3obn Bouncer 391 



cannot but wonder at the motive which prompted the 

 unsuccessful applicant to make his failure known, the 

 old man wrote in this strain of mingled bitterness and 

 resignation : 



" Land-logged in this life, I am making gravewards 

 very heavily. I can see no substantial point of depend- 

 ence before me. I am 73 : my father cobbled on every 

 day till 90 and lived till 94 ; and I am as strong as he 

 was at my age. He was never in life so wealthy as I 

 have been : but never so poor as I am now. I could 

 work for my daily bread yet, if I could only get the 

 means of a moderate new commencement. But you see 

 it is needless to look to dukes except to get worried." 



A stroke of paralysis gave John his death-blow. He 

 never rallied from it, and in November, 1863, he died. 



He was described when verging towards his seventieth 

 year as " still active and athletic, of tall and command- 

 ing stature, and with the mien and presence of a noble- 

 man ; his stalwart frame the correct and yet imperfect 

 embodiment of his powerful mind ; simple and un- 

 sophisticated as an infant, though rich in both joyous 

 and sad experience ; not unread in books, and of men 

 and things an incessant, deep, and successful student ; 

 his workshop the village forum, himself a true oracle ; 

 the well-worn joint-stool fronting his own occupied day 

 after day by listening visitors of all ranks, down to the 

 sauntering angler and muse-struck ploughboy ; a keen 

 politician, without a spark of partizanship ; a caustic 

 satirist who never made an enemy ; a true philanthropist, 

 without sickly sentiment ; a real Christian, without 

 sectarianism," 



