On the following 4th of March, Washington was present at the inauguration of his successor, John Adams, and soon afterward went with his family to Mount Vernon, to resume his agricultural occupations. Serious difficulties with France were soon developed, and war became imminent. A provisional army was authorized by congress to meet the exigency, and all eyes were again turned toward Washington as its leader. President Adams wrote to him: "We must have your name, if you will permit us to use it. There will be more efficacy in it than in many an army." Hamilton urged him to make "this further, this very great sacrifice." And thus, on 3 July, 1798, Washington, yielding to the entreaty of friends and a sense

of duty to his country, was once more commissioned as "Lieutenant-General and Commander-in-chief of all the armies raised, or to be raised, in the United States." The organization and arrangement of this new army now engrossed his attention. Deeply impressed with the great responsibility that had been thrust upon him, and having selected Alexander Hamilton as his chief of staff, to the serious disappointment of his old friend Gen. Knox, he entered at once into the minutest details of the preparation for war, with all the energy and zeal of his earlier and more vigorous days.

Most happily this war with our late gallant ally was averted. Washington, however, did not live to receive the assurance of a result that he so earnestly desired. Riding over his farms, on 12 Dec., to give directions to the managers of his estate, he was overtaken by showers of rain and sleet, and returned home wet and chilled. The next day he suffered from a hoarse, sore throat, followed by an ague at night. His old physician and surgeon, Dr. Craik, who had been with him. in peace and in war, was summoned from Alexandria the next morning, and two other physicians were called into consultation during the day. At four o'clock in the afternoon he requested his wife, who was constantly at his bedside, to bring him two papers from his study, one of which he gave back to her as his will. At six o'clock he said to the three physicians

around him: "I feel myself going; I thank you for your attentions, but I pray you to take no more trouble about me." He had previously said to Dr. Craik: "I die hard, but I am not afraid to go." About ten o'clock he succeeded with difficulty in giving some directions about his funeral to Mr. Lear,

his secretary, and on Mr. Lear's assuring him that he was understood, he uttered his last. words: "It is well." And thus, between ten and eleven o'clock on Saturday night, 14 Dec., 1799, the end came, and his spirit returned to God who gave it.

The funeral took place on the 18th. Such troops as were

in the neighborhood formed the escort of the little procession; the general's favorite horse was led behind the bier, the Freemasons performed their ceremonies, the Rev. Thomas Davis read the service and made a brief address, a schooner lying in the Potomac fired minute-guns, the relatives and friends within reach, including Lord Fairfax and the corporation of Alexandria, were in attendance, and the body was deposited in the vault at Mount Vernon. At Mount Vernon it has remained to this day. Virginia would never consent to its removal to the stately vault prepared for it beneath the capitol at Washington. Congress was in session at Philadelphia, and the startling news of Washington's death only reached there on the day of his funeral. The next morning John Marshall, then a representative from Virginia, afterward for thirty-four years chief justice of the supreme court of the United States, announced the death in the house of representatives, concluding a short but admirable tribute to his illustrious friend with resolutions prepared by Richard Henry Lee, which contained the grand words that have ever since been associated with Washington: "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fellow-citizens." Gen. Lee pronounced a eulogy, by order of both houses of congress, on 26 Dec., in which he changed the last word of his own famous phrase to "countrymen," and it is so given in the eulogy as published by congress. Meantime congress adopted a resolution recommending to the people of

the United States to assemble on the following 22d of February, in such manner as should be convenient, to testify publicly by eulogies, orations, and discourses, or by public prayers, their grief for the death of George Washington. In conformity with this recommendation, eulogies or sermons were delivered, or exercises of some sort held, in almost every city, town, village, or hamlet, throughout the land. Such was the first observance of Washington's birthday; thenceforth to be a national holiday. But not in our own land only was his death commemorated. Napoleon Bonaparte, then first consul, announced it to the army of France, and ordered all the standards and flags throughout the republic to be bound with crape for ten days, during which a funeral oration was pronounced in presence of the first consul and all the civil and military authorities, in what is now the Hôtel des Invalides. More striking still is the fact, mentioned by Jared Sparks, that the British fleet, consisting of nearly sixty ships of the line, which was lying at Torbay, England, under the command of Lord Bridport, lowered their flags half-mast on hearing the intelligence of Washington's death.

