I mention these things as a warning to other young people not to admire by rote, but to wait the unfolding of their own taste, if they would derive real pleasure from the works of genius. I rather imagine I was afraid aunt would think I devoted too much time to what I then considered as a trifling book. For I remember reading Hamlet the third or fourth time, in a frosty night, by moonlight, in the back porch. This, reiterated perusal was not in consequence of any great pleasure it afforded me; but I was studiously labouring to discover the excellence I thought it must needs contain, yet with more diligence than success. Madame was at this time, I imagine, foreseeing a storm, and trying to withdraw her mind as much as possible from earthly objects. Forty years before this period, a sister of the deceased colonel had married a very worthy man by the name of Wendell. He being a person of an active, enterprising disposition, and possessing more portable wealth than usually fell to the share of the natives there, was induced to join some great commercial company near Boston, and settled there. He was highly prosperous, and much beloved, and for a while cultivated a constant commerce with the friends he left behind. When he died, however, his wife, who was a meek, benevolent woman, without distrust, and a stranger to business, was very ill treated. Her sons, who had been married in the country, died. Their connexions secured the family property for their children. In the primitive days of New-York, a marriage settlement was an unheard-of thing. Far from her native home, having outlived her friends, helpless and uncomplaining, this good woman, who had lived all her days in the midst of deserved affluence and affection, was now stripped by chicanery of all her rights, and sinking into poverty without a friend or comforter. Aunt immediately upon hearing this, set on foot a negotiation to get Mrs. Wendell’s affairs regulated, so that she might have the means of living with comfort in a country in which long residence had naturalized her; or that failing, to bring her home to reside with herself. Perhaps in the whole course of her life she had not experienced so much of the depravity of human nature, as this inquiry unfolded to her. The negotiation, however, cheered and busied her at a time when she greatly needed some exertion of mind to check the current of thought produced by the rapid and astonishing change of manners and sentiments around her. But in our province there were two classes of people who absolutely seemed let loose by the demon of discord, for the destruction of public peace and private confidence. One of these was composed of lawyers, who multiplied so fast that one would think they rose like mushrooms from the earth. For many years one lawyer was sufficient for the whole settlement. But the swarm of these, which had made so sudden and portentous an appearance, had been encouraged to choose that profession, because a