the country was placed in extreme
embarrassment from the scarcity of money, by
reason of the balance of trade being against
it, he was enabled, by a single transaction
with an eminent English firm, to turn the
exchanges, and cause specie to flow into the
States.

Stephen Girard began his remarkable
trading career with one object, which he
steadily kept in view all his long life—
the making of money for the power
it conferred. He was content, at starting,
with the small profits of the retail trader,
willing to labour in any capacity to make
those profits secure. He practised the most
rigid personal economy; he resisted all the
allurements of pleasure; he exacted the
last farthing that was due to him; and he
paid the last farthing that he owed. He took
every advantage which the law allowed him
in resisting a claim; he used men just so far
as they would accomplish his purpose; he
paid his servants no more than the market
price; when a faithful cashier died, he
exhibited the utmost indifference, making no
provision for his family, and uttering no
sentiment of regret for his loss. He would
higgle for a penny with a huckster in
the streets: he would deny the watchman at
his bank, the customary Christmas present of
a great-coat. To add to his singular and
deficient character, he was deaf in one ear,
could only speak broken English, never
conversed upon anything but business, and wore
the same old coat, cut in the French style, for
five years together. An old ricketty chair,
remarkable for its age, and marked with the
initials "S. G." drawn by a faded horse, was
used when he rode about the city. He had
no sense of hospitality, no friend to shared
his house or his table. He was deferential in
appearance, to rank and family. Violent and
passionate; only to one man—an old and
faithful clerk named Robergot. His theological
opinions were heterodox in the extreme,
and he loved to name his splendid vessels
after Voltaire and Rousseau. He was devoted
to the improvement of his adopted city and
country: he was a determined follower of
ostentatious charity. No man ever applied
to him for a large public grant in vain, while
the starving beggar was invariably sent
from his gate. He steadily rose every
morning before the lark, and unceasing labour
was the daily worship of his life.

Thus he attained his eighty-second year.
In eighteen hundred and thirty, he had
nearly lost the sight of his one eye, and
used to be seen groping about his bank,
disregarding every offer of assistance. Crossing
one of the Philadelphian roads, he was
knocked down by a passing waggon, his face
was bruised, and his right ear was nearly cut
off. His one eye, which before opened slightly,
was now entirely closed; he gradually wasted
away, and his health declined. On the
twenty-sixth of December, Stephen Girard
expired in a back room, on the third floor of his
house, in Water-street, Philadelphia, leaving
the bulk of his large fortune, upwards of a
million sterling, to found charities, and to
benefit the city and the country in which
he had acquired it.

He left his monument, in the "Girard
Cottage;" that marble-roofed palace for
the education and protection of the orphan
children of the poor, which stands, the most
perfect model of architecture in the New World,
high above the buildings of Philadelphia,
visible from every eminence of the surrounding
country. Every detail of the external and
internal arrangement of this Orphan College
was set forth clearly and carefully in his will;
showing that the design upon which he had
lavished the mass of his wealth, was not the
hastily-developed fancy of a few hours or
days, but was the heart-cherished, silent
project of his whole life.

MR, CHARLES DICKENS
WILL READ AT ST. MARTIN'S HALL:
On WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, JUNE 9th, at Three, his
Christmas Carol.
On THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE 10th, at Eight, The
Story of Little Dombey.
Each Reading will last two hours.
PLACES FOR EACH READING:—Stalls (numbered and
reserved), Five Shillings; Area and Galleries, Half-a-
crown; Unreserved Seats, One Shilling. Tickets to be
had at Messrs. Chapman and Hall's, Publishers, 193,
Piccadilly; and at St. Martin's Hall, Long Acre.