He belongs to the race of giants, not simply because he was, in and of himself a great soul, but because he had bathed in the providence of God and came forth scarcely less than a god; because he gave himself to the work of God upon earth, and inherited thereby, or had reflected upon him, some of the majesty of his Master.  When pigmies are all dead, the noble countenance of Wendell Phillips will still look forth, radiant as a rising sun, a sun that will never set.  He has become to us a lesson, his death an example, his whole history an encouragement to manhood—­and to heroic manhood.

* * * * *

VIII

MARY WORDSWORTH

(BORN 1770—­DIED 1859.)

THE KINDLY WIFE OF THE GREAT POET.

    “A creature not too bright or good
    For human nature’s daily food.”

The last thing that would have occurred to Mrs. Wordsworth would have been that her departure, or any thing about her, would be publicly noticed amidst the events of a stirring time.  Those who knew her well regarded her with as true a homage as they ever rendered to any member of the household, or to any personage of the remarkable group which will be forever traditionally associated with the Lake District; but this reverence, genuine and hearty as it was, would not, in all eyes, be a sufficient reason for recording more than the fact of her death.  It is her survivorship of such a group which constitutes an undisputed public interest in her decease.  With her closes a remarkable scene in the history of the literature of our century.  The well-known cottage, mount, and garden at Rydal will be regarded with other eyes when shut up or transferred to new occupants.  With Mrs. Wordsworth, an old world has passed away before the eyes of the inhabitants of the district, and a new one succeeds, which may have its own delights, solemnities, honors, and graces, but which can never replace the familiar one that is gone.  There was something mournful in the lingering of this aged lady—­blind, deaf, and bereaved in her latter years; but she was not mournful, any more than she was insensible.  Age did not blunt her feelings, nor deaden her interest in the events of the day.  It seems not so very long ago that she said that the worst of living in such a place (as the Lake District), was its making one unwilling to go.  It is too beautiful to let one be ready to leave it.  Within a few years the beloved daughter was gone, and then the aged husband, and then the son-in-law, and then the devoted friend, Mr. Wordsworth’s publisher, Mr. Moxon, who paid his duty occasionally by the side of her chair; then she became blind and deaf.  Still her cheerfulness was indomitable.  No doubt, she would in reality have been “willing to go,” whenever called upon, throughout her long life; but she liked life to the end.  By her disinterestedness of nature, by her fortitude of spirit, and her constitutional elasticity and activity, she was qualified for the honor of surviving her household—­nursing and burying them, and bearing the bereavement which they were vicariously spared.  She did it wisely, tenderly, bravely, and cheerfully; and then she will be remembered accordingly by all who witnessed the spectacle.