In later years the tributes to the memory of Washington have been such as no other man of modern or even of ancient history has commanded. He has sometimes been compared, after the manner of Plutarch, with Epaminondas, or Timoleon, or Alfred the Great of England. But an eminent living English historian has recently and justly said that the place of Washington in the history of mankind "is well-nigh without a fellow." Indeed, the gen

eral judgment of the world has given ready assent to the carefully weighed, twice repeated declaration of Lord Brougham: "It will be the duty of the historian and sage in all ages to let no occasion pass of commemorating this illustrious man; and, until time shall be no more, will a test of the progress which our race has made in wisdom and virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the immortal name of Washington!" Mod

est, disinterested, generous, just, of clean hands and a pure, heart, self-denying and self-sacrificing, seeking nothing for himself, declining all remuneration beyond the reimbursement of his outlays, scrupulous to a farthing in keeping his accounts, of spotless integrity, scorning gifts, charitable to the needy, forgiving injuries and injustice, fearless, heroic with a prudence ever governing his impulses and a wisdom ever guiding his valor, true to his friends, true to his whole country, true to himself, fearing God, believing in Christ, no stranger to private devotion or public worship, or to the holiest offices of the church to which he belonged, but ever gratefully recognizing a divine aid and direction in all that he attempted and in all that he accomplished-what epithet, what attribute, could be added to that consummate character to commend it as an example above all other characters in merely human history?

Washington's most important original papers were bequeathed to his favorite nephew, Bushrod Washington, and were committed by him to Chief-Justice John Marshall, by whom an elaborate life, in five volumes, was published in 1804. Abridged editions of this great work have been published more recently. "The Writings of Washington," with a life, were published by Jared Sparks (12 vols., Boston, 1834-7). A new edition of Washington's complete works in 14 vols., edited by Worthington C. Ford, containing many letters and papers now published for the first time, has very recently been completed (New York, 1888-'93). Biographies have also been published by Mason L. Weems, David Ramsay, James K. Paulding, Charles W. Upham, Joel T. Headley, Caroline M. Kirkland, and Edward Everett Hale. Benson J. Lossing made an interesting contribution to the illustration of the same theme by his "Mount Vernon and its Associations" in 1859. Meanwhile the genius of Washington Irving has illuminated the whole story of Washington's life, public and private, and thrown around it the charms of exquisite style and lucid narrative (5 vols., New York, 1855-9). An abridgment and revision of Irving's work, by John Fiske (New York, 1888), and "General Washington," by Bradley T. Johnston (1894), have recently appeared. A sketch was prepared by Edward Everett, at the request of Lord Macaulay, for the eighth edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica" (1853-1860), which was afterward published in a separate volume. To Edward

.

Everett, too, belongs the principal credit of having saved Mount Vernon from the auctioneer's hammer, and secured its preservation, under the auspices of the Ladies' Mount Vernon association, as a place of pilgrimage. He wrote fifty-two articles for the New York "Ledger," and delivered his lecture on Washington many times, contributing the proceeds to the Mount Vernon fund.

The marble statue in the capitol at Richmond, Va. (for bust of this, see page 20), by the French sculptor Houdon, from life, must be named first among the standard likenesses of Washington. Excellent portraits of him by John Trumbull, by both the Peales, and by Gilbert Stuart, are to be seen in many public galleries. Stuart's head leaves nothing to be desired in the way of dignity and grandeur. Among the numerous monuments that have been erected to his memory may be mentioned the noble column in Baltimore; the colossal statue in the Capitol grounds at Washington, by Horatio Greenough; the splendid group in Richmond, surmounted by an equestrian statue, by Thomas Crawford; the marble statue in the Massachusetts state-house, by Sir Francis Chantrey; the equestrian statue in the Boston public garden, by Thomas Ball; the equestrian statue in Union square, New York, by Henry K. Brown; and, lastly, the matchless obelisk at Washington, of which the corner-stone was laid in 1848, upon which the capstone was placed, at the height of 555 feet, in 1884, and which was dedicated by congress on 21 Feb., 1885, as Washington's birthday that year fell on Sunday. See vignette (page 27), and also illustration of his birthplace by Charles C. Perkins (page 3); a drawing of the locality by Gen. William T. Sherman (page 4), the church at Pohick (page 11), the Newburgh headquarters (page 16), Mount Vernon (page 32), Washington's tomb, (page 26), a portrait of him in youth (page 7); also the pictures by Trumbull (page 13), Wertmüller (page 21), and Du Simitière (page 25). The steel engraving, which appears as a frontispiece to this volume, is from Stuart's original in the Boston Athenæum. The vignette which follows of Mrs. Washington, is from the portrait by the same distinguished artist.

His wife, MARTHA, born in New Kent county, Va., in May, 1732; died at Mount Vernon, Va., 22 May, 1802, was the daughter of Col. John Dandridge, a planter in New Kent