GEORGE PEABODY.

AFTER an illness of several days' duration, this distinguished American citizen and philanthropist died on Thursday, Oct. 4th, at half-past eleven o'clock, at 80, Eaton-square, Pimlico.

George Peabody was descended from one of the Pilgrim Fathers, who left our shores in 1620, to plant the standard of the English Puritans on Plymouth Rock, and found the mother State of North America. He was born on the 18th of February, 1795, at Danvers, Massachusetts, and passed some of the years of his early life in a grocer's store as a shopboy. On the 1st of June, 1812, whilst Peabody was still little more than a boy, President Madison sent to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States his Message full of accusations against this country. On the 18th of June in the same year, war was declared by the United States against Great Britain, and the youth of America was summoned to fight for its native land against men so nearly allied to them in blood, that the conflict has assumed in the retrospect of the historian the character of a civil war. George Peabody was amongst those who volunteered to fight for his country, and he saw active service during the war. In 1815, however, peace was proclaimed; young Peabody having seen something of the pomp and circumstance of war, readily resumed the pursuits of peace; and after some years he became partner in a successful firm at Baltimore.

In 1837 he came to England, and in 1843 established himself in London as a merchant and money broker. In these capacities his assistance was frequently sought by the United States, and in 1848 he contributed largely to restore the credit of Maryland. During the Exhibition of 1851 he gave an earnest of the magnificent generosity with which his name is now associated on both sides of the Atlantic, by supplying at his own cost the decorations of the United

States department. He had contributed liberally to the cost of the American expedition organised under Dr. Kane to explore the arctic regions in search of Sir John Frankiin. As a proof that success had not obliterated the associations connected with his earliest youth, he devoted £25,000 to found an institute which bears his name in his native town; and his commercial and social connection with Maryland identified him so closely with its interests, that he has subscribed upwards of £100,000 for the purposes of education in the State. He retired from business in 1862, and in the March of that year he presented the sum of £150,000 to the City of London. The object of his gift was specifically stated in a letter, in which he expressed a wish that the sum he had given to the City should be applied to the purpose of benefiting the working classes by the erection of comfortable and convenient lodging-houses. The first block of these buildings, in Spitalfields, was opened in 1864. In the January of 1866 he almost astonished a community already accustomed, so to speak, to his acts of philanthropy, by giving another £100,000 to the City of London, to be also employed in ameliorating the social condition of the poor; and early this year he gave a further donation, for the same benevolent purpose, of £100,000; and his executors are instructed by his will to pay £150,000 more, to be devoted to the same object; making in all £500,000.

Mr. Peabody was a member of the Independents. He was a christian as well as a philanthropist. His acts of benevolence to the poor were influenced by his love to Christ.

It was in the March of 1866 that the Queen paid the unostentatious philanthropist a delicate and thoughtful tribute of her admiration by writing him a letter, in which she promised that she would send him a miniature likeness of herself. This graceful recognition by the Queen of generosity which was unprecedented-for it must not be forgotten that George Peabody was not of British birth—was enhanced by the bestowal upon him of the name by which

he will be known in our annals. On the costly miniature which the ruler of the greatest Empire in the world presented to one who had refused the acceptance of heraldic dignity, was the inscription: "V. R. Presented by the Queen to G. Peabody, Esq., the Benefactor of the Poor." Of the exquisite conciseness and suitability of the title we need not say one word. Heraldry knows no such ennobling designation.

Amongst all the eulogies which have been pronounced and written regarding the man who strove to unite the Old World and the New by a stronger bond than any which even science could devise, not one will be read with more sorrowful interest in the sad retrospect of to-day than that penned by the hand of Queen Victoria. This is its plain but earnest text:

"Windsor Castle, March 28th, 1866. "The Queen hears that Mr. Peabody intends shortly to return to America, and she would be sorry that he should leave England without being assured by herself how deeply she appreciates the noble act of more than princely munificence by which he has sought to relieve the wants of the poorer class of her subjects residing in London. It is an act, as the Queen believes, wholly without parallel, and which will carry its best reward in the consciousness of having contributed so largely to the assistance of those who can little help themselves. The Queen would not, however, have been satisfied without giving Mr. Peabody some public mark of her sense of his munificence; and she would gladly have conferred upon him either a baronetcy or the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, but that she understands Mr. Peabody to feel himself debarred from receiving such distinctions. It only remains, therefore, for the Queen to give Mr. Peabody her assurance of her personal feelings, which she would further wish to mark by asking him to accept a miniature portrait of herself, which she will desire to have painted for him, and which, when finished, can either be sent to him to America, or given him on the