As the eye wanders around our circle, Mr. President, in vain it seeks a beloved form, for many years so welcome in the seat you now fill. I might have looked to behold him on this occasion. But death, since we last met together, has borne him away. The love of friends, the devotion of pupils, the prayers of the nation, the concern of the world, could not shield him from the inexorable shaft. Borrowing for him those words of genius and friendship which gushed from Clarendon at the name of Falkland, that he was "a person of prodigious parts of learning and knowledge, of inimitable sweetness and delight in conversation, of flowing and obliging humanity and goodness to mankind, and of primitive simplicity and integrity of life,"[156] I need not add the name of STORY. To dwell on his character, and all that he has done, were a worthy theme. But his is not the only well-loved countenance which returns no answering smile. [156] History of the Rebellion, Book VII. This year our Society, according to custom, publishes the catalogue of its members, marking by a star the insatiate archery of Death during the brief space of four years. In no period of its history, equally short, have such shining marks been found. "Now kindred Merit fills the sable bier, Now lacerated Friendship claims a tear; Year chases year, decay pursues decay, Still drops some joy from withering life away."[157] [157] Johnson, Vanity of Human Wishes, vv. 303-306. Scholarship, Jurisprudence, Art, Humanity, each is called to mourn a chosen champion. Pickering the Scholar, Story the Jurist, Allston the Artist, Channing the Philanthropist, are gone. When our last catalogue was published they were all living, each in his field of fame. Our catalogue of this year gathers them with the peaceful dead. Sweet and exalted companionship! They were joined in life, in renown, and in death. They were brethren of our fraternity, sons of Alma Mater. Story and Channing were classmates; Pickering preceded them by two years only, Allston followed them by two years. Casting our eyes upon the closing lustre of the last century, we discern this brilliant group whose mortal light is now obscured. After the toils of his long life, Pickering sleeps serenely in the place of his birth, near the honored dust of his father. Channing, Story, and Allston have been laid to rest in Cambridge, where they first tasted together the tree of life: Allston in the adjoining church-yard, within sound of the voice that now addresses you; Channing and Story in the pleasant, grassy bed of Mount Auburn, under the shadow of beautiful trees, whose falling autumnal leaves are fit emblem of the generations of men.