The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110,
December, 1866, by Various

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Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866
A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics

Author: Various

Release Date: December 4, 2005 [EBook #17217]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._

VOL. XVIII.--DECEMBER, 1866.--NO. CX.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by TICKNOR
AND FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the
District of Massachusetts.

[Transcriber's note: Minor typos corrected and footnotes moved to end of
article.]

* * * * *

JOHN PIERPONT.

Most men of "fourscore and upwards," like Lear, and who, like Lear, have
been "mightily abused" in their day, are found, upon diligent inquiry,
to have long outlived themselves, like the Archbishop of Granada; but
here is a man, or was but the other day, in his eighty-second year, with
the temper and edge and "bright blue rippling glitter" of a Damascus
blade up to the very last; or rather, considering how he was last
employed, with the temper of that strange tool, found among the ruins of
Thebes, with which they used to smooth and polish their huge monoliths
of granite, until they murmured a song of joy, whenever the morning
sunshine fell upon them.

This remarkable man--remarkable under many aspects--died at Medford,
Massachusetts, on Monday morning, August 27th; and it is now said of
heart-disease,--that other name for a mysterious and sudden death,
happen how it may, and when it may. He had been perfectly well the day
before, attended church, and called on some of his neighbors; he retired
to rest as usual, and nothing more was heard of him till Monday morning,
when he was foun