Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/160

 132 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [August, with the fashion, both in profession and in morals, and frequented palaces, with- out a flaw in his integrity. Riches, pleasure, power, rank, office, wooed him, on the one hand ; ridicule, contumely, neglect, buffetings, imprisonment and the stern disapprobation of a loving father, threatened him upon the other. He might choose as he pleased, but was implored to beware. All these threaten- ings were followed by acts stern as themselves. Then there was a respite, and again he was besought to consider. He might think as he pleased, if he would only say nothing ; and through- out his life all would be well. Yet he chose to speak his own thoughts, although he knew himself to be em- bracing trouble and sorrow ; and his father gave him up as incorrigible and one he could not help ; but only, how- ever, to become, at length, fully and finally reconciled to the course of a son, whose attainments, qualities and con- duct afforded him a just pride, no matter how badly the youth mistook the thriving way of the world. The peerage, they both might have had in turn, was, in accordance with the wishes -of the younger, put aside for a prospec- tive province, wherein might be set in action some of the very peculiar notions on government embraced by William Penn. The brave and keen old father died ; and, after much difficulty and delay, the son secured the charter of an undefined wilderness, which, however it appeared then, was, in truth, a richer principality than the proudest ever known in Europe. Yet a principality only destined to make its beneficent owner poorer, until, finally, in the sickness of his latter days, and the bitterness of his spirit, he was constrained to mortgage, and had even determined to sell it, though, haply, it was preserved to his children ; and, while not rating highly in his lifetime, turned out to be much the better portion of the family estate. With many and warm friends, among all classes of society, both in the old world and the new, beside his family and his religion — apparently his only com- pensating sources of comfort — he was foully belied by blatant enemies, and scandalously wronged by the ungrate- ful steward, Ford. Ostensibly and, indeed, really rich, yet, through all his days, hampered in his large and just designs, as by pinching poverty ; perse- cuted and imprisoned for his religion ; pursued at law and again imprisoned through the heirs of the over-trusted agent, who had misapplied his substance and kept him poor; the personal friend of Queen Anne, as he had been of her grand-aunt, Elizabeth of Bohemia, her uncle, Charles II., and her father, James II., and in his age, as in his youth, a constant guest at court ; }'et harassed with constant anxiety concerning his private affairs ; a loving husband and a fostering father ; of a sweet temper, a pure character and a never worse vilified reputation ; eminently accepta- ble as author and preacher ; a good constitutional lawyer, a forcible advo- cate, and, as a statesman, great and comprehensive; his splendid stamina and his buoyant spirit succumbed at last to prolonged pressure, beyond even the strength of his superior human powers ; and, falling suddenly into ill-health, which lapsed into a general decline, he lived on for ten years, with greatly im- paired faculties, though still blessed with patience and hope ; and died, be- tween two and three o'clock, on the morning of the thirtieth day of July, 1718, in the seventy -fourth year of his age. From the instant of his death, until within the last two decades", his reputa- tion rapidly augmented and improved, until he was, by universal historical consent, placed with the very highest of the very few, like Alfred and Washing- ton, world-known as both great and good. But latterly, a successful statist and most eloquent historian, in very wantonness, speciously assailed the fair fame of the Founder, only to have a score of eager and able champions so