Frequent enquiries, and opposite statements have been made, in regard to the religious tenets of the Kentucky hunter.  It is due to truth to state, that Boone, little addicted to books, knew but little of the bible, the best of all.  He worshipped, as he often said, the Great Spirit—­for the woods were his books and his temple; and the creed of the red men naturally became his.  But such were the truth, simplicity, and kindness of his character, there can be but little doubt, had the gospel of the Son of God been proposed to him, in its sublime truth and reasonableness, that he would have added to all his other virtues, the higher name of Christian.

He was five feet ten inches in height, of a very erect, clean limbed, and athletic form—­admirably fitted in structure, muscle, temperament, and habit, for the endurance of the labors, changes, and sufferings he underwent.  He had what phrenologists would have considered a model head—­with a forehead peculiarly high, noble, and bold—­thin and compressed lips—­a mild, clear, blue eye—­a large and prominent chin, and a general expression of countenance in which fearlessness and courage sat enthroned, and which told the beholder at a glance, what he had been, and was formed to be.

We have only to add, that the bust of Boone, in Washington, the painting of him ordered by the General Assembly of Missouri, and the engravings of him in general, have—­his family being judges—­very little resemblance.  They want the high port and noble daring of his countenance.

Though ungratefully requited by his country, he has left a name identified with the history of Kentucky, and with the founders and benefactors of our great republic.  In all future time, and in every portion of the globe; in history, in sculpture, in song, in eloquence—­the name of Daniel Boone will be recorded as the patriarch of Backwoods Pioneers.

His name has already been celebrated by more than one poet.  He is the hero of a poem called the “MOUNTAIN MUSE,” by our amiable countryman, Bryan.  He is supposed to be the original from which the inimitable characters of LEATHER STOCKING, HAWKEYE, and the TRAPPER of the PRAIRIES, in Cooper’s novels, were drawn; and we will close these memoirs, with the splendid tribute to the patriarch of backwoodsmen, by the prince of modern poets, Lord Byron.

    Of all men, saving Sylla, the man-slayer,
    Who passes for in life and death most lucky,
    Of the great names which in our faces stare,
    The General Boone, backwoodsman of Kentucky,
    Was happiest among mortals any where,
    For killing nothing, but a bear or buck; he
    Enjoy’d the lonely, vigorous, harmless days
    Of his old age, in wilds of deepest maze.

    Crime came not near him; she is not the child
    Of solitude; health shrank not from him, for
    Her home is in the rarely trodden wild,
    Which, if men seek her not, and death be more
    Their choice than life, forgive them, as beguil’d
    By habit to what their own hearts abhor—­
    In cities cag’d.  The present case in point I
    Cite is, Boone liv’d hunting up to ninety: