On these occasions Mr.Gallatin led the conversation, which usually covered a wide field.

His memory was marvelous, and his personal acquaintance with the great men who were developed by the French Revolution, emperors and princes, heroes, statesmen, and men of science, gave to the easy flow of his speech the zest of anecdote and the spice of epigram.

Once heard he was never forgotten.

And this rare faculty he preserved undiminished to the close of his life.

Washington Irving, himself the most genial of men, and the most graceful of talkers, wrote of him, after meeting him at dinner, in 1841: "Mr.
Gallatin was in fine spirits and full of conversation.