"Believe me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited fellow. Has
he any unbraided wares?"
"Pr'ythee, bring him in; and let him approach singing."
_Winter's Tale_.
I have no intention of taking the reader with me through college, where
I remained the usual term of four years. These four years were not idled
away, as sometimes happens, but were fairly improved. I read all of the New
Testament, in Greek; several of Cicero's Orations; every line of Horace,
Satires and Odes; four books of the Iliad; Tully de Oratore, throughout;
besides paying proper attention to geography, mathematics, and other of the
usual branches. Moral philosophy, in particular, was closely attended to,
senior year, as well as Astronomy. We had a telescope that showed us all
four of Jupiter's moons. In other respects, Nassau might be called the seat
of learning. One of our class purchased a second-hand copy of Euripides, in
town, and we had it in college all of six months; though it was never
my good fortune to see it, as the young man who owned it, was not much
disposed to let profane eyes view his treasure. Nevertheless, I am certain
the copy of the work was in college; and we took good care to let the Yale
men hear of it more than once. I do not believe _they_ ever saw even the
outside of an Euripides. As for the telescope, I can testify of my own
knowledge; having seen the moons of Jupiter as often as ten times, with my
own eyes, aided by its magnifiers. We had a tutor who was expert among the
stars, and who, it was generally believed, would have been able to see the
ring of Saturn, could be have found the planet; which, as it turned out, he
was unable to do.
My four college years were very happy years. The vacations came often, and
I went home invariably; passing a day or two with my aunt Legge, in going
or coming. The acquisition of knowledge was always agreeable to me; and I
may say it without vanity, I trust, at this time of life, I got the third
honour of my class. We should have graduated four, but one of our class was
compelled to quit us at the end of junior year, on account of his health.
He was an unusually hard student, and it was generally admitted that he
would have taken the first honour had he remained. We were thought to
acquit ourselves with credit at the commencement; although I afterwards
heard my grandfather tell Mr. Worden, that he was of opinion the addresses
would have been more masculine and commendable, had less been said of
the surprising growth, prosperity, and power of the colonies. He had no
objection to the encouragement of a sound, healthful, patriotic feeling;
but to him it appeared that something more novel might have better pleased
the audience. This may have been true, as all three of us had something to
say on the subject; and it is a proof how much we thought alike, that our
language was almost as closely assimilated as our ideas.
As for the Powles Hook Ferry, it was an unpleasant place I will allow;
though by the time I was junior I thought nothing of it. My mother,
however, was glad when it was passed for the last time. I remember the very
first words that escaped her, after she had kissed me on my final return
from college, were, "Well, Heaven be praised, Corny! you will never again
have any occasion to cross that frightful ferry, now college is completely
done with!" My poor mother little knew how much greater dangers I was
subsequently called on to encounter, in another direction. Nor was she
minutely accurate in her anticipations, since I have crossed the ferry in
question, several times in later life; the distances not appearing to be as
great, of late years, as they certainly seemed to be in my youth.
It was a feather in a young man's cap to have gone through college in 1755,
which was the year I graduated. It is true, the University men, who had
been home for their learning, were more or less numerous; but they were of
a class that held itself aloof from the smaller gentry, and most of them
were soon placed in office, adding the dignity of public trusts to their
acquisitions--the former in a manner overshadowing the latter. But, I was
nearer to the body of the community, and my position admitted more of
comparative excellence, as it might be. No one thinks of certain habits,
opinions, manners, and tastes, in the circle where they are expected to
be found; but, it is a different thing where all, or any of these
peculiarities form the exception. I am afraid more was anticipated from my
college education than has ever been realized; but I will say this for my
_Alma Mater_, that I am not conscious my acquisitions at college have ever
been of any disadvantage to me; and I rather think they have, in some
degree at least, contributed to the little success that has attended my
humble career.
