While taking his accustomed walk at an early hour in the morning of January 5, 1863, he was prostrated by a paralytic stroke, near the mineral spring in the environs of the city of Raleigh, and although retaining his self-possession and ability to converse until assistance was kindly furnished, on the way home his mind wandered, and before reaching his residence his faculty of continuous speech deserted him, never again to return. His mental powers after a brief interval rallied, insomuch that he took pleasure in reading and in listening to the conversations of friends, whose visits afforded him much satisfaction; and, with assistance, he could walk for exercise in the open air; but was never afterwards able to command language, except for brief sentences, failing often in these to convey his full meaning. In this condition he lingered until the 11th of May, 1866, when, after a few days' illness from renewed attacks of the same nature, he expired, having recently completed his seventy-first year. My task is done. I have endeavored but "to hold the mirror up to nature." If the image reflected appears, in any of its features, magnified, it was not so intended. Yet the memory of a friendship, dating back to kind offices and notice in my student-life, extending through all my active manhood, may not have been without its influence in giving color to the picture. But the character in our contemplation was of no ordinary proportions. At the bar of the State he wore the mantle of Gaston and Archibald Henderson for a much longer period than either, worthily and well, with no diminution of its honors. In the highest court of the Union he was the acknowledged compeer of Webster, Crittenden, Ewing, Johnson, Berrien, Walker and Cushing. That he did not sit in the highest seat of justice in the State and nation, as proposed successively by the Executive of each, is imputable to no deficiency or unworthiness for the station, his adversaries being judges. In the Senate, when Clay, Webster, and Calhoun still remained there, not to name others of scarcely inferior repute, he was among the foremost, upholding the rights of his own State and section with manliness and ability, but with candor, moderation, and true wisdom, which sought to harmonize conflicting elements and avert the calamities of civil strife. In morals he was inflexible, without stain or suspicion of vice; in manners and social intercourse, genial, frank, hospitable, with colloquial powers to instruct, amuse, and fascinate alike, and "with a heart open as day to melting charity." The fame of such a man is a source of natural and just pride to the people of the State. This sentiment is that which the poet describes in the Englishman, when he sings "It is enough to satisfy the ambition of a private man, That Chatham's language was his mother tongue, And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own."