frosts upon his brow, and still he was in the midst of his usefulness. Promptly at his post in the Hall of Representatives stood the veteran sentinel, watching vigilantly over the interests of his country. With an eye undimmed by age, a quick ear, a ready hand, an intellect unimpaired, he guarded the citadel of liberty, ever on the alert to detect, and mighty to repel, the approach of the foe, however covert or however open his attacks. Never did the Union, never did freedom, the world, more need his services than now. A large territory, of sufficient extent to form several States, had been blighted by slavery, and annexed to the United Sates. A sanguinary and expensive war, growing out of this strengthening of the slave power, had just terminated, adding to the Union still larger territories—now free soil indeed, but furnishing a field for renewed battles between slavery and liberty. New revolutions were about to break forth in Europe, to convulse the Eastern Hemisphere, and cause old thrones to totter and fall!

How momentous the era! How deeply fraught with the prosperity of the American Republic-with the progress of man-the freedom of nations—the happiness of succeeding generations! How could he, who for years had prominently and nobly stood forth, as the leader of the hosts contending for the rights and the liberties of humanity, be spared from his post at such a juncture? Who could put on his armor?-who wield his weapons?-who "lead a forlorn hope," or

mount a deadly breach in battles which might yet be waged between the sons of freedom and the propagators of slavery? But the loss was to be experienced. A wise and good Providence had so ordered. The sands of his life had run out. A voice from on high called him away from earth's stormy struggles, to bright and peaceful scenes in the spirit land. He could no longer tarry. Death found the faithful veteran at his post, with his harness on. How applicable the words of Scott, on the departure of Pitt :

“Hadst thou but lived, though stripp'd of power,

A watchman on the lonely tower,

Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,

When fraud or danger were at hand;

By thee, as by the beacon-light,

Our pilots had kept course aright;

As some proud column, though alone,

Thy strength had propp'd the tottering throne.

Now is the stately column broke,

The beacon-light is quenched in smoke,

The trumpet's silver sound is still,

The warder silent on the hill!

O think how, to his latest day,

When death, just hovering, claimed his prey,

With Palinure's unaltered mood,

Firm at his dangerous post he stood;

Each call for needful rest repell'd,

With dying hand the rudder held,

Till, in his fall, with fateful sway,

The steerage of the realm gave way."

It has been supposed by some that the remote cause of Mr. Adams's death was a severe injury he received by a fall in the House of Representatives, in June,

1840. The accident is thus described by an eye

witness:

"It had been a very warm day, and the debates had partaken of extraordinary excitement, when, a few moments before sunset, the House adjourned, and most of the members had sought relief from an oppressive atmosphere, in the arbors and recesses of the adjoining Congressional gardens.

"At that time I held a subordinate clerkship in the House, which usually confined me, the larger portion of the day not devoted to debate, to one of the committee rooms; whilst the balance of the day I occupied as a reporter.

"Mr. Adams was always the first man in the House, and the last man out of it; and, as I usually detained myself an hour or more after adjournment, in writing up my notes, I often came in contact with him. He was pleased to call at my desk very often, before he went home, and indulge in some incidental, unimportant conversation. On the day referred to, just as the sun was setting, and was throwing his last rays through the murky hall, I looked up, and saw Mr. Adams approaching. He had almost reached my desk, and had uplifted his hand in friendly salutation, when he pitched headlong, some six or eight feet, and struck his head against the sharp corner of an iron rail that defended one of the entrance aisles leading to the circle within the bar, inflicting a heavy contusion on his forehead, and rendering him insensible. I instantly leaped from my seat, took the prostrate sufferer in my arms, and found that he was in a state of utter stupor and insensibility. Looking around for aid, I had the good fortune to find that Col. James Munroe, of the New York delegation, had just returned to his desk to procure a paper he had forgotten, when, giving the alarm, he flew to the rescue, manifesting the deepest solicitude for the welfare of the venerable statesman. Follansbee, the doorkeeper, with two or more of his pages, came in next; and after we had applied a plentiful supply of cold water to the sufferer, he returned to consciousness, and requested that he might be taken to his residence. In less than five minutes, Mr. Moses H. Grinnell, Mr. George H. Profit, Mr. Ogden Hoffman, and Col. Christopher Williams, of Tennessee, were called in, a carriage was procured, and Mr. Adams was being conveyed to his residence in President

Square, when, it being ascertained that his shoulder was dislocated, the carriage was stopped at the door of the private hotel of Col. Munroe, in Pennsylvania Avenue, between Eleventh and Twelfth streets; the suffering, but not complaining statesman, was taken out, and surgical aid instantly put in requisition. Doctor Sewall was sent for; when it was ascertained that the left shoulder-joint was out of the socket; and, though Mr. Adams must have suffered intensely, he complained not—did not utter a groan or a murmur. "More than an hour elapsed before the dislocated limb could be adjusted; and to effect which, his arm endured, in a concentrated and continued wrench or pull, many minutes at a time, the united strength of Messrs. Grinnell, Munroe, Profit, and Hoffman. Still Mr. Adams uttered not a murmur, though the great drops of sweat that rolled down his furrowed cheeks, or stood upon his brow, told but too well the physical agony he endured. As soon as his arm was adjusted, he insisted on being carried home, and his wishes were complied with.

"The next morning I was at the capitol at a very early hour, attending to some writing. I thought of, and lamented the accident that had befallen Mr. Adams, and had already commenced writing an account of it to a correspondent. At that instant I withdrew my eyes from the paper on which I was writing, and saw Mr. Adams standing a foot or two from me, carefully examining the carpeting. 'Sir,' said he, 'I am looking for that place in the matting that last night tripped me. If it be not fastened down, it may kill some one.' And then he continued his search for the trick-string matting."

Mr. Adams after this accident did not enjoy as sound health as in previous years, yet was more active and vigorous than the majority of those who attain to his age. But on the 20th of November, 1846, he experienced the first blow of the fatal disease which eventually terminated his existence.

On the morning of that day, while sojourning at the residence of his son, in Boston, preparing to depart for

Washington, he was walking out with a friend to visit a new Medical College, and was struck with paralysis by the way. This affliction confined him several weeks, when he obtained sufficient strength to proceed to Washington, and enter upon his duties in the House of Representatives. He viewed this attack as the touch of death. An interregnum of nearly four months occurs in his journal. The next entry is under the head of "Posthumous Memoir." After describing his recent sickness, he continues:-"From that hour I date my decease, and consider myself, for every useful purpose, to myself and fellow-creatures, dead; and hence I call this, and what I may hereafter write, a posthumous memoir."

Although he was after this, regular in his attendance at the House of Representatives, yet he did not mingle as freely in debate as formerly. He passed the following summer, as usual, at his seat in Quincy. In November, he left his native town for Washington, to return no more in life!

On Sunday, the 20th of February, 1848, he appeared in unusual health. In the forenoon he attended public worship at the capitol, and in the afternoon at St. John's church. At nine o'clock in the evening he retired with his wife to his library, where she read to him a sermon of Bishop Wilberforce, on Time-“ hovering, as he was, on the verge of eternity!" This was the last night he passed beneath his own roof.

Monday, the 21st, he rose at his usual very early