I kept up my intimacy with Dirck Follock, during the whole time I remained
at college. He continued the classics with Mr. Worden, for two years after
I left the school; but I could not discover that his progress amounted
to anything worth mentioning. The master used to tell the Colonel, that
"Dirck's progress was slow and sure;" and this did not fail to satisfy a
man who had a constitutional aversion to much of the head-over-heels rate
of doing things among the English population. Col. Follock, as we always
called him, except when my father or grandfather asked him to drink a
glass of wine, or drank his health in the first glass after the cloth
was removed, when he was invariably styled Col. Van Valkenburgh, at full
length; but Col. Follock was quite content that his son and heir should
know no more than he knew himself, after making proper allowances for the
difference in years and experience. By the time I returned home, however,
a material change had been made in the school. Mr. Worden fell heir to a
moderate competency at home, and he gave up teaching, a business he had
never liked, accordingly. It was even thought he was a shade less zealous
in his parochial duties, after the acquisition of this fifty pounds
sterling a-year, than he had previously been; though I am far from
insisting on the fact's being so. At any rate, it was not in the power of
£50 per annum to render Mr. Worden apathetic on the subject of the church;
for he continued a most zealous churchman down to the hour of his death;
and this was something, even admitting that he was not quite so zealous as
a Christian. The church being the repository of the faith, if not the
faith itself, it follows that its friends are akin to religion, though not
absolutely religious. I have always liked a man the better for being what
I call a sound, warm-hearted churchman, though his habits may have been a
little free.
It was necessary to supply the place left vacant by the emigration of Mr.
Worden, or to abandon a school that had got to be the nucleus of knowledge
in Westchester. There was a natural desire, at first, to obtain another
scholar from home; but no such person offering, a Yale College graduate was
accepted, though not without sundry rebellions, and plenty of distrust.
The moment he appeared, Col. Follock, and Major Nicholas Oothout, another
respectable Dutch neighbour, withdrew their sons; and from that hour Dirck
never went to school again. It is true, Westchester was not properly a
Dutch county, like Rockland, and Albany, and Orange, and several others
along the river; but it had many respectable families in it, of that
extraction, without alluding to such heavy people as the Van Cortlandts,
Felipses, Beekmans, and two or three others of that stamp. Most of our
important county families had a different origin, as in the case of the
Morrises, of Morrisania, and of the Manor of Fordham, the Pells, of Pelham,
the Heathcotes, of Mamanneck, the branch of the de Lanceys, at West Farms,
the Jays, of Rye, &c., &c. All these came of the English, or the Huguenot
stock. Among these last, more or less Dutch blood was to be found, however;
though Dutch prejudices were a good deal weakened. Although few of these
persons sent their boys to this school, they were consulted in the
selection of a master; and I have always supposed that their indifference
was the cause that the county finally obtained the services of a Yankee,
from Yale.
The name of the new pedagogue was Jason Newcome, or, as he pronounced the
latter appellation himself, Noo-come. As he affected a pedantic way of
pronouncing the last syllable long, or as it was spelt, he rather called
himself Noo-comb, instead of Newcome, as is the English mode, whence he
soon got the nick-name of Jason Old Comb among the boys; the lank,
orderly arrangement of his jet-black, and somewhat greasy-looking locks,
contributing their share towards procuring for him the _sobriquet_, as I
believe the French call it. As this Mr. Newcome will have a material part
to play in the succeeding portions of this narrative, it may be well to be
a little more minute in his description.
