Jay had already exceeded the longest period allotted by the psalmist to the life of man, in the enjoyment of all those satisfactions which comfortable outward circumstances, the affection of friends and kindred, and the honor and reverence of a country whose vast and still enlarging prosperity were so much due to his exertions, can supply, when he received the unmistakable premonitions of his end. On the 17th of May, 1828, having previously summoned the numerous members of the family to his bedside, and having bestowed on each his parting advice and benediction, he resigned his soul to the care of its Maker; and now, in the quiet grave-yard at Rye, near the spot where he passed the early years of his life, repose the august remains of John Jay. =Hamilton.= [Illustration: Ball Hughes' Statue of Hamilton] HAMILTON. We have not the means of presenting a sketch of Hamilton's birth-place, or of the incidents of his early life before he became a resident in this country; and so much of his subsequent life was spent in the camp and in the service of his country, wherever that service required him to be, that he can hardly be said to have had a "Home" until a few years before his splendid career was so suddenly and mournfully closed. He was born in the year 1756, in the Island of St. Nevis, one of the British West Indian possessions, whither his father, a native of Scotland, had gone with the purpose of engaging in mercantile pursuits; and he was himself at the early age of twelve, placed in the counting-house of an opulent merchant, in one of the neighboring islands. But such a situation was ill suited to his disposition; and his ambition, even at that early period of his life, strongly developed, could not find in those narrow colonies a sufficient field for its exercise. The wishes of his friends favored his own inclinations, and he was sent to New-York, that he might avail himself of the more ample facilities for acquiring an education which that place and its vicinity afforded. He went through with the studies preparatory to entering college at a school in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, which was under the patronage of Governor Livingston and Mr. Boudinot, in the former of whose families he resided. He soon qualified himself for admission to King's (now Columbia) College, and was then permitted to pursue a course of study which he had marked out for himself, without becoming a member of any particular class. At this early period he evinced those traits of character which afterwards conducted him to such high distinction, and which marked his career throughout. He brought to his tasks not only that diligence which is often exhibited by more ordinary minds, but that enthusiastic devotion of the soul, which was perhaps the most marked trait of his character.