MEMOIR. XXXUl 



of the following year, lie had a sudden famtness, from which 

 he hardly rallied, and which he himself thought at the time 

 w^ould he fatal. He died at last from a similar attack on the 

 16th of January, 1856, at the age of sixty. An hour before 

 his death he had a conversation on library affairs with his 

 assistant and successor, Mr. John L. Sibley, — and then ex- 

 pired, in the act of rising from his bed. The disease proved 

 to be pleurisy, with what is known as embolism. 



The life of Dr. Harris, with whatever disappointments 

 and drawbacks, must not be regarded as a sad one. It was 

 certainly a great loss both to himself and the world that the 

 maturity of his powers should have been given to anything 

 but Natural History. Yet the work which was assigned him 

 was not uncongenial, except by comparison. As he could not 

 be wholly a naturalist, he found enjoyment in being a libra- 

 rian. His father had held the same office, almost to the 

 year of his own birth, and he seemed born with the libra- 

 rian's instinct for alcoves and pamphlets and endless geneal- 

 ogies. He had in preparation a very elaborate genealogical 

 history of the* Mason family, and was often consulted as an 

 expert upon such matters. He kept his official records with 

 exquisite accuracy, and described his methods to other libra- 

 rians as lovingly as if he were describing a chrysalis. To 

 that indeed the College library of those days had much re- 

 semblance, nor has its period of active development yet 

 come. 



His official cares thus brought their own compensation, 

 and this was yet more true of that home-life which no man 

 ever enjoyed more, though its solicitudes and blessings, as 