I found Jason fully established in the school, on my return from college. I
remember we met very much like two strange birds, that see each other for
the first time on the same dunghill; or two quadrupeds, in their original
interview in a common herd. It was New Haven against Newark; though the
institution, after making as many migrations as the House of Loretto,
finally settled down at Princeton, a short time before I took my degree. I
was consequently entitled to call myself a graduate of Newark,--a sort of
scholar that is quite as great a curiosity in the country as a Queen Anne's
farthing, or a book printed in the fifteenth century. I remember the first
evening we two spent in company, as well as if the meeting occurred only
last night. It was at Satanstoe, and Mr. Worden was present. Jason had a
liberal supply of puritanical notions, which were bred in-and-in in his
moral, and I had almost said, in his physical system; nevertheless, he
could unbend; and I did not fail to observe that very evening, a gleam of
covert enjoyment on his sombre countenance, as the hot-stuff, the cards,
and the pipes were produced, an hour or two before supper,--a meal we
always had hot and comfortable. This covert satisfaction, however, was not
exhibited without certain misgiving looks, as if the neophyte in these
innocent enjoyments distrusted his right to possess his share. I remember
in particular, when my mother laid two or three new, clean packs of cards
on the table, that Jason cast a stealthy glance over his shoulder, as if
to make certain that the act was not noted by the minister, or the
"neighbours." The neighbours!--what a contemptible being a man becomes,
who lives in constant dread of the comments and judgments of these social
supervisors! and what a wretch, the habit of deferring to no principle
better than their decision has made many a being, who has had originally
the materials of something better in him, than has been developed by the
_surveillance_ of ignorance, envy, vulgarity, gossiping and lying! In those
cases in which education, social position, opportunities and experience
have made any material difference between the parties, the man who yields
to such a government, exhibits the picture of a giant held in bondage by a
pigmy. I have always remarked, too, that they who are best qualified to
sit in this neighbourhood-tribunal, generally keep most aloof from it, as
repugnant to their tastes and habits, thus leaving its decisions to the
portion of the community least qualified to make such as are either just or
enlightened.
I felt a disposition to laugh outright, at the manner in which Jason
betrayed a sneaking consciousness of crime, as he saw my meek, innocent,
simple-minded, just and warm-hearted mother lay the cards on the table that
evening. His sense of guilt was purely conventional, while my mother's
sense of innocence existed in the absence of false instruction, and in the
purity of her intentions. One had been taught no exaggerated and false
notion of sin,--nay, a notion that is impious, as it is clearly impious
in man to torture acts that are perfectly innocent, _per se_, into formal
transgressions of the law of God,--while the other had been educated under
the narrow and exaggerated notions of a provincial sect, and had obtained a
species of conscience that was purely dependent on his miserable schooling.
I heard my grandfather say that Jason actually showed the white of his eyes
the first time he saw Mr. Worden begin to deal, and he still looked, the
whole time we were at whist, as if he expected some one might enter, and
tell of his delinquency, I soon discovered that Jason had a much greater
dread of being told of, than of doing such things as taking a hand at
whist, or drinking a glass of punch, from which I inferred his true
conscience drew perceptible distinctions between the acts and the penalties
he had been accustomed to see inflicted on them. He was much disposed to a
certain sort of frailty; but it was a sneaking disposition to the last.
But, the amusing part of the exhibition, that first evening of our
acquaintance, was Mr. Worden's showing off his successor's familiarity
with the classics. Jason had not the smallest notion of quantity; and he
pronounced the Latin very much as one would read Mohawk, from a vocabulary
made out by a hunter, or a savant of the French Academy. As I had received
the benefit of Mr. Worden's own instruction, I could do better, and,
generally, my knowledge of the classics went beyond that of Jason's. The
latter's English, too, was long a source of amusement with us all, though
my grandfather often expressed strong disgust at it. Even Col. Follock did
not scruple to laugh at Newcome's English, which, as he frequently took
occasion to say, "hat a ferry remarkaple sount to it." As this peculiarity
of Jason's extended a good way into the Anglo-Saxon race, in the part of
the country in which he was born, it may be well to explain what I mean a
little more at large.
