as the ether he breathed, an affectionate father, a devoted husband, a firm and unflinching friend through every phase of fortune—­in fine, every element which makes a man united in Alexander Barrow.  Dear reader, if I seem extravagant in these words, pardon it to me.  When seventy winters have passed over your head, and you turn back your memory upon all that has passed, recalling the incidents and the friends of life, and you remember those which have transpired with him you loved best and trusted most, and remember that he was always true, never capricious, always wise, never foolish, always sincere, never equivocal, and who never failed you in the darkest hours of adversity, but was always the same to you in kindness, forbearance, and devotion, remember such was ever to me Alexander Barrow, and forgive this wild outpouring of the heart to the virtues of the friend, tried so long, and loved so well.  For more than twenty years he has been in his grave; but in all that time no day has ever passed that Alick has not stood before me as he was when we were young and life was full of hope.  His blood with mine mingles in the veins of our grandchildren.  O God!  I would there were nothing to make this a painful memory.

Barrow served some years in the Legislature of the State, and was thence transferred to the United States Senate, where, after a service of six years, he died, in the prime of his manhood.  Those who remember the speech of Hannegan, and the attempt of Crittenden, who, under the deep sorrow of his heart, sank voiceless and in tears to his chair—­the feeling which filled and moved the Senate when paying the last tribute to his dead body, coffined and there before them in the Senate chamber—­may know how those estimated the man who knew him best.  Friend of my heart, farewell!  We soon shall meet, with vernal youth restored, to endure forever.

There was another, Walter Brashear, our intimate friend for long years.  He went to eternity after a pilgrimage of eighty-eight years in the sunshine and shadows of this miserable world.  He was a native of the city of Philadelphia, but with his parents went to Kentucky, when a boy.  These soon died, and Walter was left an orphan and poor, then but a boy.  After attending a common neighborhood school in the County of Fayette, near Lexington, one year, he found it necessary to find support in some employment.  Walking the streets of Lexington in search of this, the breeze blew to his feet a fragment of newspaper, which he picked up and read from curiosity.  Here he found an advertisement inviting those who had ginseng for sale, to call.  He knew there was plenty of this root to be found in portions of Kentucky, and determined immediately to embark in the speculation of searching for it and sending it to Philadelphia.  He labored assiduously, and soon had acquired a considerable sum of money for those times, 1801.  He employed several hands to assist him the ensuing season, and