It was, indeed, a fitting close of his long, noble life! Faithful to his duty to his country, he maintained his post to the last, and fell, like a true defender of liberty—renouncing his weapons only with his life. Borne from the arena of senatorial strife to a couch hastily prepared beneath the same roof that had so often echoed his words of dauntless eloquence, attended by mourning friends, and receiving the tender ministrations of the companion alike of his earlier and later manhood, the flickering lamp of life slowly expired. After, apparently, reviewing the lengthened retrospection of a temperate, rational, useful life, from the boyish years
"Whose distant footsteps echoed through the corridors of Time,"
to the dying efforts of genius and patriotism, the hushed stillness of that hallowed chamber at length rendered audible the sublime words—"It is the last of Earth! I am content!"
I think it was during the administration of Sir Charles Bagot, the immediate successor of Lord Durham, as Governor General of the Canadas, that I had the pleasure to dine one day, at the house of a distinguished civilian who held office under him, in company with the celebrated traveller L——, and his friend, the well-known E—— G—— W——, a man who, despite wealth, rank, and talent, paid a life-long penalty for a youthful error. There were, also, present several members of the Provincial Parliament, then in session at Kingston, which was, at that time, the seat of government, and a number of ladies—those of the party of Americans with whom I was travelling, and some others.
The conversation, very naturally, turned upon the national peculiarities of the Yankees—as the English call, not the inhabitants of New England alone, but the people of the North American States generally—in consequence of the fact that the world-wide traveller had just completed his first visit to our country. Some one asked him a leading question respecting his impressions of us as a people, and more than one good-humored sally was given and parried among us. At length L—— said, so audibly and gravely as to arrest the attention of the whole company:
"I have really but two serious faults to charge upon Jonathan."
"May we be permitted to inquire what those are?" returned I.
"That he repudiates his debts, and doesn't take time to eat his dinner."
When the general laugh had subsided, Mr. W—— remarked that, except when at the best hotels in the larger cities, he had found less inducement for dining deliberately in the United States than in most civilized lands he had visited, in consequence of the prevalent bad cookery.