Carolina, though I was then ignorant what the word meant,and that he was rather in concealment and under the Major's protection.

"Then there was an interesting old gentleman, by name Thomas Flint, who had been an English schoolmaster, and had educated all the family except George and Patrick, who were destined for a classical education and a learned profession. Mr. Flint was upwards of fifty, "in fair round belly with good capon lined"—a good looking man with a dark complexion, sharp, black eyes and shaggy brows. He had a son who was Major Magruder's

overseer.

"Besides these, there were two apprentices:-one of them, Zack, a wild, slovenly, blackguard boy, cut out by nature for a strolling player, having a strong inclination to repeat fragments of speeches and scraps of plays which he had learned from the boys of the school;-the other was Harry, the son of the miller who was in the Major's employment, a modest and interesting young man, who disappeared in a mysterious way, the particulars of which I have forgotten.

"The mansion was a large, two-storied brick house, built not long before I went there. In this his family proper lived. Within a few feet of it stood the old house, which had been the former residence of the family, but which was now occupied, at one end, by the overseer, and in the residue of its chambers by the school boys and the two apprentices. Here, at night, we got our lessons and more frequently played our pranks.

"There were two boarders, besides myself: Walter Jones, son of Mr. Edward Jones, a rich planter of Frederick county, and Richard Harwood from Anne Arundel,-in after times one of the Judges of a District in the State. For a short time the late Col. Thomas Davis of Montgomery, was one of our boarders and schoolfellows. So that Major Magruder's household embraced not less than twenty white persons. To these there was a constant addition, by visiters to the young people of the family. It was, in fact, an active, bustling, merry, noisy family, always in motion, and often in commotion. To me it was painfully contrasted with the small, quiet, affectionate establishment of Mrs. Love. There I had been the petted child and supreme object of attention. Here I was lost in the multitude, unnoticed, unthought VOL. 1-4

of, and left to make my way and take care of myself as well as I could. My hair which, under the discipline of Mrs. Love's daughters, was as clean and soft as silk, now lost its beauty. I had been spoiled by indulgence, and was really unfit to take care of myself. I did not know how to go about it. Yet there was no one to take care of me, or who showed any interest in me except Harry, the miller's son. Young as I was, I had reflection enough to compare the two scenes in which I had lived, to feel my present desolation, and to sigh over the past. The tune of Roslin Castle never recurred to my memory without filling my eyes with tears.

"There was another circumstance which embittered my residence at Mr. Magruder's. One of my companions was ill-tempered, and I do not know by what antipathy, I became the peculiar object of his tyranny. There was that in my situation which would have disarmed a generous temper. I was a small, feeblygrown, delicate boy; an orphan, and a poor one too but these circumstances seemed rather to invite than to allay the hostility of this fierce young man. During the two years that it was my misfortune to be a boarder in the house and his schoolfellow, I suffered a wanton barbarity that so degraded and cowed my spirit that I wonder I have ever recovered from it. In this large family he was, however, my only persecutor. The rest were content to let me alone, and I became, at length, well content to be so. I can recall here the first experience I had of the refuge and comfort of solitude. Often have I gone to bed long before I was sleepy, and long before any other member of the household, that I might enjoy in silence and to myself the hopes which my imagination never failed to set before me. These imaginings rest on my memory with the distinctness of yesterday. I looked forward to the time when I should be a young man and should have my own office of two rooms, my own servant and the means of receiving and entertaining my friends with elegant liberality, my horse and fine equipments, a rich wardrobe, and these all recommended by such manners and accomplishments as should again restore me to such favor and affectionate intercourse as I had known at Mrs. Love's. I never dreamt of any other revenge on my tormenting schoolfellow, than to eclipse him and reduce him to sue to me for friendship. Except these waking dreams which live so vividly in my remembrance, there are but few pleasant incidents to connect my recol

lections with those two years. Yet there are a few. One was the gratification I took in the visits of company to the house. Sometimes the young folks played cards, and I was not forbidden to sit in the room and see what was going on. One of these visiters is a gentleman, I believe, now living-Charles Jones. Although a very small boy, I recollect distinctly the drollery for which he is, even yet, so much distinguished, and with which he used then to set the tables in a roar. Maxwell Armstrong, our Latin usher, and the only popular usher I have ever knownwas another of the visiters, and a great favorite with me.

