Yet, probably, it was not ill health alone that determined Mr. Sparks's removal to Boston. I think he had already set his heart on the great themes of National History, and resolved, if possible, to pursue the work faithfully by the acquisition of the vast and scattered materials it needed. Upon his arrival in Massachusetts in 1823, he purchased the North American Review, and became its sole editor from January, 1824, to April, 1830. In these seven years his industrious pen contributed no less than fifty articles, many of profound study, and all adding to the solid critical literature of America. It was in 1828 that he made his first elaborate biographical essay in the attractive Life of John Ledyard, the American Traveller. About this time, too, good fruits were borne to him by his previous residence in Baltimore and the acquaintance he had made with the illustrious men who, in those days, were found every winter in Washington. In that city his worth had been recognized by the descendants of prominent revolutionary personages, by leading legislators and public functionaries from the several States, and, particularly, by such persons as Chief Justice Marshall, the biographer of Washington, and his nephew Bushrod Washington and Mr. Justice Story, both, at that time, Associate Judges of the Supreme Court. Thenceforward, the idea that had taken possession of his mind on the temporary failure of his health at Baltimore--"the city of noble souls, of large-hearted men," as he was wont to call it--became the ruling purpose of his life. He was to run the career of a man of letters, and in a country hardly ripe for literary production. American history was to be his occupation; all things else became subservient to this great purpose. He had conceived the project of collecting the correspondence of Washington, and of gathering all the accessible documents in this country and Europe necessary for an authentic life of the great chief. On his first application for the Washington manuscripts, which Mr. Justice Bushrod Washington had intended to edit, Mr. Sparks was told, much as he was respected, he could by no means have them. Yet, his journal of that date has no complaining, despondent mention of the rebuff, for, on that very day he set forth from the city of Washington on his journey to the South, in quest of other materials; and, with a light, confident, indefatigable spirit, went on patiently collecting them from public and private sources, everywhere finding profitable work, and, with marvellous keenness and sagacity, choosing and appropriating whatever he should want for the great task which it was his destiny to accomplish. Our archives at Annapolis, scant and neglected as they unfortunately are, still bear marks of his diligence; and, years after his task was completed in our State House, I have found, among our documents, the frequent traces of his minute and accurate labors. This, I am told, was a life-long trait of his