Dedicatory Address, at the re-opening of the Boston ᏢᎪᎡᎢ II. "On the tent-plains of Shinah, Truth's mystical clime," 280 Oration, before the Young Men of Boston, - Eulogy on the Life of General George Washington, Communication on the Boston Female Asylum, Critique on the Drama of "Adrian and Orilla," 301 329 345 353 SKETCHES OF THE LIFE, CHARACTER AND WRITINGS OF THE LATE ROBERT TREAT PAINE, JUN. ESQ. BY CHARLES PRENTISS. "Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice." BIOGRAPHY. It is not the design of the writer of this memoir, nor the wish of the publisher of this volume, to present an ample biography of the late ROBERT TREAT PAINE, JUN. ESQ. or an elaborate discussion on the merits of his poetic effusions. This sketch will therefore embrace merely a short account of his life and writings, together with a brief critical notice of his principal poetic productions. In Europe, scarcely a year has of late elapsed, which had not been pregnant with rhyming volumes, born only to see the light and die; many of them swelled with unimportant biographical information, or a prodigality of critical disquisition. The labors of the poet, of his biographer and critic, are soon forgotten: hence, however barren the first, or partial or inadequate the latter, the public sustain little injury from such evanescent performances. With Mr. Paine and the offspring of his muse, it is far otherwise. Although some of his writings are but the moderate efforts of boyhood, 'or the subsequent effects of casual and careless exertion; many of them are the legitimate and in |