Through such old chroniclers or letter-writers we sometimes meet the great ladies of the past at ball or dinner, or, better still, in the informal intercourse of their own homes, and catch glimpses of their husbands and lovers, the warriors, statesmen, and philosophers of the time, at some social club, like the Hasty Pudding of Cambridge, the State in Schuylkill or the Wistar Parties of Philadelphia, or the Tuesday Club and the Delphian in Baltimore. Meeting them thus, enjoying witticisms and good cheer in one another’s excellent company, we feel a closer bond between their life and our own than if they were always presented to us in public ceremonial or with pen and folio in hand. When we read of Judge Peters crying out good-humoredly, as he pushed his way between a fat and a slim man who blocked up a doorway, “Here I go through thick and thin;” or when we think of the signers of the Declaration, gathered together in the old State House on that memorable July day of 1776, illuminating the solemnity of the occasion by jokes, even as grim ones as those of Hancock and Franklin and Gerry, we are conscious of a sense of comradeship inspired more by the mirth and _bonhomie_ than by the heroism of these men, who labored yesterday that we might laugh to-day. The great John Adams, who with all his greatness was not a universal favorite among his contemporaries, comes down to us irradiated with a nimbus of amiability, in a picture that his wife draws of him, submitting to be driven about the room with a willow stick by one of his small grandchildren; and when Mrs. Bache begs her “dear papa” not to reprimand her so severely for desiring a little finery, in which to appear at the Ambassador’s and when she “goes abroad with the Washingtons,” because he is the last person to wish to see her “dressed with singularity, or in a way that will not do credit to her father and her husband,” we can fancy Dr. Franklin’s grave features relaxing in a smile over the daughter’s diplomacy, inherited from no stranger. The wedding of President Madison to the pretty Widow Todd seems more real to us when we learn from eye-witnesses of the various festivities that illuminated the occasion, and of how the girls vied with one another in obtaining mementos of the evening, cutting in bits the Mechlin lace that adorned the groom’s delicate shirt-ruffles, and showering the happy pair with rice when they drove off to Montpelier, old Mr. Madison’s estate in Virginia. Through it all, we can hear Mrs. Washington’s earnest voice assuring “Dolly” that she and General Washington approve of the match, and that even if Mr. Madison is twenty years older than herself, he will still make her a good husband. That this sensible advice from the stately matron should have made the girl-widow blush and run away does not surprise us, for, while acknowledging to an immense respect for Mrs. Washington, in consequence not only of her position, but of the dignity and serenity