Jason was the son of an ordinary Connecticut farmer, of the usual
associations, and with no other pretension to education than such as was
obtained in a common school, or any reading which did not include the
Scriptures, some half-dozen volumes of sermons and polemical works, all the
latter of which were vigorously as well as narrowly one-sided, and a
few books that had been expressly written to praise New England, and to
undervalue all the rest of the earth. As the family knew nothing of the
world beyond the limits of its own township, and an occasional visit
to Hartford, on what is called "election-day," Jason's early life was
necessarily of the most contracted experience. His English, as a matter of
course, was just that of his neighbourhood and class of life; which was
far from being either very elegant or very Doric. But on this rustic,
provincial, or rather, hamlet foundation, Jason had reared a superstructure
of New Haven finish and proportions. As he kept school before he went to
college, while he was in college, and after he left college, the whole
energies of his nature became strangely directed to just such reforms of
language as would be apt to strike the imagination of a pedagogue of his
calibre. In the first place, he had brought from home with him a great
number of sounds that were decidedly vulgar and vicious, and with these in
full existence in himself, he had commenced his system of reform on other
people. As is common with all tyros, he fancied a very little knowledge
sufficient authority for very great theories. His first step was to improve
the language, by adapting sound to spelling and he insisted on calling
angel, _an_-gel, because a-n spelt an; chamber, _cham_-ber, for the same
reason; and so on through a long catalogue of similarly constructed words.
"English," he did not pronounce as "__lish" but as "_Eng_lish," for
instance; and "nothing" (anglicè _nuth_ing), as _noth_-ing; or, perhaps, it
were better to say "_naw_thin'." While Jason showed himself so much of
a purist with these and many other words, he was guilty of some of the
grossest possible mistakes, that were directly in opposition to his own
theory. Thus, while he affectedly pronounced "none," (nun,) as "known," he
did not scruple to call "stone," "stun," and "home," "hum." The idea of
pronouncing "clerk," as it should be, or "clark," greatly shocked him, as
it did to call "hearth," "h'arth;" though he did not hesitate to call this
good earth of ours, the "'arth." "Been," he pronounced "ben," of course,
and "roof," he called "ruff," in spite of all his purism.
From the foregoing specimens, half a dozen among a thousand, the reader
will get an accurate notion of this weakness in Jason's character. It was
heightened by the fact that the young man commenced his education, such as
it was, late in life, and it is rare indeed that either knowledge or tastes
thus acquired are entirely free from exaggeration. Though Jason was several
years my senior, like myself he was a recent graduate, and it will be easy
enough to imagine the numberless discussions that took place between us, on
the subject of our respective acquisitions. I say 'respective,' instead of
mutual acquisitions, because there was nothing mutual about it, or _them_.
Neither our classics, our philosophy, nor our mathematics would seem to
have been the same, but each man apparently had a science, or a language of
his own, and which had been derived from the institution where he had been
taught. In the classics I was much the strongest, particularly in the
quantities, but Jason had the best of it in mathematics. In spite of his
conceit, his vulgarity, his English, his provincialism, and the awkwardness
with which he wore his tardily acquired information, this man had strong
points about him, and a native shrewdness that would have told much more in
his favour had it not been accompanied by a certain evasive manner, that
caused one constantly to suspect his sincerity, and which often induced
those who were accustomed to him, to imagine he had a sneaking propensity
that rendered him habitually hypocritical. Jason held New York in great
contempt; a feeling he was not always disposed to conceal, and of necessity
his comparisons were usually made with the state of things in Connecticut,
and much to the advantage of the latter. To one thing, however, he was much
disposed to defer, and that was money. Connecticut had not then, nor has it
now, a single individual who would be termed rich in New York; and Jason,
spite of his provincial conceit, spite of his overweening notions of moral
and intellectual superiority, could no more prevent this profound deference
for wealth, than he could substitute for a childhood of vulgarity and
neglect, the grace, refinement and knowledge which the boys of the more
fortunate classes in life obtain as it might be without knowing it. Yes,
Jason bowed down to the golden calf, in spite of his puritanism, his
love of liberty, his pretension to equality and the general strut of his
disposition and manner.
