Girard was only what he would have received if he had served another bank. The money which in loose hands might have relaxed the arm of industry and the spirit of independence, which might have pampered and debased a retinue of menials, and drawn around the dispenser a crowd of cringing beggars and expectants, was invested in solid houses, which Girard's books show yielded him a profit of three per cent, but which furnished to many families comfortable abodes at moderate rents. To the most passionate entreaties of failing merchants for a loan to help them over a crisis, he was inflexibly deaf. They thought it meanness. But we can safely infer from Girard's letters and conversation that he thought it an injury to the community to avert from a man of business the consequences of extravagance and folly, which, in his view, were the sole causes of failure. If there was anything that Girard utterly despised and detested, it was that vicious mode of doing business which, together with extravagant living, causes seven business men in ten to fail every ten years. We are enabled to state, however, on the best authority, that he was substantially just to those whom he employed, and considerately kind to his own kindred. At least he meant to be kind; he did for them what he really thought was for their good. To little children, and to them only, he was gracious and affectionate in manner. He was never so happy as when he had a child to caress and play with.

"The

After the peace of 1815, Girard began to consider what he should do with his millions after his death. He was then sixtyfive, but he expected and meant to live to a good age. Russians," he would say, when he was mixing his olla podrida of a Russian salad, "understand best how to eat and drink; and I am going to see how long, by following their customs, I can live." He kept an excellent table; but he became abstemious as he grew older, and lived chiefly on his salad and his good claret. Enjoying perfect health, it was not until about the year 1828, when he was seventy-eight years of age, that he entered upon the serious consideration of a plan for the final disposal of his immense estate. Upon one point his mind had been long made up. man," said he, "shall be a gentleman on my money." He often,

"No

said that, even if he had had a son, he should have been brought up to labor, and should not, by a great legacy, be exempted from the necessity of labor. "If I should leave him twenty thousand dollars," he said, "he would be lazy or turn gambler." Very likely. The son of a man like Girard, who was virtuous without being able to make virtue engaging, whose mind was strong but rigid and ill-furnished, commanding but uninstructive, is likely to have a barren mind and rampant desires, the twin causes of debauchery. His decided inclination was to leave the bulk of his property for the endowment of an institution of some kind for the benefit of Philadelphia. The only question was, what kind of institution it should be.

William J. Duane* was his legal adviser then, that honest and intrepid William J. Duane who, a few years later, stood calmly his ground on the question of the removal of the deposits against the infuriate Jackson, the Kitchen Cabinet, and the Democratic party. Girard felt all the worth of this able and honorable lawyer. With him alone he conversed upon the pro jected institution; and Mr. Duane, without revealing his purpose, made inquiries among his travelled friends respecting the endowed establishments of foreign countries. For several months before sitting down to prepare the will, they never met without conversing upon this topic, which was also the chief subject of discourse between them on Sunday afternoons, when Mr. Duane invariably dined at Mr. Girard's country-house. A home for the education of orphans was at length decided upon, and then the will was drawn. For three weeks the lawyer and his client were closeted, toiling at the multifarious details of that curious document.

The minor bequests were speedily arranged, though they were numerous and well considered. He left to the Pennsylvania Hospital, thirty thousand dollars; to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, twenty thousand; to the Orphan Asylum, ten thousand; to the Lancaster public schools, the same sum; the same for providing fuel for the poor in Philadelphia; the same to the Society for the Relief of Distressed Sea-Captains and their families; to the

The facts which follow I received from the lips and from the papers of this revered man, now no more. - J. P.

Freemasons of Pennsylvania, for the relief of poor members twenty thousand; six thousand for the establishment of a free school in Passyunk, near Philadelphia; to his surviving brother, and to his eleven nieces, he left sums varying from five thousand dollars to twenty thousand; but to one of his nieces, who had a very large family, he left sixty thousand dollars. To each of the captains who had made two voyages in his service, and who should bring his ship safely into port, he gave fifteen hundred dollars; and to each of his apprentices, five hundred. To his old servants, he left annuities of three hundred and five hundred dollars each. A portion of his valuable estates in Louisiana he bequeathed to the corporation of New Orleans, for the improvement of that city. Half a million he left for certain improvements in the city of Philadelphia; and to Pennsylvania, three hundred thousand dollars for her canals. The whole of the residue of his property, worth then about six millions of dollars, he devoted to the construction and endowment of a College for Orphans.

