on Commonwealth Avenue, in our city of Boston, is a monument of his own architectural taste.  In Europe this residence would be called a palace, here it is simply the home of a representative American citizen.  Peculiarly happy in his domestic relations his home is beautified and ennobled by the virtues of domestic life.  A generous hospitality is dispensed within its portals, where on every hand are found the evidences of the cultured refinement of its occupants.  A tour of a few months in the Old World not only gave Mr. Ames needed rest and relaxation from business cares, but also furnished him with opportunities for observation which were most judiciously improved.  In his religious belief he is a Unitarian, and has for many years been an active member of the Unitarian Society of North Easton.

In his native town he is unusually respected and beloved, and with the working-men in his factories he enjoys an unbounded popularity.  This is but natural, since he is himself a skilled artisan, an inventive and ingenious mechanic, familiar through a personal experience with every detail of the work in which they are engaged.  This, coupled with his native kindness of heart, and his unpretentious manners, makes him the model employer.

The custodian of great wealth, he uses it in a spirit of wise benevolence, and his public and private benefactions, while large, are made without ostentation or affectation.  Affable, approachable, companionable, devoted and faithful in his personal friendships, it is little wonder that some of them now and then impulsively speak of him as “the best man in the world.”

In the full vigor of a robust manhood, Mr. Ames attends to his vast private business affairs, performs faithfully his official and public duties, finds time for his favorite authors, and keeps fully abreast with current thought and the progress of the age.  His brow is yet unwrinkled and cares rest lightly upon him.  Free from the pride of wealth, temperate, conservative, clear-headed, and distinguished for his strong common sense, his generous, unsuspicious nature, and unswerving fidelity to the interests committed to his trust justly win for him a multitude of friends.

Faithful in his devotion to the principles of the Republican party, and in his services to his native Commonwealth, Massachusetts has reason for a just pride in her Lieutenant Governor.  His name may yet stand the Republican party of the State in good stead in a political exigency not unlikely to arise in the near future.  Whatever may be said of the causes of the defection from the Republican ranks which took place in the last national campaign, there is no doubt about one of its results,—­it has driven the Republican party to seek a closer alliance with the working-people of the Commonwealth.  The Republican bolters were almost exclusively drawn from the aristocratic end of the party.  It was Harvard and Beacon Hill that revolted.  To make good the loss the Republican leaders had to appeal