For twenty-five years he was the chairman of a local Republican committee; he made campaign speeches; he sat in conventions; he influenced thousands of votes. Moreover, his views triumphed. They did so in the anti-slavery cause; they did so in the Civil Service Reform movement, and in the Independent movement of 1884. Surely that is not the record of a dilettante. He never pulled wires, nor did he seek office; that is all. Once he ran for Congress in a Democratic district, sure of defeat, but wishing to have a better chance, as candidate, for speech-making. He took the chairmanship of the Civil Service Advisory Board as an imperative duty, and resigned it as soon as he saw its futility under President Grant’s rule. Seward wanted to make him Consul-General in Egypt; Mr. Hayes offered him the mission to England, and again that to Germany; but he refused each one. His only political ambition was to instil sound principles, and to oppose practical _patriotism_ to “practical politics.” Honorary distinctions he was willing to accept, in another field. He was an LL.D. of Harvard, Brown and Madison universities; and in 1864 he was appointed a Regent of the University of New York, in the line of succession to John Jay, Chancellor Kent and Gulian Verplanck. This, it seems to me, was a very fit association, for Mr. Curtis was attached by his qualities of integrity and refinement to the best representatives of New York. The idea often occurs to one, that he, more than any one else, continued the example which Washington Irving set; an example of kindliness and good-nature blended with indestructible dignity, and of a delicately imaginative mind consecrating much of its energy to public service. A teacher of a true State policy, rather than a statesman--an inspiring leader, more than he was an organizer or executant--he yet did much hard work in organizing, and tried to perpetuate the desirable tradition that culture should be joined to questions of right in Government, and of the popular weal. Twenty years a lecturer, without rest; twenty-five years a political editor; thirty-six years the suave and genial occupant of the “Easy Chair”; always steadfast to the highest aims, and ignoring unworthy slurs;--may we not say reasonably that he had “staying power”? One source of it was to be found in the serene cheer of his family life in that Staten Island cottage to which he clung so closely, and among the well-loved Ashfield hills, where he long continued to show that power. GEORGE PARSONS LATHROP. DR. EDWARD EGGLESTON DR. EDWARD EGGLESTON AT LAKE GEORGE