Thus usefully lived and happily died one of the brightest specimens of human excellence. His whole career presents a rare and rich picture upon which the imagination may feast, with increasing delight and which cannot be rendered more beautiful or interesting by the finest touches of the pencil of fancy dipped in the most brilliant color of romance. He was of the middle stature, well formed, with a large head; an intelligent and expressive countenance, moderate in his physical movements and with all his vivacity generally had a grave aspect. He was temperate, plain and uniform in his habits and dress and could seldom be induced to join in chase after the _ignis fatuus_--FASHION. For many years before his death his wardrobe was of an order belonging to a by-gone generation. His courtesy and hospitality were always conspicuous--the whole frame-work of his character was embellished with all the rich varieties of amiable and good qualities--uniting beauty with strength which ever gain esteem in life and tranquillity in death. Reader contemplate this bright picture until its impress is so deeply fixed upon your mind that nought but death can erase it. WILLIAM FLOYD. Lexicographers define ambition to be an earnest desire of power, honor, preferment, pride. Some who study party politics more than philosophy, physiology or ethics, call all the laudable desires of the heart AMBITION--aiming to strip the monster of its deformity that they may sail under false colors and play the pirate whenever an opportunity offers. The power that is gained by ambition is held by a slender tenure--often a mere rope of sand. Its hero may receive the homage of the multitude one day and be the victim of their fury the next. The summit of vain ambition is often the depth of misery. Based on a volcanic foundation it is in constant danger of an eruption. Inflated by a gaseous thirst for power, like a balloon with hydrogen, it is liable to an explosion from the very material that elevated it. Predicated on self--it spurns philanthropy, banishes charity, tramples on justice, despises patriotism, deals largely in the corrosive sublimate of falsehood, the elixir vitriol of revenge--the assafœtida of duplicity. Like a kite, it cannot rise in a calm and when up, is subject to fly from its fastenings and be rent by the cross currents ever in motion. The fulcrum of ignorance and the lever of party spirit form its magic power.