On Mr. Gallatin’s birth day, when he had arrived at the age of eighty-three years, I went to see him as early in the morning of that day as I could, after taking a very early breakfast. I found him up in his library, busily engaged in his favorite study of Indian languages. He was quite active, quick in his motions, his cheeks were ruddy, his eye clear and piercing, his step elastic, his eye sight, by the aid of his glasses, good. He repeatedly ran up his ladder like a squirrel to get a book for me. His hearing is unimpaired, and his memory of past events, wherein he had been concerned, excellent. His reasoning powers were good, and so was his judgment. On my former visit I had, at his request, related to him what I had known of the transactions of his life, in which I had left many blanks, especially when he had been in Europe as our diplomatic agent. To-day Mr. Gallatin filled up those blanks and recounted to me what he had done, ever since he landed at New York, a poor foreigner, ignorant of our language, unlearned and not twenty years old; but now I saw before me, at the age of eighty-three, a man of wealth, of learning, of great practical knowledge and of vast mental powers, whose fame as a diplomatist, as a man of business and as a statesman, was co-extensive with the civilized world. He more than once told me that he was relating the manner in which he had succeeded in life, so that I might profit by his experience, whereas I expected to die long years before he would. So I thought, but said nothing, because any remark in reply or by way of inquiry, seemed to discompose his mind very much. In the course of his long story of four or five hours in length, he more than once gave the credit of his success to his wife and her relatives in New York. He had married a daughter of Commodore Nicholson. She had entered into all his concerns, political, moral, social and mental with her whole heart. She even watched the newspapers, to learn what they said of Mr. Gallatin. He related to me an anecdote of Mr. Gales, who in his Intelligencer had said of Mr. Gallatin, after his arrival in Washington, “that the _venerable_ Mr. Gallatin had arrived in the city.” Soon after that paper appeared, when a party of gentlemen had convened to give Mr. Gallatin a public dinner, perhaps, the latter gentleman said aloud, so that all present heard him, “Mr. Gales, my wife says, you make her husband quite too venerable.” Mr. and Mrs. Gallatin sent by me their best respects to all their old friends in the District of Columbia, with a very pressing request, that I would give him an accurate account of these friends, and what had befallen them since January 1830, which was the last time Mr. Gallatin had been in Washington city. On my return to Washington I executed my commission in a way that I supposed would be satisfactory to all concerned--that is, to Mr. and Mrs. Gallatin and to their surviving friends in the District. On the whole, we may safely pronounce Mr.