Since this is so, I shall pass over his brief administration with very few words. I do not know how much it was the administration of General Taylor, or how far it was that of his Cabinet. I do not know who made the Cabinet. The messages, in his official term, were as good as usual; but who made the messages? One thing is clear: he promised to be the President of the country, not of a party; to remove no man from office except for reasons not political. Neither promise was kept. It was plain that other elements interfered and counteracted the honest intentions of that honest man. General Jackson rewarded his "friends" and punished his "enemies," men who voted against him. Mr. Jefferson had done the same. But I doubt if the administration of either of these men was so completely a party administration as that of General Taylor. Men were continually removed from office purely for political reasons. The general character of his appointments to office, you can judge of better than I. It seems to me the removal of subordinate officers from their station on account of their vote is one great evil in the management of our institutions. Of what consequence is it whether the postmaster at Eastham or West-Newton, the keeper of the lighthouse at Cape Anne, or the Clay Pounds of Truro, or the district attorney in Boston, or the tide-waiters at Nantucket are "good whigs," or not good whigs? * * * * * What shall I say of the character of the man who has left this high office; of him on the whole? Some men can be as eloquent on a ribbon as on a Raphael. They find no difficulty in calling General Taylor "The second Washington." I like the first Washington too much to call any one by that name lightly. General Harrison was the "Second Washington" ten years ago. General Jackson ten years before that. I think there is another "Second Washington" getting ready, and before the century ends we shall perhaps have five or six of this family. But the world does not breed great men every day. I must confess it, I have not seen any thing very great in General Taylor, though I have diligently put my eye to the magnifying glasses of his political partisans; neither have I seen any thing uncommonly mean and little in him, though I have also looked through the minifying glasses of his foes. To be a frontier soldier for forty years, to attain the rank of Colonel at the age of forty-eight, after twenty-four years of service, to become a Brigadier-General at fifty-four, is no great thing. To defend a log-house, to capture Black Hawk, to use bloodhounds in war, and to extirpate the Seminole Indians from the everglades of Florida, to conquer the Mexicans at Churubusco and Monterey, does not require very high qualities of mind and heart. But in all the offices he ever held, he appears to have done his official duty openly and honestly. He was a good officer, a plain, blunt, frank, open, modest man. No doubt he was "rough and ready;" his