in the erection of that immense undertaking, the Croton Aqueduct, a demonstration worthy of the talents and renown of Major Douglass. There was something very engaging in the physiognomy of Colles. He was naturally cheerful and buoyant; at times pensive, yet free from any corrosive melancholy. His ample front, his sparse white locks, his cavernous gray eyes, with that weakness which often marks old age, betokened a resigned spirit. To see him on an early morning visit, seated at his small pine table, with his bowl of milk, his dry bread and potato, offering up grace for the bounties he was favored with, was a lesson to the ungrateful epicure, of edifying influence. The cheerfulness and mellowness of his life are well expressed in the words of Dyer, on another occasion:
(I sing not to the vacant or the young,)
There is a kindly mood of melancholy
That wings the soul and points her to the skies"
If to his great and varied attainments Colles had added the practical functions of a school-master, or had he been more fortunate in his fiscal relations, he might have been honored with the highest academic distinction by some of our venerable collegiate institutions.
