contempt, and
which rather tend to heighten than diminish personal attachment to
superiors in station. His punctuality at prayers, and in dropping asleep
there, his forgetfulness of names, his singular inability to make even
the shortest offhand speech to the students,--all the more singular in a
practised orator,--his occasional absorption of mind, leading him to
hand you his sand-box instead of the leave of absence he had just dried
with it,--the old-fashioned courtesy of his, "Sir, your servant," as he
bowed you out of his study,--all tended to make him popular. He had also
a little of what is somewhat contradictorily called dry humor, not
without influence in his relations with the students. In taking leave of
the graduating class, he was in the habit of paying them whatever honest
compliment he could. Who, of a certain year which shall be nameless,
will ever forget the gravity with which he assured them that they were
"the _best-dressed_ class that had passed through college during his
administration"? How sincerely kind he was, how considerate of youthful
levity, will always be gratefully remembered by whoever had occasion to
experience it. A visitor not long before his death found him burning
some memoranda of college peccadilloes, lest they should ever rise up in
judgment against the men eminent in Church and State who had been guilty
of them. One great element of his popularity with the students was his
_esprit de corps_. However strict in discipline, he was always on _our_
side as respected the outside world. Of his efficiency, no higher
testimony could be asked than that of his successor, Dr. Walker. Here
also many reforms date from his time. He had that happiest combination
for a wise vigor in the conduct of affairs,--he was a conservative with
an open mind.

One would be apt to think that, in the various offices which Mr. Quincy
successively filled, he would have found enough to do. But his
indefatigable activity overflowed. Even as a man of letters, he occupies
no inconsiderable place. His "History of Harvard College" is a valuable
and entertaining treatment of a subject not wanting in natural dryness.
His "Municipal History of Boston" his "History of the Boston Athenaeum,"
and his "Life of Colonel Shaw" have permanent interest and value. All
these were works demanding no little labor and research, and the
thoroughness of their workmanship makes them remarkable as the
by-productions of a busy man. Having