96 A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 



and paid the fine, because it would serve as a good example 

 &quot; that no citizen was above the law.&quot; 



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, however 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 responsi 

 bilities 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, indomitable 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 make even the shortest 

 off-hand speech to the students all the more singular in a 

 practised orator his occasional absorption of mind, leading 

 him to hand you his sand-box instead of the leave of 

 absence he had just dried with it, the old-fashioned 

 courtesy of his, &quot; Sir, your servant,&quot; as he bowed you out of 

 his study, all tended to make him popular. He had also 

 a little of what is somewhat contradictorily called dry 

 humour, not without influence in his relation with the 



