the purer spirits of the kingdom. But in vain! In vain did a Chatham, and a Camden, like the oracles of old, foresee and pronounce the fatal issue that awaited the measures of their government." Again Mr. Blake says, "Parliament, by their usual sanctity of pretension, could no longer conceal the malignity of their designs. That secret cabinet of iniquity was now thrown open, and, behold! like the den of the Cyclops, it exhibited a group of demons busied in forging engines of destruction,— in fabricating chains, daggers, and fetters, to enslave or destroy her devoted colonies."

George Blake was a descendant of William Blake, the common ancestor, who died at Dorchester, Oct. 25, 1663, and bequeathed by his will funds for keeping a fence or wall around the burying-ground in Dorchester, to keep hogs and other vermin from rooting up the bodies of the saints. George, the subject of this outline, was born at Hardwick, Mass., 1769, and graduated at Harvard College in 1789, when he took part in a conference with Samuel Haven-"Whether unlimited toleration be prejudicial to the cause of religion." He was a student at law under Governor Sullivan, and admitted to the bar in 1794. He settled in the practice of law in Boston, when he delivered the oration at the request of the town. On the same day, Gov.