Anniversary Address, 207 



and earnestness were the characteristics of his private and public 

 life. His style of thought, feeling, and expression was fresh and 

 buoyant as the " breath of morning." He possessed the happy 

 art of using his mind — a certain continual power of seizing the 

 useful of all that he knew, and exhibiting it, in a clear and 

 forcible manner ; so that knowledge in him was true, evident, and 

 actual wisdom. His mind was full of imagery, and therefore 

 highly poetical. He possessed peculiar powers of wit and 

 humour, and the heartiest merriment was often enjoyed iu his 

 company ; and it had this great advantage, that being free from 

 every mixture of vice or impiety, it was salutary to those who 

 enjoyed it. His acute observation, with something of a bene- 

 volent interest in what was minute and homely, and a sense of 

 the beautiful and humorous, akin to that of Burns or of Bewick, 

 with a refinement that belonged to neither, made him almost un- 

 rivalled in description and anecdote ; and, besides, there was an 

 overflowing cordial kindness, which raised our delight in his 

 society into fondness for the man. There was, too, an inner, 

 tenderer society, which I have often had the happiness to wit- 

 ness, bound together entirely by the chains of love. No trouble, 

 if any occurred, was ever allowed to rankle in secret, but was at 

 once confided to his family, and borne bravely in common. 

 Gloom found no resting-place at his fireside, but freedom, 

 mirth, and playful banter. Yet that " perfect love,'' which had 

 nothing to fear, deepened the sense of deference ; there was a 

 union of sentiment between father and family which required no 

 authority to enforce it, — it was a union more from sympathy 

 than obedience. Yet, with all these winning properties, his 

 disposition was not of that mawkish temperament which never 

 offends, or takes offence at anything, and is often mere indolence, 

 or a selfish " liking to be liked." He hated no man ; but he 

 thoroughly hated meanness, pretence, jobbery, and shams of 

 every kind. On every occasion, light or serious, it was the 

 same. He maintained, that the only cure for quackery was to 

 teach the public the folly of it ; and that there was more of 

 quackery in the means of notoriety used by some fashionable 

 practitioners, than in the vendors of patent medicines, who paid 

 for their advertisements. 



For the last two years of his life he became subject to sym- 

 ptoms wliich were very obscure as to their origin, and which 