Such is an outline of the character and qualifications of the man whom I
found, on my return from college, at the head of Mr. Worden's school. We
soon became acquainted, and I do not know which got the most ideas from the
other, in course of the first fortnight. Our conversation and arguments
were free, almost to rudeness, and little mercy was shown to our respective
prejudices. Jason was ultra leveling in his notions of social intercourse,
while I had the opinions of my own colony, in which the distinctions of
classes are far more strongly marked than is usual in New England, out of
Boston, and its immediate association. Still Jason deferred to names, as
well as money, though it was in a way very different from my own. New
England was, and is, loyal to the crown; but having the right to name
many of its own governors, and possessing many other political privileges
through the charters that were granted to her people, in order to induce
them to settle that portion of the continent, they do not always manifest
the feeling in a way to be agreeable to those who have a proper reverence
for the crown. Among other points, growing out of this difference in
training, Jason and I had sundry arguments on the subject of professions,
trades and callings. It was evident he fancied the occupation of a
schoolmaster next in honour to that of a clergyman. The clergy formed a
species of aristocracy, according to his notions; but no man could commence
life under more favourable auspices, than by taking a school. The following
dialogue occurred between us, on this subject; and I was so much struck
with the novelty of my companion's notions, as to make a note of it, as
soon as we parted.
"I wonder your folks don't think of giving you suthin' to do, Corny,"
commenced Jason, one day, after our acquaintance had ripened into a sort
of belligerent intimacy. "You're near nineteen, now, and ought to begin to
think of bringing suthin' in, to pay for all the outgoings."
By "your folks," Jason meant the family of Littlepage; and the blood of
that family quickened a little within me, fit the idea of being profitably
employed, in the manner intimated, because I had reached the mature and
profitable age of nineteen.
"I do not understand you exactly, Mr. Newcome, by your bringing something
in," answered I, with dignity enough to put a man of ordinary delicacy on
his guard.
"Bringing suthin' in is good English, I hope, Mr. Littlepage. I mean that
your edication has cost your folks enough to warrant them in calling on you
for a little interest. How much do you suppose, now, has been spent on your
edication, beginning at the time you first went to Mr. Worden, and leaving
off the day you quitted Newark?"
"Really, I have not the smallest notion; the subject has never crossed my
mind."
"Did the old folks never say anything to you about it?--never foot up the
total?"
"I am sure it is not easy to see how this could be done, for I could not
help them in the least."
"But your father's books would tell that, as doubtless it all stands
charged against you."
"Stands charged against me!--How, sir! do you imagine my father makes
a charge in a book against me, whenever he pays a few pounds for my
education?"
"Certainly; how else could he tell how much you have had?--though, on
reflection, as you are an only child, it does not make so much difference.
You probably will get all, in the end."
"And had I a brother, or a sister, do you imagine, Mr. Newcome, each
shilling we spent would be set down in a book, as charges against us?"
"How else, in natur', could it be known which had had the most, or any sort
of justice be done between you?"
"Justice would be done, by our common father's giving to each just as much
of his own money as he might see fit. What is it to me, if he chose to give
my brother a few hundred pounds more than he chose to give to me? The money
is his, and he may do with it as he choose."
"An hundred pounds is an awful sight of money!" exclaimed Jason, betraying
by his countenance how deeply he felt the truth of this. "If you have had
money in such large sums, so much the more reason why you should set about
doing suthin' to repay the old gentleman. Why not set up a school?"
"Sir!"
"Why not set up a school, I say? You might have had this of mine, had you
been a little older; but once in, fast in, with me. Still, schools are
wanted, and you might get a tolerable good recommend. I dare say your tutor
would furnish a certificate."
This word "recommend" was used by Jason for "recommendation" the habit of
putting verbs in the places of substantives, and _vice versa_, being much
in vogue with him.
