years, and I have never seen him out of temper, or complaining, or sick yet." Mr. Kelly aforesaid did a great deal of work on Ellerslie Park, and showed good taste in preserving the clumps of trees, and sowing wheat between them; so that as one looks out from the southern windows of the mansion, where the best breeze enters, he can see roundish spots of forest arborage and the wheat and corn, with their yellow contrasts; the line of the river is strongly indented in capes and headlands, and in the distant middle ground is an island and a lighthouse, whilst the rift of the Highlands, which separates the West from the East, gives access to the great city and the ocean. Twenty years ago Hudson river property was rather out of fashion, from the tendency of families of means to come to the city and to spend their summers at hotels. Under the good influence of more recent times-the Americans having visited foreign countries and concluded that their own was the best-this river property has come into not merely fashion, but affection. The woodwork throughout Mr. Morton's house is representative of the American forest-from the California red wood and black walnut to antique oak, white pine, ash and cherry. DIGRESSION. Hitherto the nominating Conventions of both parties have confined their choice to either military men, lawyers or politicians. The merchant, as such, has never been recognized for either place upon the electoral ticket. Yet the merchant, and especially the merchant banker, is the quantity first held in recognition after a ticket is chosen, to give his influence and contribution. In the early portion of the Republican century the slave-holding interest, which had the incentive of defensive organization against the progress of days, took possession of the executive government, giving the Vice-Presidency at times to some Eastern or Western man as a makeshift. Dewitt Clinton, who established the water communications of New York, and therefore the commonwealth, never was able to run for as much as the Vice-Presidency. Mr. Van Buren was the first President who took into account the utility of literary men like Irving and Paulding for executive and foreign places. Both Fillmore and Arthur became Presidents by the accident of the death of the President. It was Arthur who began to see that the very uncertain political bias of the State of New York required its commercial element to be brought into public life. He had been the collector of the port for a long term, and as the son of a minister, with a wife well qualified for social leadership, he began to look about. him among the cordial-minded merchants and fiscal characters of the city. There was no man who seemed so well adapted for the public trial as Mr. Morton. That selection has borne fruit in the course of only twelve years, so that Congressman Morton is now in the second position of prominence which a political party has the power to confer. He appeals to the self-respect of the mercantile element of the land, which has allowed itself for almost a century to be overlooked by political caucuses and conventions. He presents the instance of a man who had no adventitious circumstances to advance him, whose chief endowments were honesty and cheerfulness, and who has always separated himself from dubious alliances; who has reflected upon no man, but has held up the example of his childhood, believing that "uprightness is worth," and that in the family is compensation for career. His election to the Vice-Presidency would be in the line of that real civil service which requires our politics to be recruited from the nobler walks of life and the higher paths of responsibility. American merchants have been called upon to come to the relief of political parties, to provide for the families of deceased or unfortunate public men, to lend their names to public meetings, and after the conflict had been over the distribution of favors has returned to the political class which |