Untitled - Electric Scotland

1827-33] DEATH OF HIS FATHER 49
mentary Schools be set on foot there to teach it," and
there is very much more advice of similar character.
The father s tender love was as tenderly returned, and
it was a heavy sorrow to the son when the old man lay
quietly down to sleep on the loth May 1832, and never
rose again. He was just breathing when they came to
him in the morning, but he was quite unconscious, and in
a few minutes he died. A memorandum-book was after
wards found in his study, containing elaborate notes of his
ideas respecting his youngest son s studies, and expressing
not only his unchanged pride and joy in him, but his
unabated confidence in his future greatness.
To Archie, the shock of this sudden death was terrible.
A faithful biography should record, when possible, not
only the deeds and words of him who is its subject, but
some at least of the influences which have combined to
mould his life. In such a connection the following letter
from Lady Wake may find a place :-
"We have all a sad loss, but to you, my dearest Archie,
I feel that it is the greatest, for he was to you both a motive
for exertion and a reward to success, for what could be so stimu
lating as his anxious interest, and what so delightful as the
gratified happiness
with which each new successful effort filled
his heart? But even now, though he is no longer here, his
memory remains as a more sacred influence.
"In speaking of him now, many
will recur to his loss of
fortune, and the imprudences which perhaps caused it. But it
is in your power, my Archie, to cause that in future he will
only be spoken of as the father who formed a great and good
man, useful to his country in that manner in which the benefits
bestowed survive time, to be acknowledged in eternity. . . . We
have been counting your age, and are amazed to find that you
will be twenty-one next birthday. I had thought you were still
a child, and behold, you are a man !
He took hn s degree, November 28th, 1833, obtaining a
first class in the Final Classical Schools.
VOL. i.
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I do not