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sensibility and heartfelt gratitude, the many instances of public confidence and the generous support which I have received from my fellow citizens in the various trusts with which I have been honored. Having commenced my service in early youth, and continued it since with few and short intervals, I have witnessed the great difficulties to which our Union has been exposed, and admired the virtue and courage with which they were surmounted."

1819, completing the work of annexa- all a man of eloquence, or trained in its tion commenced in the purchase of liberal art, he could hardly have failed Louisiana. When the time for reëlec- to impress some striking images of his tion came round, so entire was the sub-past life in a retrospect of his memora sidence of party, that President Monroe ble career. But this was not the nawas again chosen with but one dissent- ture or talent of the man. In the siming vote, that of New Hampshire, plest words, he takes leave of the which was given to John Quincy public; but to those who were ac Adams. He continued to pursue a quainted with his life, as to himself, liberal policy of internal improvements they were pregnant with meaning. "I within the limits of the Constitution, cannot conclude this communication," to forward the military defences on ends his eighth annual message, "the land, and the growth and employment last of the kind which I shall have to of the navy at sea. The revolutionary make, without recollecting, with great movements in the Spanish provinces, in which he took an earnest interest, engaged much of his attention. The close of his administration was marked by the progress of Lafayette through the country, a subject to which he made special allusion in his last annual message. "A more interesting spectacle," he said, with some reference perhaps to his own recollections, "it is believed was never witnessed, because none could be founded on purer principles, none proceed from higher or more disinterested motives. That the feelings of those who had fought and bled with him in a common cause should have been much excited was natural. But the circumstance which was most sensibly felt, and which his presence brought to the mind of all, was the great cause in which we were engaged, and the blessings which we have derived from our success in it. The struggle was for independence and liberty, public and personal, and in this we succeeded." President Monroe was a plain writer, not at all given to the graces of rhetoric; had he been at

Mr. Monroe retired from Washing ton to a temporary residence in Loudon County, where, true to a policy of usefulness which had governed him through life, he discharged the duties of Justice of the Peace. He was also one of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, a body of nine appointed by the Governor every fourth year, who with the Rector have the entire direction of that important State institution. He was also chosen President of the Convention which sat to revise the Constitution of Virginia, in the winter of 1829-30; but ill health, and the infirmities of advanced life

twenty-seven years ago, he departed, like Jefferson and Adamıs, on the anniversary of Independence. His spirit was caught up to heaven, and his ashes were enshrined in the soil of his adopted State, whose daughter he had married; of that grand and prosperous

sior,' our sister New York, the Empire State of the United States of America. Virginia was the natural mother of Monroe, and New York was his motherin-law; Virginia by birth and baptism, New York by marriage and burial. This was well, for he gave to her invaders the glaived hand of 'bloody welcome' at Trenton, and New York gave to him a 'hospitable grave.' Virginia

compelled him to retire from his seat before the adjournment of that body. The death of his wife was now added to his affliction, and his home in Virginia being thus broken up, he removed to New York to dwell with his son-inlaw, Mr. Samuel L. Gouverneur. His death happened shortly after in this Commonwealth whose motto is 'Excelnew home, on the Fourth of July, 1831, "the flickering lamp of life holding its lingering flame as if to await the day of the nation's birth and glory." He was buried with public honors in the Marble Cemetery, in Second street, where his remains reposed till the summer of 1858, when they were removed at the instance of the State of Virginia to the rural cemetery of Holly. wood, on the banks of James River, respectfully allowed his ashes to lie overlooking the city of Richmond. They again received public honors from New York, and were escorted to their final resting-place by the Seventh Regiment of New York State troops, gene rally known as the National Guard. The time chosen for the new interment was the anniversary of his death, but as that day fell on Sunday, the funeral celebration at Richmond took place on the fifth of July. An address was delivered at the grave by Governor Wise of Virginia, in which, after enumerating the events of the long and honorable public career of the departed, he dwelt upon the circumstances of his burial. "Venerable patriot!" was his language, "he found his rest soon after he retired. On the Fourth of July, 1831,

John Quincy Adams.

long enough to consecrate her sister's soil, and now has dutifully taken them to be 'earth to her earth and ashes to her ashes,' at home in the land of his cradle."

In person President Monroe was tall and well formed, of light complexion and blue eyes. His long and acceptable public life bears witness to his personal and intellectual qualities. In the words of the sketch of the late Senator Benton just quoted, "his parts were not shining but solid. He lacked genius, but he possessed judgment; and it was the remark of Dean Swift, that genius was not necessary to the conducting of the affairs of State; that judgment, diligence, knowledge, good intentions and will were sufficient. Mr. Monroe was an instance of the soundness of this remark."

WASHINGTON ALLSTON.

"It is a pleasing moral coincidence," | seven, at Newport, under the charge says the writer of the notice of Allston of Mr. Robert Rogers, by whom he

in the "Cyclopædia of American Lite- was prepared for Harvard College, rature," "that two of the foremost which he entered at seventeen. Renames in our national literature and fined from his youth, fond of books art should be associated with that of and learning, we may safely fancy him the great leader in war and peace, of pursuing every advantage of literary their country." Certainly few of the cultivation in that time-honored instimany who have thus borne the name tution. Mr. Richard H. Dana, jr., the of George Washington, have worn it editor of a portion of his writings, with greater honor than Washington has prefixed, in a preface to the work, Irving and Washington Allston. To- a brief notice of Allston's career, in tally unlike the great hero by whose which this portion of his life is thus name they were called, in their tastes and pursuits, each possessed one great quality by which the master was best distinguished a thorough fidelity and integrity in whatever he undertook.

spoken of: "While at school and college, he developed in a marked manner a love of nature, music, poetry, and painting. Endowed with senses capa ble of the wisest perceptions, and with Washington Allston was descended a mental and moral constitution which from a family of considerable distinc- tended always, with the certainty of a tion in South Carolina, "being a branch physical law, to the beautiful, the pure of a family of the baronet rank in the and the sublime, he led what many titled commonalty of England." He might call an ideal life. Yet was he was born in Charleston, November 5, far from being a recluse, or from being 1779. It was the custom then, more disposed to an excess of introversion. than at present, to send the youth of On the contrary, he was a popular, the South to the North, where the chief high-spirited youth, almost passionately colleges and schools were situated, for fond of society, maintaining an unus education. In accordance with this ual number of warm friendships, and custom, and to aid in strengthening his unsurpassed by any of the young men constitution, which could ill bear his of his day in adaptedness to the ele native climate, Allston passed his gances and courtesies of the more schooldays, from the early age of six or refined portions of the moving world.

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