with affection and tenderness. I thought it improper to write to
bring you over, especially as I heard that he had dictated a letter to
you, desiring you not to come. When he became very weak, it cost him
an effort to speak, and he died in such a happy composure of mind that
nothing could exceed it."

Thus died our most excellent and never to be forgotten friend;
concerning whose philosophical opinions men will no doubt judge
variously, every one approving or condemning them, according as they
happen to coincide or disagree with his own; but concerning whose
character and conduct there can scarce be a difference of opinion.
His temper, indeed, seemed to be more happily balanced, if I may be
allowed such an expression, than that perhaps of any other man I have
ever known. Even in the lowest state of his fortune, his great and
necessary frugality never hindered him from exercising, upon proper
occasions, acts both of charity and generosity. It was a frugality
founded not upon avarice, but upon the love of independency. The
extreme gentleness of his nature never weakened either the firmness of
his mind, or the steadiness of his resolutions. His constant
pleasantry was the genuine effusion of good-nature and good-humour,
tempered with delicacy and modesty, and without even the slightest
tincture of malignity, so frequently the disagreeable source of what
is called wit in other men. It never was the meaning of his raillery
to mortify; and therefore, far from offending, it seldom failed to
please and delight even those who were the objects of it. To his
friends, who were frequently the objects of it, there was not perhaps
one of all his great and amiable qualities which contributed more to
endear his conversation. And that gaiety of temper, so agreeable in
society, but which is so often accompanied with frivolous and
superficial qualities, was in him certainly attended with the most