108 A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 



ble he is in maintaining the rights and in pursuing the 

 interests of the city, the greater is the probability of his 

 becoming obnoxious to the censure of all whom he 

 causes to be prosecuted or punished, of all whose pas- 

 sions he thwarts, of all whose interests he opposes.' 



" The day and the event have come. I retire as in 

 that first address 1 told my fellow-citizens, ' If, in con- 

 formity with the experience of other republics, faithful 

 exertions should be followed by loss of favor and confi- 

 dence,' I should retire ' rejoicing, not, indeed, with a 

 public and patriotic, but with a private and individual 

 joy'; for I shall retire with a consciousness 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 color. He was in the habit of riding early in 

 the morning through the various streets that he might 

 look into everything with his own eyes. He was once 

 arrested on a malicious charge of violating the city ordi- 

 nance 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 inti- 

 mately 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 our- 

 selves 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 