"And do you really think that one who is destined to inherit Satanstoe,
would act advisedly to set up a school? Recollect, Mr. Newcome, that my
father and grandfather have both borne the king's commission; and that
the last bears it, at this very moment, through his representative, the
Governor."
"What of all that? What better business is there than keeping a good
school? If you are high in your notions, get to be made a tutor in that New
Jersey college. Recollect that a tutor in a college is somebody. I did hope
for such a place, but having a Governor's son against me, as a candidate,
there was no chance."
"A Governor's son a candidate for a tutorship in a college! You are pleased
to trifle with me, Mr. Newcome."
"It's true as the gospel. You thought some smaller fish put me down, but he
was the son of the Governor. But, why do you give that vulgar name to your
father's farm--Satanstoe is not decent; yet, Corny, I've heard you use it
before your own mother!"
"That you may hear every day, and my mother use it, too, before her own
son. What fault do you find with the name of Satanstoe?"
"Fault!--In the first place it is irreligious and profane; then it is
ungenteel and vulgar, and only fit to be used in low company. Moreover, it
is opposed to history and revelation, the Evil One having a huff, if you
will, but no toes. Such a name couldn't stand a fortnight before public
opinion in New England."
"Yes, that may be very true; but we do not care enough for His Satanic
Majesty in the colony of New York, to treat him with so much deference. As
for the 'huffs,' as you call them----"
"Why, what do _you_ call 'em, Mr. Littlepage?"
"Hoofs, Mr. Newcome; that is the New York pronunciation of the word."
"I care nothing for York pronunciation, which everybody knows is Dutch and
full of corruptions. You'll never do anything worth speaking of in this
colony, Corny, until you pay more attention to your schools."
"I do not know what you call attention, Mr. Jason, unless we have paid it
already. Here, I have the caption, or rather preamble of a law, on that
very subject, that I copied out of the statute-book on purpose to show you,
and which I will now read in order to prove to you how things really stand
in the colony."
"Read away," rejoined Jason, with an air of sufficient disdain.
Read I did, and in the following sententious and comprehensive language,
viz:--"Whereas the youth of this colony are found, by manifold experience,
to be not inferior in their natural geniuses to the youth of any other
country in the world, therefore be it enacted, &c." [8]
"There, sir," I said in exultation, "you have chapter and verse for the
true character of the rising generation in the colony of New York."
"And what does that preamble lead to?" demanded Jason, a little staggered
at finding the equality of our New York intellects established so clearly
by legislative enactment.
"It is the preamble to an act establishing the free schools of New York, in
which the learned languages have now been taught these twenty years; and
you will please to remember that another law has not long been passed
establishing a college in town."
"Well, curious laws sometimes do get into the statute-books, and a body
must take them as he finds them. I dare say Connecticut might have a word
to say on the same subject, if you would give her a chance. Have you heard
the wonderful news from Philadelphia, Corny, that has just come among us?"
"I have heard nothing of late; for you know I have been over in Rockland,
with Dirck Follock, for the last two weeks, and news never reaches that
family, or indeed that county."
"No, that is true enough," answered Jason, drily; "News and a Dutchman have
no affinity, or attraction, as we would say in philosophy; though there is
gravitation enough on one side, ha! boy?"
Here Jason laughed outright, for he was always delighted whenever he could
get a side-hit at the children of Holland, whom he appeared to regard as a
race occupying a position between the human family and the highest class of
the unintellectual animals. But it is unnecessary to dwell longer on this
dialogue, my object being merely to show the general character of Jason's
train of thought, in order to be better understood when I come to connect
his opinions with his acts.
