The attainment of this honour terminated his commercial and public life, for after this date he relinquished, in a great degree, his business cares; but to an extreme old age he retained his faculties, and he retained also his habits of quiet and discriminating charity, doing good by stealth, and blushing to find it known. On the 20th October, 1854, he paid his last visit to his parent’s grave, and was there heard to murmur, “How very happy I am.” His failing health compelled him to visit Margate, and here, on the 7th of September, 1855, he died in a ripe old age. A letter, written just before his death, evidently betrays a lingering fondness for early childish days:--“We are surrounded by fields of fully-ripening corn--some cut, some cutting,” babbling, like Falstaff, of green fields, till the sixty years of town life were forgotten. Thomas Kelly was one of those men of whom the London citizens are so proud--men who come to the mighty centre of commerce utterly friendless, and worse still, penniless, and whom industry, labour, and good fortune exalt to the very pinnacle of a good citizen’s fondest dreams. But he was more than a Lord Mayor--he was a true friend; he was a loving, dutiful, and tender son--qualities not always insured even by commercial success. Mr. George Virtue was another of those men of whom, in this history, we have had not a few examples, who, beginning life without any fictitious advantages, have made success their goal, and, in attaining it, have not only amassed princely fortunes for themselves and their families, but have opened up new branches of industry, and have afforded employment to hundreds whose bread depends upon their daily labours. His father was a native of Fogo, in Berwickshire, who first at Coldstream, and afterwards at Wooler, in Northumberland, let out for hire carts and carters to the neighbouring farmers. In the year 1793, his second son, George, was born at Coldstream, and there and at Wooler, he passed the early years of his boyhood. In 1810, his father met with an accident, which caused him to relinquish the business he had hitherto been engaged in. His eldest son, James, who had a good engagement in London, gave up his employment and hastened home, and removing with the family to Coldstream, commenced business there as a mason, taking his brother George as an apprentice. Mrs. Somerton, their married sister, had a large house, near the Houses of Parliament, in London, which she let out, much on the plan of the club-chambers of the present day. George had come up to London, partly on business, partly on a visit to his sister, and not wishing to return to the North, he made an arrangement to remain with Mrs. Somerton.