A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 83 



first address I told my fellow-citizens, &quot; If, in conformity with 

 the experience of other republics, faithful exertions should be 

 followed by loss of favour and confidence,&quot; I should retire 

 &quot; rejoicing, not, indeed, with a public and patriotic, but with 

 a private and individual joy ; &quot; for I shall retire with a con 

 sciousness weighed against which all human suffrages are but 

 as the light dust of the balance. 



Of his mayoralty we have another anecdote quite Roman 

 in colour. He was in the habit of riding early in the morn 

 ing through the various streets that he might look into every 

 thing with his own eyes. He was once arrested on a malicious 

 charge of violating the city ordinance against fast driving. 

 He might have resisted, but he appeared in court and paid 

 the fine, because it would serve as a good example that no 

 citizen was above the law. 



Hardly had Mr. Quincy given up the government of the 

 city, when he was called to that of the College. It is here 

 that his stately figure is associated most intimately and 

 warmly with the recollections of the greater number who hold 

 his memory dear. Almost everybody looks back regretfully 

 to the days of some Consul Plancus. Never were eyes so 

 bright, never had wine so much wit and good-fellowship in 

 it, never were we ourselves so capable of the various great 

 things we have never done. Nor is it merely the sunset of 

 life that casts such a ravishing light on the past, and makes 

 the western windows of those homes of fancy we have left 

 for ever tremble with a sentiment of such sweet regret. We 

 set great store by what we had, and cannot have again, how 

 ever indifferent in itself, and what is past is infinitely past. 

 This is especially true of college life, when we first assume 

 the titles without the responsibilities of manhood, and the 

 President of our year is apt to become our Plancus very 

 early. Popular or not while in office, an ex-president is 

 always sure of enthusiastic cheers at every college festival. 

 Mr. Quincy had many qualities calculated to win favour with 

 the young that one above all which is sure to do it, indomi 

 table pluck. With him the dignity was in the man, not in the 

 office. He had some of those little oddities, too, which afford 

 amusement without contempt, and which rather tend to 

 heighten than diminish personal attachment to superiors in 

 station. His punctuality at prayers, and in dropping asleep 

 there, his forgetfulness of names, his singular inability to 



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