Dirck and myself were much together after my return from college. I passed
weeks at a time with him, and he returned my visits with the utmost freedom
and good-will. Each of us had now got his growth, and it would have done
the heart of Frederick of Prussia good, to have seen my young friend after
he had ended his nineteenth year. In stature he measured exactly six feet
three, and he gave every promise of filling up in proportion. Dirck was
none of your roundly-turned, Apollo-built fellows, but he had shoulders
that his little, short, solid, but dumpy-looking mother, who was of the
true stock, could scarcely span, when she pulled his head down to give him
a kiss; which she did regularly, as Dirck told me himself, twice each year;
that is to say, Christmas and New-Year. His complexion was fair, his limbs
large and well proportioned, his hair light, his eyes blue, and his face
would have been thought handsome by most persons. I will not deny, however,
that there was a certain ponderosity, both of mind and body, about my
friend, that did not very well accord with the general notion of grace and
animation. Nevertheless, Dirck was a sterling fellow, as true as steel, as
brave as a game-cock, and as honest as noon-day light.
Jason was a very different sort of person, in many essentials. In figure,
he was also tall, but he was angular, loose-jointed and swinging--slouching
would be the better word, perhaps. Still, he was not without strength,
having worked on a farm until he was near twenty; and he was as active as a
cat; a result that took the stranger a little by surprise, when he regarded
only his loose, quavering sort of build. In the way of thought, Jason would
think two feet to Dirck's one; but I am far from certain that it was always
in so correct a direction. Give the Dutchman time, he was very apt to come
out right; whereas Jason, I soon discovered, was quite liable to come to
wrong conclusions, and particularly so in all matters that were a little
adverse, and which affected his own apparent interests. Dirck, moreover,
was one of the best-natured fellows that breathed; it being almost
impossible to excite him to anger; when it did come, however, the
earthquake was scarcely more terrific. I have seen him enraged, and would
as soon encounter a wild-boar in an open field, as run against his course,
while in the fit.
Modesty will hardly permit me to say much of myself. I was well-grown,
active, strong, for my years; and, I am inclined to think, reasonably
well-looking; though I would prefer that this much should be said by
any one but myself. Dirck and I often tried our manhood together, when
youngsters, and I was the better chap until my friend reached his
eighteenth year, when the heavy metal of the young Dutch giant told in our
struggles. After that period was past, I found Dirck too much for me, in a
close gripe, though my extraordinary activity rendered the inequality less
apparent than it might otherwise have proved. I ought not to apply the
term of "extraordinary" to anything about myself, but the word escaped
me unconsciously, and I shall let it stand. One thing I will say,
notwithstanding, let the reader think of it as he may: I was good-natured
and well-disposed to my fellow-creatures, and had no greater love of money
than was necessary to render me reasonably discreet.
Such is an outline of the characters and persons of three of the principal
actors in the scenes I am about to relate; scenes that will possess some
interest for those who love to read accounts of adventures in a new
country, however much they may fail in interesting others, when I speak of
the condition and events of the more civilized condition of society, that
was enjoyed, even in my youth, in such old counties as Westchester, and
such towns as York.
[Footnote 8: This quotation would seem to be accurate, and it is somewhat
curious to trace the reason why a preamble so singular should have been
prefixed to the law. Was it not owing to the oft-repeated and bold
assertions of Europeans, that man deteriorated in this hemisphere? Any
American who has been a near observer of European opinion, even in our day,
must have been frequently amused at the expression of surprise and doubt
that so often escapes the residents of the Old World, when they discover
anything that particularly denotes talent coming from the New. I make
little question that this extraordinary preamble is a sort of indirect
answer to an imputation that was known to be as general, in that age, as
it was felt to be unjust. My own experience would lead me to think native
capacity more abundant in America than in the midland countries of Europe,
and quite as frequently met with as in Italy itself; and I have often heard
teachers, both English and French, admit that their American and West-India
scholars were generally the readiest and cleverest in their schools. The
great evil under which this country labours, in this respect, is the sway
of numbers, which is constantly elevating mediocrity and spurious talent to
high places. In America we have a _higher average_ of intelligence, while
we have far less of the _higher class;_ and I attribute the latter fact
to the control of those who have never enjoyed the means of appreciating
excellence.--EDITOR.]