338 FRANCIS JAMES CHILD. 



June. He took no vacation, but busied himself in his study, and found 

 pleasure in his garden of roses. In August he became seriously ill, and 

 on the 11th of September he died. 



Mr. Child's fame as a scholar is secure. His work is so done that it 

 can never be superseded. But to those who had the happiness of in- 

 timacy with him, his learning and all that he accomplished seem but as 

 secondary and accessory to the essential qualities of his character and his 

 manner of life. The sedentary nature of his occupations, and their nar- 

 row material confines within the limits of a University helped to preserve 

 the strongly marked and altogether delightful originality of his nature 

 from the pressure and attrition of the world, which speedily wear down 

 the marks of distinctive individuality and shape the mass of men into a 

 general dull uniformity. He had a most sympathetic and tender heart, 

 so easily touched that its impulses might sometimes have overcome the 

 restraint of good judgment, had they not been encountered by his keen, 

 kindly, and lively humor, which, while it generally saved him from senti- 

 mental extravagances, yet became often the inciter and ally of his liberal 

 sympathies. 'His charity might be abused, but his pity included even 

 the most open of impostors, and, taking a humorous enjoyment in the suc- 

 cess of deceits practiced upon himself, he chose rather to aid the unde- 

 serving than to let a single deserving needy man go by unhelped. 



The same liberality of disposition was manifest in his relations to all 

 whom he could assist in literary or scholarly work. He made a friend 

 of every young scholar who sought from him advice or direction, and 

 gave his time willingly to serve interests not his own. He could be 

 merciless with pretenders, but he was marvellously patient with unpre- 

 tending and innocent incompetence. 



With the highest sense of the duties and the privileges of his calling, 

 he did not regard them as exempting him from the discharge of the com- 

 mon duties of a citizen. He did not bury himself in his books, and he 

 had nothing of the indifference of a recluse to the affairs of the commu- 

 nitv in which he lived. His feedincrs were stronjj and his iudiiment was 

 sound in regard to the matters affecting public interests. His opinions 

 carried weight, for they were based on principles and maintained with 

 clear intelligence and ready wit. If roused by argument, no one was his 

 match in the flash of wit and the j^lay of humor. He took the part of a 

 good citizen in local politics ; he was for many years an active member 

 and officer in local charities, and he served his term as a member of the 

 School Committee. At the time of the civil war he threw himself with 

 ardor into the service of the cause to which so many of the youth of Har- 



