Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1869-02-17
CHRISTOPHER NORTH.
,tessor Wilson is a still more interesting

Professor Wilson is still more interesting
character.
''It the marvel of his eloquence Is not les
sened If is az least accounted tor to those who
have seen him-or even his portrait. Such
| presence is rarely seen; and more thano nee per
SON has said that he reminded them of the first
| man, Adam; so full was that large frame OF
! vitality, force and sentence. Its tread seemed
almost 70 shake the streets, his eye almost saw
through stone walls; and as tor his voice. there
was no heart that could stand before IT, he
swept away all hearts, whthersoever he would.
HENRY HALLAM.
The historian OF the middle ages and of the
English constitution died 10 1859 Personally
be is little known to those who most admire
his books.
The reader of his weighty (uot heavy
works impressed with the judicial character OF
the style both of thought and expression, i'm
agined him solemn, pale student, and might
almost expect to see him in judges Wig;
whereas, the stranger would Ind him the most
rapid talker in company, quick In his move
mepts, genial in his feelings earnest In nara
tive, rather full of dissent from what everybody
said, innocently surprised when he found him
self agreeing with anybody, and pretty sure to
blurt out something awkward before the day
was done-but never giving offence, because his
talk was always the fresh growth OF the topic,
and, it may be added, his manners were those
of thorough. bred gentleman. tie was an ad'
mirable subject for his friend Sydney Smith S
description. Ina capital sketch OF dinner party
to which Sydney Smith went late, HalIsm was
one of the figures And there was Hallam,
with his mouth iull of cabbage and contradlc-
ton a sentence in which We scent at once the
rapid speech and action and the constitutional
habit of mind Better still was the wit S ac-
count of Haam in the influenza, not only un-
able to rest, but throwing up the window at
every transit of the watchmaD, to question
whether it was "past one clock, ald again,
whether it was a starlight morning
DE QUINcEY's OLD AGE.
"When his three daughters were grown up,
and his wife was dead, he lived In pleasant
cottage at Lasswade, near Edlnburg-weli
known By name to those who have never seen
its beauties, as the Scott's early married life
and first great achievements IN literature.
There, while the family fortunes were expressly
made contingent on his abstinence from his
drug, De Quincy did abstain, or observe mod
Grafton. His flow of conversation was then
the delight of old acquaintance and admiring
strangers, who came to hear the charmer, and
to receive the impression, which could never
be lost, of the singular figure and cOuntenauce
and the finely moduated voice, which were
ike nothing else in the world. 1t was strange
thing to look upon that trail form, and features
which might be those of dying man, and to
hear such utterances as his-now the Strangest
comments on insignificant incidents now preg
nant remarks on great subjects; and then
malignant gossip, virulent and base, but de-
ivered with an air and voice of philosophi-
cal calmness and intellectual commentary such
as caused the disgust of the listener to be largely
qualified with amusement and surprise. One
good thing was, that nobody's name and fame
could be really injured by anything De Quincy
could say. There was such a grotesqua air
about the mode of his evil speaking, and it was
so gratuitous and excessive, that the hearer
could not help regarding it as singular sort
of intellectual exercise, or an effort in the
speaker to observe, for once, something out,
side of himself, rather than any token OF actual
feeling towards the ostensible object.