Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/186

322 the Preliminary Dissertation to the Encyclopædia; the continuation of the second part of the Philosophy, in 1827; and, finally, in 1828, the third Tolunie, containing the Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man; a work which he completed only a few short weeks before his career was to close for ever. Here he continued to be visited by his friends, and by most foreigners who could procure an introduction to his acquaintance, till the month of January, 1822, when a stroke of palsy, which nearly deprived him of the power of utterance, in a great measure incapacitated him for the enjoyment of any other society than that of a few intimate friends, in whose company he felt no constraint. This great calamity, which bereaved him of the faculty of speech, of the power of exercise, of the use of his right hand, which reduced him to a state of almost infantile dependence on those around him, and subjected him ever after to a most abstemious regimen, he bore with the most dignified fortitude and tranquillity. The malady which broke his health and constitution for the rest of his existence, happily impaired neither any of the faculties of his mind, nor the characteristic vigour and activity of his understanding, which enabled him to rise superior to the misfortune. As soon as his strength was sufficiently reestablished, he continued to pursue his studies will' his wonted assiduity, to prepare his works for the press with the assistance of his daughter as an amanuensis, and to avail himself with cheerful and unabated relish of all the sources of gratification which it was still within his power to enjoy, exhibiting, among some of the heaviest infirmities incident to age, an admirable example of the serene sunset of a well-spent life of classical elegance and refinement, so beautifully imagined by Cicero: "Quiete, et pure, et eleganter actæ ætatis, placida ac lenis senectus."

In general company, his manner bordered on reserve; but it was the comitate condita gravitas, and belonged more to the general weight and authority of his character, than to any reluctance to take his share in the cheerful intercourse of social life. He was ever ready to acknowledge with a stnile the happy sallies of wit, and no man had a keener sense of the ludicrous, or laughed more heartily at genuine humour. His deportment and expression were easy and unembarrassed, dignified, elegant, and graceful. His politeness was equally free from all affectation, and from all premeditation. It was the spontaneous result of the purity of his own taste, and of a heart warm with all the benevolent affections, and was characterized by a truth and readiness of tact that accommodated his conduct with undeviating propriety to the circumstances of the present moment, and to the relative situation of those to whom he addressed himself. From an early period of life, he had frequented the best society both in France and in this country, and he had in a peculiar de-