The gentle, yet restraining influence which woman, in her purity and excellence, ever exerts, was unfortunately denied him. Mr. Clinton was a bachelor, and the careful, bustling housekeeper, who kept his servants and house in order, was not likely to burden herself with the charge of young Bryant's morals. All that Mr. Clinton supervised, was his progress at school, which surpassed even his most sanguine expectations. He was still the prodigy--the nonpareil--and as he had the most winning, insinuating manners--he was still the favorite of teachers and pupils. As he grew older, he was taken much into society, and young as he was, inhaled, with the most intense delight, the incense of female adulation. The smiles and caresses bestowed upon the boy-paragon by beautiful and charming women, instead of fostering his affections, as they would have done, had they been lavished upon him for his virtues rather than his graces, gave precocious growth and vigor to his vanity, till, like the cedar of Lebanon, it towered above all other passions. This vanity was only visible to others in an earnest desire to please--it only made him appear more amiable and gentle, but it was so strong, so vital, that it could not, "but by annihilating, die." Another fatal influence acted upon him. Mr. Clinton, like most rich bachelors, was fond of having convivial suppers, where wine and mirth abounded. To these young Bryant was often admitted, for his beauty and talents were the pride and boast of his adopted father. Here he was initiated into the secrets of the gaming-table, not by practice, (for he was not allowed to play himself,) but by observation, a medium of instruction sufficiently transparent to his acute and subtle mind. Here he was accustomed to hear the name of God uttered either in irreverence or blasphemy, and the cold sneer of infidelity withered the germs of piety a mother's hand had planted in his bosom. Better, far better had it been for him, never to have left his parent's humble but honest dwelling. Just as he was about to enter college, Mr. Clinton suddenly died of a stroke of apoplexy, leaving the youth whom he had adopted, exposed to the persecutions of his worldly and venal relatives. He had resolved to make a will, bequeathing his property to Bryant, as his sole heir; but having a great horror of death, he could not bear to perform the act which would remind him too painfully of his mortality. "Time enough when I am taken sick," he would say, "to attend to these things;" but the blow which announced the coming of death, crushed the citadel of thought. There was no time for making wills, and Bryant was left far poorer than his adopted father had found him, for he had acquired all the tastes which wealth alone can gratify, and all the vices, too.