Chalgrave, (an ominous name for a patrician family,) was the proud mansion of my ancestors. It was a huge and gnarled pile of Dutch brick, surrounded by a cumbrous wall of the same material. Situated on the western side of Chesapeake Bay, it frowned with stubborn misanthropy, on the mingled beauty which softened the silent landscape. It stood alone in the silence of its grandeur,--cold, fearful and noiseless. A broad and level plain swept round its base, dotted into life with the cottages of my father's numerous slaves. From them sprung the only voices which soothed the chilled solitude of the scene. Here, at all times might be heard the merry laugh, the jocund song, or the unalloyed mirth of alternate ease and idleness. One of those noble and beautiful rivers, which dally, as if it scorned to arise from an humble rivulet, with the bosom of the Chesapeake, gushed up its full waters fresh as in the morning of its creation. Much rude and incongruous taste disfigured the interior of Chalgrave. A dark and gloomy heaviness sate on the antique wainscotting, the massy sofas, and the blackened windows. From the dinner hall, the portraits of my ancestors looked down, as if in contempt on the degeneracy of modern times. Here was a cavalier, with flowing locks and iron-bound brow, who had lost his life in the memorable field of Naseby. Opposite to him, was the stiff and rigid portrait of a grave and thoughtful face. He was one of those inflexible and independent lawyers, whose moral courage had labored in the war of our revolution, and whose inflexible spirit had inspired successful resistance. Mothers with children in their arms; infants with toys, and belles with flowers and books, filled the wall alike with vermillion and smiles. The number _seven_ was curiously interwoven, in the circumstances of my birth. I was born on the seventh day of the seventh month, at seven o'clock, being the seventh of May. In our old family Bible, I find the record of my birth in my father's hand writing, followed with this fearful sentence. "Curse him not, oh God! with the ---- of our family." Amid the desolations of despair--the anguish of broken hearted affliction, and the contempt of the world, I turn to the gentle and joyous hours of my childhood, even as the "hart which panteth after the water brooks." My memory is my heart, and my affections hourly trace themselves on its index. My mother's dark and deep blue eye, even now beams over her wretched child, and I live alone in the regenerative charity of this blessed passion.