mine, indeed, slight and evanescent; his, deep and more lasting, and which, I have understood, only ended with his life. As it was necessary I should be employed, the choice of a vocation for me, had for some time engaged the attention of my near connections. The question was, whether I should be a merchant, a physician, or a lawyer. My inclinations were duly consulted. I had no predilection for either, though I liked the law the least of the three, being sensiblethat my talents were not of the cast which would enable me to succeed in that profession. I searched my composition in vain, for the materials that would be required. If they were there, the want of fortitude to bring them forth, would be the same as if they were not; and this seemed a deficiency I could never supply. To rise at the bar with due gravity and recollection; to challenge the attention of the court, the jury and the bye standers; to confide in my ability to do justice to a good cause; to colour a bad one by the requisite artifice and simulation; and to undertake to entertain by my rhetoric, where I must necessarily fail to convince by my logic, I felt to be a task far beyond my strength; and I shuddered at it, in idea only, even in my most sanguine, seif-complacent moments. To what this infirmity, inaccurately termed diffidence, is owing, or whether it be a defect in the mental or bodily powers, is not I believe, ascertained; yet it exists to a degree scarcely superable in some, while in others, it is a sensation almost unknown. It appears, however, to be considerably under the influence of education, since, if felt at all, it never shows itself in a thorough bred Quaker : neither do we suppose it to exist in a Frenchman, though the phrase mauvaise honte, is a proof that the imbecility has been recognised by the nation; a circumstance we might be led to doubt too, from the account given by doctor Moore of the national assemblyx He tells us, that of the great Aumber of members of which it was composed, there appeared to be none who could not express themselves with perfect freedom and ease; and that there seemed to be a continual competition for the possession of the 'tribune. How different, he observes, from an assembly of Englishmen! I might add, of Americans! But that the feeling is natural, if indeed there could be a doubt of it; that it was known to the antients, and that it is not merely an effect of modern manners, is evinced from the following lines of Petronius on Dreams, in which the trepida tion is not only recognised, but very strongly de icted. Qui causas orare solent, legesque forumque I have said it is inaccurately termed diffidence: it rather appears to me, to proceed from too much pride and self attention, a kind of morbid sensibility, ever making self the principal figure in the scene, and overweeningly solicitous for the respect of the audience; dreading, in equal degree, its contempt and the humiliation of a failure. Hence, as one that is too fearful of falling will never excel in the hazardous exercises, such as riding and skating, so the destined public speaker who will not risk a fall, can never expect to succeed. If he is too fastidious to submit to occasional humiliation, he must undergo the perpetual one of being really, as well as reputedly, unqualified for his profession. Some diffidence. or distrust of our powers, does no doubt, attend the species of mauvaise honte we are speaking of; but it is more often, I believe, the distrust of being able to display the talents we possess, or at least ascribe to ourselves, than an underrating of them; and appears to have its primary cause, as already said, in a temperament of too much susceptibility to shame,— and if so, the French have given it a yery proper appellation some But notwithstanding my conviction of an inaptitude for the bar, it was, however, the profession assigned me. I had declared for the study of physic, and overtures had accordingly been made to a practitioner of eminence, but he happening at the time to have as many students as he wanted, declined taking another. Failing here, it was deemed inexpedient any longer to defer placing me where. I had certainly been already too long unemployed; and my uncle, (the executor of my father's will, in conjunction with my mother) who had all along been desirous that I should go to the bar, his own profession, again recommended it; and proposed taking me into his own family, where, by his assistance, the use of his library, which was a ve◄ ry ample one, and an occasional attention to the business of his office, that of prothonotary of the Common Pleas, which he held as deputy of the late governor Hamilton, then residing at Bushhill, I had the means of acquiring a knowledge of the law, both as to principle and practice; and the proposal being in many respects eligible and agreeable, was embraced. I was sensible that it was no less to my advantage than reputation, that I should be doing something there was no one with whom, in the character of a master, I could expect to be more pleasantly situated than with my uncle, who was a man of unbounded benevolence and liberality; and my imagination went to castle-building in the remote prospect of a trip to England, for the purpose of completing my education at the temple; for whatever may be the case now, this was the grand desideratum or summum bonum with the aspiring lawyouth of my day. As to the sober part of the calculation, whether the occupation I was about to embrace was adapted to my talents, would command my application, and be likely to afford me the means of future subsistence, it was put aside for the more immediately grateful considerations already mentioned. I cannot venture to pronounce, however, that : the medical profession would have suited me much better. In truth, I was indolent to a great degree; and with respect to that heroic fortitude which subdues the mind to its purposes, withdraws it at will from the flowery paths of pleasure, and forces it into the thorny road of utility, the distinguishing trait in the character of Cæsar, and which justifies the poet in designating him as "the world's great master, and his own," I have very little to boast of. I was ever too easily seduced by the charm of present gratification, and my general mood in youth, was an entire apathy to gainful views. With the strongest inclination to be respectable in life, and even with ambition to aspire to the first rank in my profession, I yet felt an invincible incapacity for mingling in the world of business, the only means by which my desire could be gratified. My imagination, almost ever in a state of listless, amorous delirium, Where honor still, And great design, against the oppressive load, could rarely be brought down to the key of sober occupation, or attuned to the flat fasque nefasque of the sages of the law; and my acquaintance with them, was of course, a very slight one. Were we justified in laying our unthriftiness on nature, I might say, that she never intended me for a man of business. If she has denied me the qualifications of an advocate, she has not certainly been more liberal to me of those of a trafficker; for whether it be owing to pride, to dulness, to laziness, or to impatience, I could never excel in driving a bargain: And as to that spirit of commercial enterprize or speculation, which only asks the use of money to increase it, I never possessed a spark of it; and consequently, though I have sometimes had cash to spare, it rarely, if ever, was employed; for the very good reason, that commodities in my hands, always turned out to be drugs, In thus characterising myself, I affect not singulari ty for the discomfort of my declining age, I but depict myself too truly. A short time before the epoch of my becoming a student of law. the city was visited by the company of players, since styling themselves, The old American company. They had for several years been exhibiting in the islands, and now returned to the continent in the view of dividing their time and labors between Philadelphia and New-York. At Boston, they did not appear, So peevish was the edict of the may❜r, or at least of those authorities which were charged with the custody of the public morals. The manager was Douglas, rather a decent than shining actor, a man of sense and discretion, married to the widow Hallam, whose son Lewis, then in full culmination, was the Roscius of the theatre. As the dramatic heroes were all his without a competitor, so the heroines were the exclusive property of Miss Cheer, who was deemed an admirable performer. The singing department was supplied and supported by the voices of Wools and Miss Wainewright, said to have been pupils of doctor Arne; while in the tremulous drawle of the old man, in low jest and buffoonery, Morris, thence the minion of the gallery, stood first and unrivalled. As for the Tomlinsons, the Walls, the Allens, &c. they were your Bonifaces, your Jessamys, your Mock Doctors, and what not. On the female side, Mrs. Douglas was a respectable, matron-like dame, stately or querulous as occasion required, a very good Gertrude, a truly appropriate lady Randolph with her white handkerchief and her weeds; but then, to applaud, it was absolutely ne cessary to forget, that to touch the heart of the spectator had any relation to her function: Mrs. Han |