of his career. On
February 21 he entered the House and took his seat. Suddenly he fell to the
floor, stricken with apoplexy. As he was carried to the Speaker's room and
was laid on a lounge, he feebly murmured: "This is the last of earth. I am
content." He died on February 23.

[Sidenote: His diplomatic career]

[Sidenote: Morse on Adams]

John Quincy Adams's long career is unique in American history. At the age
of eleven he accompanied his father on a diplomatic mission to Europe, and
early acquired a knowledge of French and German. When barely fourteen he
went to St. Petersburg as private secretary to the American Minister, Dana.
At sixteen Adams served as one of the secretaries of the American
Plenipotentiaries during the negotiations resulting in the treaty of peace
and independence of 1783. At the age of twenty-seven he was appointed
Minister to Holland by President Washington, and afterward was Minister to
Berlin and Commissioner to Sweden. After serving for some years in the
United States Senate he was sent, in 1809, as Minister to Russia, where he
remained till 1815. Then he was transferred to London, where he resided
till 1817, when he became Secretary of State. His career as President of
the United States and his subsequent Congressional life was honorable in
the extreme. Yet Adams's biographer, Morse, has aptly said: "Never did a
man of pure life and just purposes have fewer friends or more enemies....
If he could ever have gathered even a small personal following, his
character and abilities would have insured him a brilliant and prolonged
success; but for a man of his calibre and influence, we see him as one of
the most lonely and desolate of the great men of history."

[Sidenote: James Russell Lowell]

During this year James Russell Lowell published his "Bigelow Papers," a
humorous satire on the Mexican war in Yankee dialect, the "Indian Summer
Reverie," and "A Fable for Critics."

[Sidenote: Death of Donizetti]

[Sidenote: Early operas]

[Sidenote: Prolific compositions]

On April 8, Gaetano Donizetti--who together with Rossini and Bellini formed
the brilliant triumvirate of Italian composers in the first half of the
Nineteenth Century--died in his native town of Bergamo. Donizetti composed
his first opera, "Enrico di Borgogna," in 1819, while serving as a soldier
in Venice. Three other operas followed quickly. His fourth, "Zoraide di
Granada," was such a success that he was exempted from furth