The closing field of Mr. Mickley’s travels covered Southern France and Spain, Lisbon, where he passed the winter of 1871-72, and Madrid.  The weather being very severe, he was detained two months at Lisbon, where he engaged a teacher and took daily lessons in Portuguese.  He had done the same at Stockholm the previous winter with the Swedish language, which he mastered pretty thoroughly.  At Madrid he examined what he emphatically pronounced the finest collection of coins in the world, numbering one hundred and fifty thousand specimens.  He adds, “This is the only place in Europe where the subject is properly understood.  Alfonzo V., King of Aragon, in the fifteenth century, was the first person known to have collected coins for study or amusement, and Augustin, Archbishop of Tarragona, was the first writer on the subject.  The science of numismatics is, therefore, of Spanish origin.”

Mr, Mickley left Madrid in March, crossing the Pyrenees and arriving in Paris on the 24th of that month, his seventy-third birthday.  He “made the tour of three hundred and sixty-three miles in twelve hours, without being in the least fatigued.”  After a few weeks passed in Paris and in revisiting friends in England, he sailed for home, arriving in Philadelphia June 5, 1872, exactly three years from the date of his departure.

It was surprising to his friends how little change the lapse of years and the somewhat rugged incidents of travel had made in Mr. Mickley.  He quickly settled down, and, as nearly as possible, resumed his old habits.  He bought himself a residence, but followed the Paris custom of taking his meals elsewhere.  In the house he was entirely alone, even without a servant.  After a time he showed some disposition to concede to “luxuries” which he had previously ignored.  Carpets he had never used in his life, but he now admitted that they were very pleasant and comfortable, and ordered his house to be carpeted throughout.  The arrangement of his library in the new quarters was a great pleasure, and took some time.  Mr. Mickley was in no sense of the word a politician, but he voted pretty regularly.  An incident connected with his last visit to the polls was amusing.  Having been three years absent, a patriotic Hibernian, who kept the window-book and knew nothing of him, demanded to see his tax-receipt.  The old gentleman went quietly home and brought back the desired document.  He was next asked if he could read and write, which question, however, was not pressed.  The last scene in Mr. Mickley’s life was as quiet and peaceful as its whole tenor had been.  On the afternoon of February 15, 1878, Mr. Carl Plagemann, the well-known musician and a friend of many years’ standing, called at his house.  While he waited, Mr. Mickley wrapped for him some violin-strings, the last work of his hands.  He requested Mr. Plagemann to go with him that evening to visit another old friend,—­Oliver Hopkinson, Esq., at whose house there were to be some quartettes.