376 Miscellanies. 
style, and the amiable diversity of his reflections. At a still later 
riod, even when we were about to lose him, at the age of 86, he 
wrote, under the title of Souvenirs, a small work remarkably charac- 
terised by the same juvenile qualities. A few days after its publica- 
tion, he was struck with apoplexy, which during ten days kept him, 
as it were, suspended between life and death ;—deprived of the 
power of speech, but not of sensibility, or of reason, he exhibited the 
most afflictive spectacle which a family and friend can be called up- 
on to support. His death, which happened on the 3d of February 
last, seemed to be, in consequence of their profound attachments, 
like a deliverance through the favor of heaven. 229 
De Bonstetten furnishes, in his intellectual developments, remark- 
able contrasts. Born in a privileged class, he manifested, while 
young, the love of equality, and of a wise liberty. Born on the bor- 
ders of the two languages, and consequently in a country in which 
neither the one nor the other is spoken with great purity, he raised 
himself into the rank of good writers, both in French and German, 
and in the latter, particularly, he shines by the grace and rapidi of 
his. style. oe = 
The pupil of a profound metapbysician, allied in friendship to men 
devoted to the most serious studies, he glitters in all the charms of a 
poetic imagination. The greatest point which he gained by his phi- 
losophic studies, was the habit of watching over himself. No one 
better understood the art of happiness, even in the extremity of age- 
He preserved to the last the most engaging dispositions of yout) 
He watched, with animation the advancement of civilization, as if he 
had a long time for its enjoyment: his affectionate feelings sought with 
avidity new attachments, but never abandoned old ones, and provees 
as he himself observed, that one may be easy without being unfaith- 
ful. His house was ever open to strangers of distinction, and his 
active benevolence contributed to render their stay among us agree= | 
able. Nothing can ever restore to us that sustained beneHcen’ of 
that touching simplicity and cheerfulness of old age, that poetty 
an. imagination always fresh and exuberant, that urbanity of the 
eighteenth century, seasoned by the philosophy of the ni as 
- Thus, the men whom we are accustomed to love, to esteem, and se 
admire, are disappearing from amongst us. What can console us for 
so many successive privations? We who have been, also, for some 
time on the stage of action, we are drawing toward the conclusion 
