, and then, thanking him politely, put the coins in
his pocket, and, closing his eyes, once more resumed his former
position.

Mr. Longworth had erected a magnificent mansion in the midst of his
vineyard. He gathered there a fine library, and a collection of
paintings, statuary, and other art treasures, which were his pride. He
died there on the 10th of February, 1863, at the age of eighty-one. His
loss was severely felt by the community, especially by his "devil's
poor," for whom he had cared so tenderly.

CHAPTER VIII.

GEORGE PEABODY.

It is not often that men who pass their lives in the acquisition of
money are able to retain the desire to give it to others who have had no
share in the earning of it. In European countries, the wealthy merchant
commonly uses his fortune for the purpose of founding a family, and
securing sometimes a title of nobility. His wealth is entailed, that it
may remain in his family and benefit remote generations; but few save
those of his own blood enjoy any benefit from it, and the world is no
better off for his life and success than if he had never been born. In
America, instances of personal generosity and benevolence on a large
scale are of more common occurrence than in the Old World. We have
already borne witness to the munificence of Girard, Astor, Lawrence,
Longworth, and Stewart, and shall yet present to the reader other
instances of this kind in the remaining pages of this work. We have now
to trace the career of one who far exceeded any of these in the extent
and magnitude of his liberality, and who, while neglecting none
connected with him by ties of blood, took the whole English-speaking
race for his family, and by scattering his blessings far and wide on
both sides of the Atlantic, has won a proud name

"As one who loved his fellow-men."

[Illustration: GEORGE PEABODY.]

GEORGE PEABODY came of an old English family, which traced its
descent back to the year of our Lord 61, the days of the heroic
Boadicea, down through the brilliant circle of the Knights of the Round
Table, to Francis Peabody, who in 1635 went from St. Albans, in
Hertfordshire, to the New World, and settled in Danvers, Massachusetts,
where the subject of this memoir was born one hundred and sixty years
later, on the 18th of February, 1795. The parents of George Peabody were
poor, and hard work was the lot to which he was born, a lot necessary to
develop his sterling qualities of mind and he