no one knowing whose turn might be next, all conversation begun to be infected with litigious cant; and every thing seemed unstable and perplexed.

CHAP. LVII.

Settlers of a new Description-Madame's Chaplain.

ANOTHER class of people contributed their share to destroy the quiet and order of the country. While the great army, that had now returned to Britain, had been stationed in America, the money they spent there, had, in a great measure centered in New-York, where many ephemeral adventurers begun to flourish as merchants, who lived in a gay and even profuse style, and affected the language and manners of the army on which they depended. Elated with sudden prosperity, those people attempted every thing that could increase their gains; and, finally, at the commencement of the Spanish war, fitted out several privateers, which, being sent to cruise near the mouth of the Gulf of Florida, captured several valuable prizes. Money so easily got was as lightly spent, and proved indeed ruinous to those who shared it; they being thus led to indulge in expensive habits, which continued after the means that supplied them were exhausted. At the departure of the army trade languished among these new people; their British creditors grew clamorous: the primitive inhabitants looked cold upon them; and nothing remained for them but that self banishment, which, in that country, was the usual consequence of extravagance and folly, a retreat to the woods. Yet, even in these

primeval shades, there was no repose for the vain and the turbulent. It was truly amusing to see these cargoes of rusticated fine ladies and gentlemen going to their new abodes, all lassitude and chagrin; and very soon after, to hear of their attempts at finery, consequence, and pre-eminence, in the late invaded residence of bears and beavers. There, no pastoral tranquillity, no sylvan delights awaited them. In this forced retreat to the woods they failed not to carry with them those household gods which they had worshipped in town; the pious Eneas was not more careful of his Penates, nor more desirous of establishing them in his new residence. These are the persons of desperate circumstances, expensive habits, and ambitious views; who, like the "tempest-loving raven," delight in changes, and anticipate, with guilty joy, the overturn of states in which they have nothing to lose, and have hopes of rising on the ruins of others. The lawyers, too, foresaw that the harvest they were now reaping from the new mode of inquiry into disputed titles, could not be of long duration. They did not lay a regular plan for the subversion of the existing order of things; but they infected the once plain and primitive conversation of the people with law jargon which spread like a disease, and was the more fatal to elegance, simplicity, and candour, as there were no rival branches of science, the cultivation of which might have divided people's attention with this dry contentious theme.

The spirit of litigation, which narrowed and heated every mind, was a great nuisance to madame, who took care not to be much troubled with it in conversation, because she discountenanced it at her table, where, indeed, no petulant upstarts were received. She was, however, persecuted with daily references to her recollections with regard to the traditionary opinions relative to boundaries, &c. While she sought refuge in the peaceable precincts of the gospel, from the tumultuous contests of the law which she always spoke of with

dislike, she was little aware that a deserter from her own camp was about to join the enemy. Mr. H. our chaplain, became, about this time, very reserved and absent; law and politics were no favourite topics in our household, and these alone seemed much to interest our divine. Many thought aunt was imposed on by this young man, and took him to be what he was not; but this was by no means the case. She neither thought him a wit, a scholar, or a saint; but merely a young man, who, to very good intentions and a blameless life, added the advantages of a better education than fell to the lot of laymen there; simplicity of manners, and some powers of conversation, with a little dash of the coxcomb, rendered tolerable by great good nature.

Vanity, however, was the rock on which our chaplain split : he found himself, among the circle he frequented, the oneeyed king in the kingdom of the blind; and thought it a pity such talents should be lost in a profession where, in his view of the subject, bread and peace were all that were to be expected. The first intelligence I heard was, that Mr. H. on some pretence or other, often went to the neighbouring town of Schenectady now rising into consequence, and there openly renounced his profession, and took out a license as a practising lawyer. It is easy to conjecture how madame must have considered this wanton renunciation of the service of the altar for a more gainful pursuit, aggravated by simulation at least; for this seeming open and artless character took all the benefit of her hospitality, and continued to be her inmate the whole time that he was secretly carrying on a plan he knew she would reprobate. She, however, behaved with great dignity on the occasion; supposing, no doubt, that the obligations she had conferred upon him, deprived her of a right to reproach or reflect upon him. She was never after heard to mention his name; and when others did, always shifted the conversation. All these revolutions in manners and opinions helped to

endear me to aunt, as a pupil of her own school; while my tenacious memory enabled me to entertain her with the wealth of others' minds, rendered more amusing by the simplicity of my childish comments. Had I been capable of flattery, or rather, had I been so deficient in natural delicacy, as to say what I really thought of this exalted character, the awe with which I regarded her would have deterred me from such presumption; but as I really loved and honoured her, as virtue personified, and found my chief happiness in her society and conversation, she could not but be aware of this silent adulation, and she became indeed more and more desirous of having me with her. To my father, however, I was now become, in some degree, necessary, from causes somewhat similar. He, too, was sick of the reigning conversation; and being nervous and rather inclined to melancholy, begun to see things in the darkest light, and made the most of a rheumatism, in itself bad enough, to have a pretext for indulging the chagrin that preyed upon his mind, and avoiding his Connecticut persecuters, who attacked him every where but in bed. A fit of chagrin was generally succeeded by a fit of home sickness, and that by a paroxysm of devotion exalted to enthusiasm ; during which all worldly concerns were to give way to those of futurity. Thus melancholy and thus devout I found my father; whose pure and upright spirit was corroded with the tricks and chicanery he was forced to observe in his new associates, with whom his singular probity and simplicity of character rendered him very unfit to contend. My mother, active, cheerful, and constantly occupied with her domestic affairs, sought pleasure no where, and found content every where. I had begun to taste the luxury of intellectual pleasures with a very keen relish. Winter, always severe, but this year armed with tenfold vigour, checked my researches among birds and plants, which constituted my summer delights; and poetry was all that remained to me. While I was, " in some diviner

mood," exulting in these scenes of inspiration, opened to me by the "humanizing muse," the terrible decree went forth, that I was to read no more "idle books or plays." This decree was merely the result of a momentary fit of sickness and dejection, and never meant to be seriously enforced. It produced, however, the effect of making me read so much divinity that I fancied myself got quite "beyond the flaming bounds of space and time;" and thought I could never relish light reading any more. In this solemn mood, my greatest relaxation was a visit now and then to aunt's sister-in-law, now entirely bed-ridden, but still possessing great powers of conversation, which were called forth by the flattering attention of a child to one whom the world had forsaken. I loved, indeed, play, strictly such, thoughtless, childish play, and next to that, calm reflection and discussion. The world was too busy and too artful for me. I found myself most at home with those who had not entered, or those who had left it.

My father's illness was much aggravated by the conflict which begun to arise in his mind regarding his proposed removal to his lands, which were already surrounded by a new population, consisting of these fashionable emigrants from the gay world at New-York, whom I have been describing, and a set of fierce republicans, if any thing sneaking and drawling may be so called, whom litigious contention had banished from their native province, and who seemed let loose, like Samson's foxes, to carry mischief and conflagration wherever they went. Among this motley crew there was no regular place of worship, nor any likely prospect that there should, for their religions had as many shades of difference as the leaves in autumn; and every man of substance who arrived, was preacher and magistrate to his own little colony. To hear their people talk, one would think time had run back to the days of the levellers. The settlers from New-York, however, struggled hard for superiority, but they were not equal in chi