Accustomed all his life to give minute directions to those whom he selected to execute his designs, he followed the same system in that part of his will which related to the College. The whole will was written out three times, and some parts of it more than three. He strove most earnestly, and so did Mr. Duane, to make every paragraph so clear that no one could misunderstand it. No candid person, sincerely desirous to understand his intentions, has ever found it difficult to do so. He directed that the buildings should be constructed of the most durable materials, "avoiding useless ornament, attending chiefly to the strength, convenience, and neatness of the whole." That, at least, is plain. He then proceeded to direct precisely what materials should be used, and how they should be used; prescribing the number of buildings, their size, the number and size of the apartments in each, the thickness of each wall, giving every detail of construction, as he would have given it to a builder. He then gave briefer directions as to the management of the institution. The orphans were to be plainly but wholesomely fed, clothed, and lodged; instructed in the English branches, in geometry, natural philosophy, the French and Spanish languages, and whatever else

might be deemed suitable and beneficial to them. "I would have them," says the will, "taught facts and things, rather than words or signs." At the conclusion of the course, the pupils were to be apprenticed to "suitable occupations, as those of agriculture, navigation, arts, mechanical trades, and manufactures."

The most remarkable passage of the will is the following. The Italics are those of the original document.

"I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary, or minister of any sect whatsoever, shall ever hold or exercise any station or duty whatever in the said College; nor shall any such person ever be admitted for any purpose, or as a visitor, within the premises appropriated to the purposes of the said College. In making this restriction, I do not mean to cast any reflection upon any sect or person whatsoever; but as there is such a multitude of sects, and such a diversity of opinion amongst them, I desire to keep the tender minds of the orphans, who are to derive advantage from this bequest, free from the excitement which clashing doctrines and sectarian controversy are so apt to produce; my desire is, that all the instructors and teachers in the College shall take pains to instil into the minds of the scholars the purest principles of morality, so that, on their entrance into active life, they may, from inclination and habit, evince benevolence toward their fellow-creatures, and a love of truth, sobriety, and industry, adopting at the same time such religious tenets as their matured reason may enable them to prefer."

When Mr. Duane had written this passage at Girard's dictation, a conversation occurred between them, which revealed, perhaps, one of the old gentleman's reasons for inserting it. "What do you think of that?" asked Girard. Mr. Duane, being unprepared to comment upon such an unexpected injunction, replied, after a long pause, "I can only say now, Mr. Girard, that I think it will make a great sensation." Girard then said, “ I can tell you something else it will do, it will please the Quakers." He gave another proof of his regard for the Quakers by naming three of them as the executors of his will; the whole number of the executors being five.

In February, 1830, the will was executed, and deposited in Mr. Girard's iron safe. None but the two men who had drawn the will, and the three men who witnessed the signing of it, were aware of its existence; and none but Girard and Mr. Du

ane had the least knowledge of its contents. There never was such a keeper of his own secrets as Girard, and never a more faithful keeper of other men's secrets than Mr. Duane. And here we have another illustration of the old man's character. He had just signed a will of unexampled liberality to the public; and the sum which he gave the able and devoted lawyer for his three weeks' labor in drawing it was three hundred dollars!

Girard lived nearly two years longer, always devoted to business, and still investing his gains with care. An accident in the street gave a shock to his constitution, from which he never fully recovered; and in December, 1831, when he was nearly eightytwo years of age, an attack of influenza terminated his life. True to his principles, he refused to be cupped, or to take drugs into his system, though both were prescribed by a physician. whom he respected.

Death having dissolved the powerful spell of a presence which few men had been able to resist, it was to be seen how far his will would be obeyed, now that he was no longer able personally to enforce it. The old man lay dead in his house in Water Street. While the public out of doors were curious enough to learn what he had done with his money, there was a smaller number within the house, the kindred of the deceased, in whom this curiosity raged like a mania. They invaded the cellars of the house, and, bringing up bottles of the old man's choice wine, kept up a continual carouse. Surrounding Mr. Duane, who had been present at Mr. Girard's death, and remained to direct his funeral, they demanded to know if there was a will. To silence their indecent clamor, he told them there was, and that he was one of the executors. On hearing this, their desire to learn its contents rose to fury. In vain the executors reminded them that decency required that the will should not be opened till after the funeral. They even threatened legal proceedings if the will were not immediately produced; and at length, to avoid a public scandal, the executors consented to have it read. These affectionate relatives being assembled in a parlor of the house in which the body of their benefactor lay, the will was taken from the iron safe by one of the executors.*

*Mr. Duane.