body, and to
lapse into dignified decrepitude was not agreeable, indeed was hardly
possible for him. The prospect gave him profound anxiety; he dreaded
idleness, apathy, and decay with a keen terror which perhaps
constituted a sufficient guaranty against them. Yet what could he do?
It would be absurd for him now to furbish up the rusty weapons of the
law and enter again upon the tedious labor of collecting a clientage.
His property was barely sufficient to enable him to live respectably,
even according to the simple standard of the time, and could open to
him no occupation in the way of gratifying unremunerative tastes. In
March, 1828, he had been advised to use five thousand dollars in a way
to promote his reelection. He refused at once, upon principle; but
further set forth "candidly, the state of his affairs:"--

"All my real estate in Quincy and Boston is mortgaged for the
payment of my debts; the income of my whole private estate is
less than $6,000 a year, and I am paying at least two thousand of
that for interest on my debt. Finally, upon going out of office
in one year from this time, destitute of all means of (p. 221)
acquiring property, it will only be by the sacrifice of that
which I now possess that I shall be able to support my family."

At first he plunged desperately into the Latin classics. He had a
strong taste for such reading, and he made a firm resolve to compel
this taste now to stand him in good stead in his hour of need. He
courageously demanded solace from a pursuit which had yielded him
pleasure enough in hours of relaxation, but which was altogether
inadequate to fill the huge vacuum now suddenly created in his time
and thoughts. There is much pathos in this spectacle of the old man
setting himself with ever so feeble a weapon, yet with stern
determination, to conquer the cruelty of circumstances. But he knew,
of course, that the Roman authors could only help him for a time, by
way of distraction, in carrying him through a transition period. He
soon set more cheerfully at work upon a memoir of his father, and had
also plans for writing a history of the United States. Literature had
always possessed strong charms for him, and he had cultivated it after
his usual studious and conscientious fashion. But his style was too
often prolix, sententious, and turgid--faults which marked nearly all
the writing done in this country in those days. The world has