We are glad, though at a late hour, to pay, with many others, our tribute to the ability and worth of Wendell Phillips, and to review his life and work. Glad to do this, for his life was clean and clear, the kind men love to honor; his work was that of the philanthropist and patriot. He had entered his seventy-third year, having been born November 29, 1811, in a house which is still standing on the lower corner of Beacon and Walnut streets, Boston. He came from one of Boston’s aristocratic families; for several generations the Phillipses were well known, rich and influential. His father, John Phillips, was chosen first mayor of Boston in 1822, in a triangular contest, with Harrison Gray Otis and Josiah Quincy as rival candidates. Young Phillips had the best of educational advantages. He prepared for college at the famous Boston Latin School; entered Harvard in his sixteenth, and graduated in his twentieth year. One of his classmates was the historian Motley, a man, like Phillips, of handsome person, of courtly manners, and high social position. From college Phillips passed to the Cambridge Law School, from which he graduated in 1833, and the following year he was admitted to the bar. But he was not long to follow the law. The public career of this man whose name is known in every land, dates from a certain illustrious meeting held in Faneuil Hall, Boston, in 1837. It was an era of great excitement. In Congress, John Quincy Adams, the undaunted, was presenting petitions for the abolition of slavery, in the midst of the howls and execrations of the friends of the institution. Elijah I. Lovejoy had been murdered by a pro-slavery mob at Alton, Illinois, while defending his printing press. Two years before, Boston had witnessed the mobbing of Garrison. Phillips himself was a witness of the spectacle, and the following year he joined the American Anti-Slavery Society. A meeting was called in Faneuil Hall by Dr. Channing and other friends of freedom to express indignation over Lovejoy’s murder. That meeting will long live in history. Jonathan Phillips, a second cousin of Wendell, presided. Dr. Channing and others spoke. At length, the Attorney-General of the State, James T. Austin, took the platform and delivered a speech in direct opposition to the sentiments which had been expressed. It was not without effect. The people cheered as the speaker declared that Lovejoy died as the fool dieth, and placed his murderers by the side of the men who destroyed the tea in Boston Harbor. The meeting, designed to be one of indignation for the murder of Lovejoy, bid fair to turn into a meeting of approbation. But Wendell Phillips was the next speaker, and he had not spoken long before the tide was again reversed. This, his first public plea for free speech, human freedom and equal rights, was wonderfully effective. It carried the audience and established at once the speaker’s fame as the foremost orator of the anti-slavery cause.