tained in reference to John Quincy Adams. I was not so fortunate as to be upon the list of his personal and confidential friends. I had been introduced to him in the lobby of the House of Representatives on one occasion, without holding any conversation with him, a circumstance which I shall now forever regret; but I had for some years felt for his character and abilities a profound respect. On the New Year's day immediately preceding his decease I had gone to his hospitable mansion, with a large number of his fellow-citizens besides, to pay the customary respects to Mrs. Adams and himself. The appearance of both these venerable personages on that occasion painfully indicated the pressure of increasing years, and both of them went through the tiresome scene of receiving the miscellaneous greetings of the thousands who had come to do them deserved homage with an evident sense of weariness and exhaustion. It had chanced that, as early as the year 1824, when I had scarcely attained to manhood, I had met Mrs. Adams at the Bedford Springs, in the State of Pennsylvania, whither she had gone for the restoration of her health, which was then supposed to be more or less impaired. The condition of my own health at the time had brought me to this place also; and as the fashionable season had not then commenced, and there were but few visitants at the Springs, I was one of seven or eight persons, including Mrs. Adams, her fair niece, Miss Hellen, and her son John, who for several weeks had seats at the same private table. A more high-bred, intelligent, and affable lady I do not remember at any time to have encountered. The next time I saw Mrs. Adams was at a levee

MR. AND MRS. ADAMS.

87

given by the French minister in Washington, just two days before the inauguration of her husband as President of the United States. Mr. Adams was then President elect by the recent action of the House of Representatives. He himself was not at the levee, but, as was certainly to have been expected, his accomplished better half was the great centre of attraction-all the political friends of the incoming President especially being disposed to evince the satisfaction which they felt at the recent promotion of their favorite by the rendition of fitting homage to Mrs. Adams, and many others being attracted to her presence by her own engaging qualities. More than twenty years then glided by before I beheld this esteemed lady again, on the New Year's occasion already referred to. Nor did I then make known to her that we had ever before met, as I could scarcely suppose that she would bear in remembrance thus long the humble and undistinguished youth with whom she had so accidentally formed a passing acquaintance at the renowned Pennsylvania watering-place.

To return to Mr. Adams. I saw him on the day before his death, or perhaps two or three days antecedent, in the hall of the House of Representatives, on Sunday, attending divine service there, and was very much struck with his pale and feeble appearance, as I know many others besides to have been. A day or two after his sudden decease, a gentleman who has since filled several highly respectable official positions, Caleb Lyon, of Lyonsdale, called on me at my residence on the Georgetown Heights, and handed me for perusal a light and vivacious, but highly humorous and piquant poetic effusion, which he

told me Mr. Adams had addressed to a charming young lady of his acquaintance only forty-eight hours before his decease. The aged author had, as Mr. Lyons informed me, at the request of the latter, supplied him with a copy of these verses, which he seemed, and most naturally too, to prize very highly.

In my judgment, the country has produced but few men who have left behind them more multiplied evidences of elevated patriotism, of private virtue, and of varied ability and attainments than the eminent statesman of New England to whom I am now referring. This much all unprejudiced men must, I think, every where admit. I can certainly not suspect myself of being deluded by feelings either of personal partiality or identity of political opinions. I was, according to my ability, a zealous opponent of the administration of Mr. Adams while that administration was yet in progress, and it is known by my acquaintances that I was far from approving many of his public acts during the closing years of his life. But a laborious and dispassionate examination of the leading incidents in his long official career has effectually vanquished early prejudices, and will now enable me to speak of him, I believe, with something of the cool impartiality which the future historian may be ex'pected to display. More than thirty years have gone by since Mr. Adams was defeated by his distinguished military rival for the first office in the gift of the American people; and it may be now safely asserted, that never since that striking period in American annals, has any citizen occupied the chair of state who, while performing the varied and complex duties of President, offered clear

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

89

er and more numerous proofs of inflexible honesty of purpose, a thorough knowledge of affairs, unremitting industry in the performance of official duty, entire exemption from mere party or personal prejudice, moderation, mingled with firmness, in all critical emergencies, mild and unassuming urbanity both in official and social intercourse, with a vigilance that never winked, and an energy that never knew exhaustion. Mr. Adams was, perhaps, upon the whole, the most highly cultivated public man, in many respects, that our country has yet known, and it is understood that he labored strenuously to the last moment of his protracted life to increase his stores of useful knowledge. There was no department of science of which he was altogether ignorant. He had traversed the whole wide domain of general literature; his knowledge of history, both ancient and modern, was alike thorough and minute; his imagination, like that of Mr. Burke, seemed to grow more fertile, vigorous, and resplendent as he advanced in years; his memory, as well of men as of things, was such as it has been seldom given man to possess; his oratorical powers, not supposed, I have heard, to have been very remarkable in early life, were such, during the last fifteen years of his congressional existence, as compelled even his bitterest political foes to acquiesce in his claim to be recognized as "The Old Man Eloquent," and ever secured to him the unbroken and interested attention of those who hated him with an acrimony never yet surpassed, but who felt awed into unmurmuring respect under the magical influence of his unpremeditated and truly electrical utterances. That Mr. Adams was much, and unjustly, embittered toward the

South in the evening of his remarkable career, I think will hardly be now in any quarter denied. That he had some cause for alienation and for unkindness seems to me to be equally apparent. His opinions in regard to the baneful influence of African slavery, and his zealous opposition to its future extension into the vacant domain of the republic, were not less sincerely entertained than were precisely opposite views by his sectional adversaries; and perhaps his prejudices toward the South were not stronger than those of Mr. Calhoun toward the North, who, throughout his whole public career, was never known, as I have learned, to place his feet for a moment upon Northern soil; and from whose lips I heard the declaration, more than once, during the year 1848, when General Taylor and General Cass were contesting for the presidency of the Union, that he would prefer the election to that place of any respectable Southern planter whatever to any man of Northern birth and residence; though it is possible that Mr. Calhoun was, after all, not altogether so averse to his fellow-citizens of the free states as he seemed to imagine himself to be, inasmuch as I remember his declaring to me on one occasion, and about the period just referred to, that he should be quite content to see George M. Dallas elevated to the presidency, as his political opinions were known to be in the main such as Southern men were inclined to approve, and as he was not only a gentleman himself, in character, person, and demeanor, but also the son of a gentleman - he (Mr. Calhoun) having known in former days very intimately, as he said, the father of Mr. Dallas, for whom he ever cherished a very special esteem and kindness.