can adequately foresee or estimate. Whether we contemplate the miseries which are aris ing within the union of these States or out of the union of these States, they are appall ing to the mind of an octogenarian whose days began before the glorious achievement of Yorktown, the signing of the treaty of peace which established one independence, and which have since been passed in the brightness of unparalleled prosperity. Deep is the distress of soul which weighs down one in his old age, at the approaching pros pect of destruction which may entomb his country before he sinks into the grave. That a single lifetime should survive the dura tion of the liberty, peace and prosperity of such a country as ours is a heart-rending bitterness of sorrow." In the lapse of a few months these forebodings were realized. In character Judge Lomax was preemi nently and typically what he is at the present day often spoken of by his grandson (a distinguished Virginia lawyer) as, the " dear old gentleman." In appearance he was a man of fine presence and imposing stature, his bearing was one of the simplest dignity, radiated by a manner as cordial as kind. His face expressed the pure goodness of heart which attracted to him a legion of friends and followers throughout his own State and far beyond her borders. At times he was full of pleasant humor, at others

grave without the affectation of gravity. He was eminently just to the character of every man, and where he could not com mend he was silent. His was a soul and personality of intellectual strength, a life of honors fairly won. He chose that these gifts should adorn social life, sweeten the joys of domestic bliss, rather than seek dis play upon the stage of public life. He held a high and conscientious sense of duty, and the memory of it and of John Tayloe Lomax is cherished by many who survive, especially his descendants, — east, west, north and south, on the shores of -the Gulf, along the Atlantic coast, and on the Pacific. He died on the first day of October, 1862, in his eighty-first year. His eyes were closed to all things earthly before the full horrors of the Civil War between the States could reach him. He had entered his eternal home before the streets of his town, and the surrounding heights of Fredericksburg were the scene of wretched strife, or the repulse of the army of General Burnside, when the storm of shot and shell destroyed the roof that had sheltered him so many years. A long, quiet life was ended peacefully within the radius of a hundred miles from the spot where he -was born. He was laid to rest where many of his Virginia ancestors repose, — modest, restful, unostentatious in his last sleep.