in the broad land, an occupant who would have filled it with more native dignity, or one better fitted to restrain by courteous firmness, and by tact guide into safe and appropriate fields of action, the less disciplined and more fiery spirits of the body over which he presided. Let us now take a glance at the more prominent members of this notable little band of public conservators. Here, immersed in thought, sat, side by side, like brothers, as they were, the two Fays, those intelligent, enterprising, and persevering friends of freedom and state independence. And there sat the two Robinsons, alike patriotic, and active, or able, according to the different spheres of action in which they were about to be distinguished--one in the tented field, and the other on the bench and in the national councils. In another place was seen the short, thick-set form of the uncompromising Matthew Lyon, the Irish refugee, who was willing to be sold to pay his passage to America, for the sake of getting out of the despotic moral atmosphere of the old world, into one where his broad chest, as he was wont to say, could expand freely, and where his bold spirit could soar unclogged by the trammels of legitimacy. In his eagle eye, in every lineament of his clear, ardent, and fearless countenance, indeed, might be read the promise of what he was to become--the stern democrat, and the well-known champion of the whole right and the largest liberty. In contrast to him, near by was seen the tall, commanding form, and the firm and thoughtful countenance, of Benjamin Carpenter, who had just arrived, with pack and cane, from Guilford, from which he had that day come on foot by a route designated by marked trees, through the mountain wilderness, nearly thirty miles in extent. Farther on, and seated before an open window, was Thomas Rowley, the first poet of the Green Mountains. He was here because he was a public favorite, a trusty patriot, and something of a statesman. But, like most other poets, he was not without his peculiarities of temperament, as might have been seen by his manner and movements even in this staid assembly; for, as if disgusted with a tedious and profitless debate, and determined also not long to be troubled by the disconcerting news just announced, he had now evidently cast these cares from his mind, to indulge in the more congenial employment of gazing out upon the landscape, over which his kindling eye might have been seen to wander, till it rested, in rapture, on the broad empurpled side and bright summit of the lofty Equinox Mountain, whose contrasted magnificence was growing every moment more striking and beautiful in the beams of the low-descending sun. On the opposite side of the room stood the mild and gentlemanly Nathan Clark, the future speaker of the first legislature of Vermont; and by his side, the dark and rough-featured Gideon Olin, an embryo member of Congress, was leaning against the wall, with a