He then again entered for a short period into public life, and represented the city of New York in the twenty-fourth congress, where he was distinguished for his business habits, for his close attention to the interests of his constituents, and, we might also say, for making short speeches. Disdaining the arts of the demagogue, he made no efforts to acquire an ephemeral popularity in the usual modes, and was consequently not re-elected to congress. His political life may be said to have ended with the termination of the session of congress, in March, 1837, with an exception. He was in 1840, chosen a member of the electoral college of New York, for choosing the president and vicepresident of the United States.

In politics Mr. Lee was a democratic republican, and supported the administrations of Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Jackson. Disapproving, however, of the measures of Mr. Van Buren's administration, he became what was called a "conservative," acting with the whigs after the year 1837, and was chosen by that party one of the electoral college, which gave the vote of the state to General Harrison, as president of the United States.

Shortly after retiring from congress, Mr. Lee removed to the village of Geneva, in Ontario county, New York, where he had purchased a beautiful

estate; and in improving and adorning it, and in the education of his children, he contemplated spending the remainder of his days. He had, however, but barely commenced, as he expressed it, "winding up his end of life," in the manner he had so long and ardently desired, when death removed him from his labors. He was seized with bilious fever, accompanied by neuralgia, early in July, 1841, and on the 21st of August succeeding, was gathered to his fathers, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, leaving to his family an ample fortune, the honest fruits of a well-spent life.

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Death

Of one who thus lived, it will create no surprise to be informed that he was prepared to die. did not find him a reluctant or unwilling voyager to his dark domains. At his beckoning he laid down his plans and cares with cheerfulness and pious resignation to the divine will, and sunk with calm dignity to his last repose, with a grateful heart for all the blessings and mercies he had experienced. He died full of faith and hope in the promises of his Redeemer.

"The lamp of life of such men," says his friend and biographer, "can not be extinguished without casting around a gloom; their absence from society creates a void that must be ever felt. They may leave no blazing reputation to dazzle or astonish,

but they leave one that distributes its invigorating influence, wherever virtue has a friend, or philanthropy an advocate."*

SAMUEL DREW.

THOSE individuals who have raised themselves from obscurity to distinction, always attract our notice; but when that distinction has been attained in spite of obstacles apparently insurmountable, they become the especial objects of our curiosity. This feeling is not only laudable but beneficial. Curiosity leads to knowledge; knowledge causes admiration; and admiration becomes an incentive to honorable effort. It is this which gives to biography its value; and of few persons can the biogra-phy be more instructive than that of the subject of this sketch.

Samuel Drew was born on the third of March, 1765, near St. Austell, in the county of Cornwall, England. He was the second son of four children. His parents were poor, but pious. His father, who earned a bare subsistence for himself and family by his daily labor as a husbandman, was a convert to methodism under the preaching of John Wesley, whose society he joined in early life. His mother,

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whom he had the misfortune to lose before he was ten years old, was a decidedly religious woman, and of strong intellectual powers. Of her memory he always spoke with reverence and affection; and the pious lessons which, in his infancy, he learned from her, were never forgotten.

The poverty of his parents prevented him from receiving many of the advantages of an early education. He however learned to form the letters of the alphabet, previous to his mother's death, but at eight years of age, he was taken from school, and sent to work at a mill near his father's cottage, where tinners refined their ore. His wages were at first three halfpence, and were afterward advanced to two pence per day. When rather more than ten years old, his father bound him an apprentice for nine years, to a shoemaker, in an adjoining parish.

During his apprenticeship, Drew had occasional access to a little publication called the "Weekly Entertainer," which was then extensively circulated in the west of England, and contained many tales and narratives which interested him. Into the narratives of adventures connected with the war of the American revolution, he entered with all the zeal of a partisan on the side of the Americans. He felt a strong desire to join himself to a priva

and few clothes, the Besides these period

teer, but having no money idea and scheme were vain. icals, he read but little, and nearly lost the art of writing. The treatment he received while an apprentice, being such as his disposition could not brook, he left his master when about seventeen, and refused to return. His father compounded for the residue of the term, and procured him employment, and further instruction in his business, at Millbrook, near Plymouth, in which place and neighborhood he continued about three years. In 1785, when about twenty years of age, he went to St. Austell, to conduct the shoemaking business for a person who was by trade a saddler, and had acquired some knowledge of book-binding. With this employer he continued about two years, and then commenced business as a shoemaker in that town, on his own account. A miller with whom he was acquainted, lent him five pounds, as capital in trade, fourteen shillings being the total of his own cash, his thirst for knowledge having induced him to lay out in books such money as he could save from his earnings as a journeyman. joined the methodist society in 1785, soon after becoming the subject of religious impressions, under the preaching of the celebrated Adam Clarke, with whom he soon afterward became acquainted; and

He