"There were two other visiters whom I saw only once each at the Major's, but whose visits led to one of my small accomplishments. Doctor Charles Beatty of Georgetown, brought up his flute and regaled the ladies one evening in the garden with his music. A Mr. Eckland, a Hessian or Prussian, a teacher of music in Georgetown, also came up on one occasion, when there was a great effort to get a musical instrument for him to play on. The house afforded nothing better than a wretched fiddle,-on which Major M. used to play, for his children, the only tune he knew, with these words—

'Three or four sheepskins

Wrong sides outwards;

Cut them down, cut them down,

Cut them down and tan them.'

"There was, besides, a cracked flute, from which no one of the family had ever been able to draw a note. Mr. Eckland repudiated the fiddle, but, with the aid of a little bees-wax to stop the crack, and a little water to wash and wet the bore, he made the flute discourse most eloquent music.-What a strange thing is memory! I can see the man at this moment and hear him strike up the White Cockade'-for this was the first tune he played; and he threw it off with a spirit and animation of which Dr. Beatty had given me no idea. Thereafter, whenever the room was empty, I used to steal to the bookpress in which that old flute was kept, and whispering in the aperture-for I could not blow, and dared not, if I could try to finger such tunes as I knew. In this way I learned to play several tunes, of which Yankee Doodle was the chief, before I could fill the flute with a single note.

"On one occasion Dr. Smith of Georgetown-the father of the very respectable family of that name now at that place, came up to Major M's. with two or three other gentlemen, bringing with him a large pack of hounds, in preparation for a fox-chase. This was a new incident to me and full of the liveliest interest. On this occasion old Mr. Flint developed an accomplishment of which I had never suspected him. Having got pretty high up' with drinking, he sang a hunting song and one of the old songs of Robin Hood, of which my children have often heard me sing several verses caught from Mr. Flint's exhibition at this frolic. His picture is now before me-for he acted as well as sang, and repeated his verses as long as any one would listen. I slept but little the night before the hunt, and before day-break I was waked from my slumbers, by the turning of the hounds out of the cellar and the uproar raised in the yard by them and the horns. I dressed myself quickly and sighed, as the party moved off, because I could not follow them. On my way to school that morning, with what longing regret did I listen to the distant notes of the hounds in full cry upon their track, until the last sound was lost behind the remote woodland! To those who have not an ear for sounds nor an eye for pictures, it would be incredible, if I were to describe the effect which this scene had upon my imagination; and to this day I know nothing in the way of spectacle or music, to compare, for its power of excitement, with a well equipped and gay party of hunters following a pack of hounds in full cry."

Here ends all that we are able to obtain from these simple and pleasant recollections. The writer broke them off abruptly at this early stage of his history, purposing to resume them when the graver duties of his high office might allow him again the refreshment of these draughts of youthful memory. His busy professional life forbade this indulgence, and has left us reason to regret that the same hand has not sketched his continued advance to manhood.

CHAPTER II.

1783-1787.

IMAGINATIVE TEMPERAMENT.-HIS STUDIES.-WHOLESOME INFLUENCE OF MR. HUNT.-HIS LIBRARY.-SKETCHES BY CRUSE.-VERSE MAKING.-FIRST LITERARY EFFORT, A PROSE SATIRE ON THE USHER.-ITS CONSEQUENCES.— A SCHOOL INCIDENT.-A VICTORY.-VISIT TO THE COURT HOUSE OF MONTGOMERY. MR. DORSEY.-THE MOOT COURT.-ITS CONSTITUTION.-SCHOOL EXERCISES.

THE memoir which we have just closed presents us nearly all that is known of William Wirt up to his eleventh year. It sufficiently indicates the temperament of the boy, and gives us no slight glimpses of the future aspirations of the man. The lively pictures which it presents of those scenes and persons which dwelt on his memory, show how keenly his youthful observation was impressed by the quaint and grotesque images which surrounded him. They show, too, with what a relish he noted the simple rural objects and employments that were familiar to his childhood, and how true an eye and how true a heart he had for the kindly things and influences that fell in the way of his youthful experience. These qualities of mind and character continued to expand during his life, and were the constant source of that attraction which encircled him, to the last of his days, with troops of admiring friends.

We shall have occasion to note, more than once in the course of these pages, the poetical complexion of Mr. Wirt's mind, the somewhat prurient predominance of his imagination, and the alacrity with which he was ever ready to digress from the actual to the ideal of life. The almost inseparable quality of such a temperament is diffidence, that shy reserve which is much more frequently the result of pride and a high self-estimate than of humility. A sensibility to the criticism which our perception enables us to foresee and expect, from those who are capable of a shrewd insight into our conduct, is most generally the source of that modesty which is observable in an ingenuous and quick-sighted boy. Its usual acVOL. 1-4*