Despite these "buffetings of fate," the Chief Justice was back in Washington in attendance upon Court in February, 1832, and daily walked several miles to and from the Capitol. In the following January his health appeared to be completely restored. "He seemed," says Story, with whom he messed, along with Justices Thompson and Duval, "to revive, and enjoy anew his green old age." This year Marshall had the gratification of receiving the tribute of Story's magnificent dedication of his Commentaries to him. With characteristic modesty, the aged Chief Justice expressed the fear that his admirer had "consulted a partial friendship farther than your deliberate judgment will approve." He was especially interested in the copy intended for the schools, but he felt that "south of the Potomac, where it is most wanted it will be least used," for, he continued, "it is a Mohammedan rule never to dispute with the ignorant, and we of the true faith in the South adjure the contamination of infidel political works. It would give our orthodox nullifyer a fever to read the heresies of your Commentaries. A whole school might be infected by the atmosphere of a single copy should it be placed on one of the shelves of a bookcase." Marshall sat on the Bench for the last time in the January term of 1835. Miss Harriet Martineau, who was in Washington during that winter, has left a striking picture of the Chief Justice as he appeared in these last days. "How delighted," she writes, "we were to see Judge Story bring in the tall, majestic, bright-eyed old man,--old by chronology, by the lines on his composed face, and by his services to the republic; but so dignified, so fresh, so present to the time, that no compassionate consideration for age dared mix with the contemplation of him." Marshall was, however, a very sick man, suffering constant pain from a badly diseased liver. The ailment was greatly aggravated, moreover, by "severe contusions" which he received while returning in the stage from Washington to Richmond. In June he went a second time to Philadelphia for medical assistance, but his case was soon seen to be hopeless. He awaited death with his usual serenity, and two days before it came he composed the modest epitaph which appeared upon his tomb: John Marshall, son of Thomas and Mary Marshall, was born on the 24th of September, 1755, Intermarried with Mary Willis Ambler the 3d of January, 1783, departed this life the -- day of --, 18--. He died the evening of July 6, 1835, surrounded by three of his sons. The death of the fourth, from an accident while he was hurrying to his father's bedside, had been kept from him. He left also a daughter and numerous grandchildren.