countenance of mingled sternness and gloom. By the side of one of the tables, in front of the president, might also have been seen the stout, burly frame, and the matter-of-fact and business-like countenance, of Paul Spooner, engaged in writing a despatch. And as the last, though not as the least, among the strongly-contrasted characters of this assembly of whom we propose to take note, let us turn to the youthful secretary of the council, Ira Allen. So much the junior of his colleagues was he, indeed, that a spectator might well have wondered how he came to be selected as one of such a sage and elderly body of councillors. But those who procured his appointment knew full well why they had done so; and his history thenceforward was destined to prove a continued justification of their high opinion of him. He was of an active, mercurial turn, and, as might have been seen, was not inclined to remain long in one place or posture. He had now thrown aside his rapid pen, and, with a quick, light step and deeply-cogitating air, was traversing back and forth the open space between his table, in front of the president, and the closed door of the apartment. Both in form and feature, he was one of the handsomest men of his day; while a mind at once versatile, clear, and penetrating, with perceptions as quick as light, was stamped on his Grecian brow, or found a livelier expression in his lucid black eyes and other lineaments of his strikingly intellectual countenance. Such as he appeared for the first time on the stage of public action was the noted Ira Allen, whose true history, when written, will show him to have been, either secretly or openly, the originator, or successful prosecutor, of more important political measures, affecting the interests and independence of the state, and the issue of the war in the Northern Department, than any other individual in Vermont, making him, with the many peculiar traits of character he possessed, one of the most remarkable men of the times in which he so conspicuously figured.