On the 13th of the following month the little town of Truro presented a doleful contrast to that which it bore some twenty-seven years before, when her brave son returned in the full flush of victory. All business was entirely suspended in order that the townsfolk might receive, at the town quay, Vivian's mortal remains; they were brought up the river from Falmouth, and carried to the church, which was draped in black. He was buried at St. Mary's Cemetery, in the same vault with his father and mother, against the eastern wall of the enclosure; but no inscription marks the spot. His epitaph which was in St. Mary's Church (now the new cathedral), need not be inserted here, for his career has been described in the foregoing pages, and it will be perhaps sufficient to quote the description of his character as summarized by Dr. Wolcot—no lenient critic:
'An excellent officer, and, better still, a kind, brave, honourable, and good man.'
FOOTNOTES:
[156] Engraved by Meyer. A copy of the print hangs in the Museum of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, a building which now occupies the site of the Vivians' Truro residence and Copper Office.
[157] Sir Joshua also immortalized the fair Betsy Cranch by a portrait of her, painted in her prime, in 1763.
[158] Hussey was a name early celebrated in the annals of England; e.g., a Sir William Hussey was Lord Chief Justice in the reign of Edward IV.
[159] Gourgaud, Napoleon's aide-de-camp, as well as other French military critics, ascribe their loss of the battle of Waterloo mainly to the charge of Vivian's brigade on the flank of the Old Guard, after the repulse of the middle guard. 'These three thousand cavalry,' says Gourgaud, 'prevented all rallying.'
[160] He rode on this occasion a milk-white troop-horse of the 10th Hussars.
[161] Colonel Lord Robert Manners.