us all, but we shall be amply compensated by a residence which will obviate the necessity of their leaving town every summer, which deprives me altogether of their society. I shall also remove professionally on the 1st of May to No. 102 Pearl St. upstairs in the very focus of Business & surrounded by the auction rooms which have become the Rialto of the modern merchants but where I dare say even Shylock would be shy of making his appearance."

By December 29, 1824, we hear of Herman that "he attends school regularly but does not appear so fond of his Book as to injure his health. He has turned into a great tease & daily puts Gansevoort's patience to flight who cannot bear to be plagued by such a little fellow."

On the same date, Maria writes to her brother about pickling oysters, 500 of which she sent to Albany as a gift to his family. The picture of her life that she then gives is evidence that she had cherished the counsels that "her friend A. M." had appended to Mrs. Chapone. She tells of a call she received before eleven o'clock. "Although the hour was early, all things were neat & in order & my ladyship was dressing herself preparatory to sitting down to her sewing." She boasts of this fact, she says, in shamed recollection of the time her brother and Mr. Smyth were ushered into a parlour out of order. "It is the first time a thing of this kind has ever happened to me & for my credit as a good housekeeper, I hope it will be the last." In conclusion she reports: "This afternoon Mr. M. & myself, induced by the enlivening rays of the setting sun, strolled down the Bowery & after an agreeable walk returned home with renovated spirits."

In December, 1825, Allan is moved to "lament little Herman's melancholy situation, but we trust in humble confidence that the GOD of the widow and the fatherless will yet restore him." By the following May, Allan's humble confidence. seems to have been rewarded not only by Herman's recovery, but by the birth of another child. In the midst of a business letter-the usual repository of Allan's raptures-he with unwonted vivacity so celebrates his paternal felicity: "The Lovely Six!! are all well, and, while the youngest though both last &

least is a sweet child of promise, & bids fair to become the fairest of the fair-so much for affection, now for business."

On August 10, 1826, Melville was sent out upon his first trip from home unaccompanied by his parents. His destination was his mother's people in Albany, and his custodian during the trip a Mr. Walker. Allan shifts his responsibility for his son on the shoulders of his brother-in-law, Peter Gansevoort, in these terms:

"I now consign to your especial care & patronage my beloved son Herman, an honest hearted double-rooted Knickerbocker of the true Albany stamp, who, I trust, will do equal honour in due time to ancestry, parentage & kindred. He is very backward in speech & somewhat slow in comprehension, but you will find him as far as he understands men and things both solid & profound & of a docile & amiable disposition. If agreeable, he will pass the vacation with his grandmother & yourself & I hope he may prove a pleasant auxiliary to the Family circle-I depend much on your kind attention to our dear Boy who will be truly grateful to the least favour-let him avoid green fruit & unseasonable exposure to the Sun & heat, and having taken such good care of Gansevoort last Summer I commit his Brother to the same hands with unreserved confidence. & with love to our good mother and yourself in which Maria, Mary & the children most cordially join I remain very truly Your Friend & Brother, Allan Melville."

At the foot of this document, Allan appended in pencil: "please turn over." On the reverse of the letter is scribbled a breathless last request: "Have the goodness to procure a pair of shoes for Herman, time being insufficient to have a pair made here."

When Allan here pronounces Melville "very backward in speech & somewhat slow in comprehension," he puts his son in a large class of genius conspicuous for a deferred revelation of promising intelligence. Scott, occupied in building up romances, was dismissed as a dunce; Hume, the youthful thinker, was described by his mother as "uncommon weak minded." Goldsmith was a stupid child; Fanny Burney did not know her letters at the age of eight. Byron showed no

aptitude for school work. And Chatterton, up to the age of six and a half, was, on the authority of his mother, "little better than an absolute fool." Allan scorned to take solace from such facts, however. He consoled himself with the fact that though his son was dull, he was at least "docile & amiable." Melville spent the summer of 1826 with the Gansevoorts. And he looked back upon it as perhaps the most fortunate privilege of his youth, that this first visit to Albany set the precedent for a whole series of similar summers. He is idealising from his own experience when he says of Pierre: "It had been his choice fate to have been born and nurtured in the country, surrounded by scenery whose uncommon loveliness was the perfect mould of a delicate and poetic mind; while the popular names of its finest features appealed to the proudest patriotic and family associations of the historic line of Glendinning." Nor does he hesitate to reiterate that Pierre's was a "choice fate" : "For to a noble American youth this indeed -more than in any other land—this indeed is a most rare and choice lot." Each summer, for as long as his school vacations would permit, Melville shared the choice lot of Pierre. But Allan, unconverted to Melville's Wordsworthian creed, regularly recalled his son to the city with the opening of school.

This is the recall for the year 1826, dated "12 Sept. Tuesday, 4 P.M.": "We expect Gansevoort on Sunday, at fartherest, when we wish Herman also to be here, that they may recommence their studies together on Monday next, with equal chances of preferment, & without any feelings of jealousy or ideas of favoritism-besides they may thus acquire a practical lesson whose influence may endure forever, for if they understand early, that inclination must always yield to Duty, it will become a matter of course when their vacations expire to bid a fond adieu to friends & amusements, & return home cheerfully to their books, & they will consequently imbibe habits of Order & punctuality, which bear sweet blossoms in the dawn of life, golden fruits in 'the noon of manhood' & a rich harvest for the garners of old age-business is about as dull and unprofitable as the most bitter foe to general prosperity, if such a being exists in human shape, could desire it, & it requires