Dimglison.] gg [October. 



In the year 1845, at the age of seventy, witli his mental powers 

 undimnied, he resigned his Chair in the University of Virginia, and 

 decided to spend the remainder of his days in comparative leisure. 

 At all times fond of social intercourse with the enlightened, he had 

 never failed to pass his vacations away from the University, and 

 generally spent a portion of the time at the summer resorts of the 

 refined and intellectual. Philadelphia was his choice for a perma- 

 nent residence, both on account of its intelligence, and the opportu- 

 nities afforded by its libraries to the seekers after knowledge. He 

 was chosen a member of this Society in 1837, and was, likewise, 

 a member of the Historical Society. 



From the time Professor Tucker took up his residence in Phi- 

 ladelphia until his death, with brief intervals of relaxation, he ad- 

 hered to his student life, and continued his contributions to various 

 literary periodicals, and especially to those which were devoted to 

 the elucidation of great questions of politics and political economy. 



His undiminished intellectual activity is signally shown by his 

 having commenced about the year 1850, or when seventy-five years 

 of age, the herculean task of collecting materials for a political his- 

 tory of the United States. To aid him in the execution of his work, 

 as he himself remarks, it had been his good fortune to have a per- 

 sonal knowledge of many, who bore a conspicuous part in the Revo- 

 lution, and of nearly all those who were the principal actors in the 

 political dramas which succeeded. The history extends to the eleva- 

 tion of General Harrison to the Presidency, in 1841. This seemed 

 to Professor Tucker as far as he could prudently go, at least, without 

 obtaining some testimony from public sentiment of his fairness to 

 his contemporaries. 



The work was comprised in four volumes, the first of which ap- 

 peared in 1856, and the last in 1857. The first chapter is devoted 

 to colonial history prior to the Declaration of Independence, and the 

 remainder to the Confederation and the United States. 



Nor was this elaborate work the last production of its venerable 

 and indefotigable author. In 1859, he printed, and was his own 

 publisher of " Political Economy for the People," being in substance 

 a compendium of the lectures on Political Economy, delivered by him 

 in the University of Virginia, with such alterations and additions as 

 his farther experience and reflection had suggested ; and lastly, in 

 1860, when eighty-five years of age, he issued on his own account, 

 "Essays, Moral and Metaphysical," some of which had been already 

 published anonymously or separately, but were now republished, and 



