376 Miscellanies. 



style, and the amiable diversity of his reflections. At a still later 

 period, 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. 



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 rapidity of 

 his style. 



The pupil of a profound metaphysician, 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 youth. 

 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 proved, 

 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 beneficence, 

 that touching simplicity and cheerfulness of old age, that poetry of 

 an iniagination always fresh and exuberant, that urbanity of the 

 eighteenth century, seasoned by the philosophy of the nineteenth. 



Thus, the men whom we are accustomed to love, to esteem, and to 

 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 

 of our parts. What we have been enabled to accomplish for the 



