sway the hearts of their followers in a manner far more gratifying to them than any enjoyment to be derived from temporal power. That this desire should unconsciously gain ground in a virtuous and ardent mind, is not wonderful, when one considers how the best propensities of the human heart are flattered, by supposing that we only sway the minds of others, to incline them to the paths of peace and happiness, and derive no other advantage from this tacit sovereignty, but that of seeing those objects of affectionate solicitude grow wiser and better.

To return to the apostolic and much beloved Freylinghausen. The progress which this regiment made in the good graces of his flock, and the gradual assimilation to English manners of a very inferior standard, alarmed and grieved the good man not a little; and the intelligence he received from some of the elders of his church, who had the honour of lodging the more dissipated subalterns, did not administer much comfort to him. By this time the Anglomania was beginning to spread. A sect arose among the young people, who seemed resolved to assume a lighter style of dress and manners, and to borrow their taste, in those respects, from their new friends. This bade fair soon to undo all the good pastor's labours. The evil was daily growing-and what, alas! could Domine Freylinghausen do but preach! This he did earnestly and even angrily, but in vain. Many were exasperated, but none reclaimed. The good domine, however, had those who shared his sorrows and resentments; the elder and wiser heads of families, and, indeed, a great majority of the primitive inhabitants, were steadfast against innovation. The colonel of the regiment, who was a man of fashion and family, and possessed talents for both good and evil purposes, was young and gay; and being lodged in the house of a very wealthy citizen, who had before, in some degree, affected the newer modes of living, so captivated him with his good breed

ing and affability, that he was ready to humour any scheme of diversion which the colonel and his associates proposed. Under the auspices of this gallant commander, balls began to be concerted, and a degree of flutter and frivolity to take place, which was as far from elegance as it was from the honest, artless cheerfulness of the meetings usual among them. The good domine more and more alarmed, not content with preaching, now began to prophecy; but like Cassandra, or, to speak as justly, though less poetically, like his whole fraternity, was doorned always to deliver true predictions to those who never heeded them.

CHAP. XXXV.

Plays acted--Displeasure of the Domine.

Now the very ultimatum of degeneracy, in the opinion of these simple good people, was approaching; for now the officers, encouraged by the success of all their projects for amusement, resolved to new fashion and enlighten those amiable novices whom their former schemes had attracted within the sphere of their influence; and, for this purpose, a private theatre was fitted up, and preparations made for acting a play. Except the Schuylers and their adopted family, there was not, perhaps, one of the natives who understood what was meant by a play. And by this time, the town, once so closely united by intermarriages aud numberless other ties, which could not exist in any other state of society, were divided into two factions; one consisting almost entirely of such of the younger

class, as, having a smattering of New-York education, and a little more of dress and vivacity, or, perhaps, levity, than the rest, were eager to mingle in the society, and adopt the manners of those strangers. It is but just, however, to add, that only a few of the more estimable were included in this number; these, however they might have been captivated with novelty and plausibility, were too much attached to their older relations to give them pain, by an intimacy with people to whom an impious neglect of duties the most sacred, was generally imputed, and whose manner of treating their inferiors, at that distance from the control of higher powers, was often such as to justify the imputation of cruelty, which the severity of military punishments had given rise to. The play, however, was acted in a barn, and pretty well attended, notwithstanding the good Domine's earnest charges to the contrary. It was the Beaux Stratagem; no favourable specimen of the delicacy or morality of the British theatre; and as for the wit it contains, very little of that was level to the comprehension of the novices who were there first initiated into a knowledge of the magic of the scene, yet they "laughed consumedly," as Scrub says, and actually did so, "because they were talking of him." They laughed at Scrub's gestures and appearance: and they laughed very heartily at seeing the gay young ensigns, whom they had been used to dance with, flirting fans, displaying great hoops, and with painted cheeks and coloured eyebrows, sailing about in female habiliments. This was a jest palpable and level to every understanding; and it was not only an excellent good one, but lasted a long while; for every time they looked at them when restored to their own habits, they laughed anew at the recollection of their late masquerade. "It is much,” says Falstaff, "that a lie with a grave face, and a jest with a sad brow, will do with a fellow who never had the ache in his shoulders." One need only look back to the first rude efforts at comic humour which delighted our fathers, to know

what gross and feeble jests amuse the mind, as yet a stranger to refinement. The loud and artless mirth so easily excited in a good-humoured child, the naivete of its odd questions and ignorant wonder, which delight us while associated with innocence and simplicity, would provoke the utmost disgust if we met with them where we look for intelligence and decorous observances. The simplicity of primitive manners, in what regards the petty amusements and minute attentions to which we have become accustomed, is exactly tantamount to that of childhood; it is a thing which, in our state of society, we have no idea of. Those who are, from their depressed situation, ignorant of the forms of polished life, know, at least, that such exist; and either awkwardly imitate them, or carefully avoid committing themselves, by betraying their ignorance. Here, while this simplicity, which, by the by, was no more vulgar than that of Shakspeare's Miranda, with its concomitant purity, continued unbroken by foreign modes, it had all the charm of undesigning childhood; but when half education and ill supported pretensions took place of this sweet attraction, it assumed a very different aspect; it was no longer simplicity but vulgarity. There are things that every one feels and no one can describe, and this is one of them.

But to return to our Mirandas and their theatrical heroes: the fame of their exhibitions went abroad, and opinions were formed of them no way favourable to the actors or to the audience. In this region of reality, where rigid truth was always undisguised, they had not learned to distinguish between fiction and falsehood. It was said that the officers, familiar with every vice and every disguise, had not only spent a whole night in telling lies in a counterfeited place, the reality of which had never existed, but that they were themselves a lie, and had degraded manhood, and broke through an express prohibition in Scripture, by assuming female habits; that they had not only told lies, but cursed and swore the whole night; and

assumed the characters of knaves, fools, and robbers, which every wise and good man held in detestation, and no one would put on unless they felt themselves easy in them. Painting their faces, of all other things, seemed most to violate the Albanian ideas of decorum, and was looked upon as a most flagrant abomination. Great and loud was the outcry produced by it. Little skilled in sophistry, and strangers to all the arts" that make the worst appear the better reason,” the young auditors could only say, "that indeed it was very amusing; made them laugh heartily, and did harm to nobody." So harmless, indeed, and agreeable did this entertainment appear to the new converts to fashion, that the Recruiting Officer was given out for another night, to the great annoyance of Domine Freylinghausen, who invoked heaven and earth to witness and avenge this contempt, not only of his authority, but, as he expressed it, of the source from whence it was derived. Such had been the sanctity of this good man's life, and the laborious diligence and awful earnestness with which he inculcated the doctrines he taught, that they had produced a correspondent effect, for the most part, on the lives of his hearers, and led them to regard him as the next thing to an evangelist. Accustomed to success in all his undertakings, and to "honour, love, obedience, troops of friends," and all that gratitude and veneration can offer to its most distinguished object, this rebellion against his authority, and contempt of his opinion, once the standard by which every one's judgment was regulated, wounded him very deeply. The abhorrence with which he inspired the parents of the transgressors, among whom were many young men of spirit and intelligence, was the occasion of some family disagreements, a thing formerly scarcely known. Those young people, accustomed to regard their parents with implicit reverence, were unwilling to impute to them unqualified harshness, and therefore removed the blame of a conduct so unusual to their spiritual guide; "and