able instance of which, viz. quelling the mutiny near Valley Forge, was quoted at length in our previous notice of Mr. Davis's book.

In the difficulties which occurred while the army was at Valley Forge, between General Washington and General Gates, reasons may be easily imagined which should induce Colonel Burr to take sides with the friends of the latter. He thought that Washington had overlooked his own claims to promotion, and had done him palpable injustice in omitting all notice of his services in the retreat from Long Island, and in the rescue of the brigade under General Knox. When General Lee was arrested at the battle of Monmouth, and was suspended from his command, Colonel Burr of course entertained the warmest sympathy for a man whom he supposed to be a fellow-sufferer from the same hostility. One of Lee's letters to Burr, written soon after this affair, contains a characteristic sneer, which we doubt not was equally enjoyed by the writer and his correspondent. "As I have no idea," says the general, "that a proper reparation will be made to my injured reputa. tion, it is my intent, whether the sentence is reversed or not reversed, to resign my commission, retire to Virginia, and learn to hoe tobacco, which I find is the best school to form a consummate general."

From June 1778 to the following March, Colonel Burr was constantly employed in useful and active service; but his health had suffered extremely from his exposure, and he was compelled in consequence to resign his commission. General Washington acknow. ledged the receipt, and signified the acceptance of his resignation in a note of the following tenor; "Perfectly satisfied that no consideration save a desire to re-establish your health could induce you to leave the service, I cannot therefore withhold my consent. But, in giving permission to your retiring from the army, I am not only to regret the loss of a good officer, but the cause which makes his resignation necessary." Here closed the military career of Colonel Burr. He was at this period about twenty-three years of age. His military capacity cannot be questioned. He was vigilant, brave, and fortunate, and possessed in a high degree the confidence and affection of the army. Military fame was his highest ambition; and he was more proud of his success and reputation as a soldier, than of his triumph at the bar, in the senate, or even in love.

The pride of Colonel Burr was his military reputation, though his vanity was most conspicuously displayed in his affairs of gallantry. And in this connection we may speak of the most disgusting trait in the character of Colonel Burr-his shameless, reckless, and

unrestrained libertinism. This appears to have been the end and aim of his existence. Every thing beside was subordinate and incidental to the gratification of his ruling passion. During a ca. reer of fifty years it seemed to occupy and absorb all his thoughts; and when the snows of seventy winters had gathered upon his head, thickly enough, one would think, to have chilled and smothered the unholy fires beneath, we see the hoary sinner gloating over the memorials of his iniquity, and preserving with the most sedulous anxiety every dash of the pen that would remind him of the wretchedness and ruin he had wrought. It is related of the celebrated De Bassompierre, a marechal of France during the reign of Louis XIII., that he destroyed more than six thousand love letters from the most distinguished ladies of the court when he was thrown into the Bastile by the order of Richelieu. Colonel Burr seems to have accumulated quite as large a collection of similar epistles, though from a much less select circle of correspondents; and without the slightest exhibition of the reserve and delicacy which appear to have fairly justified the confidence reposed in the honour of the marechal. Not a line of his very numerous letters would Colonel Burr suffer to be obliterated during his lifetime. They were all delivered in trust to his biographer, with the strictest pro hibition against their destruction till his decease; but his bones had no sooner been consigned to the grave, than every page of his amatory correspondence was carefully burned.

In striking contrast with his open and avowed profligacy are his apparent kindness and tenderness as a husband and a father. On the 2d of July 1782, Colonel Burr was married to Mrs. Theodosia Prevost, the widow of a British officer who had died in the West Indies early in the Revolutionary war. With this lady he had be come acquainted in 1777, when he was stationed with his regiment at Ramapo in New Jersey. Mrs. Prevost was then living at Pa. ramus, a few miles distant; and her house was much frequented by the most distinguished American officers stationed in the vicinity. She was an accomplished and intelligent woman, highly respected and esteemed. Her situation, as the wife of a British officer and an adherent of the crown, was one of extreme delicacy, and excited among the more liberal of the Whigs a strong sympathy in her favour. Burr became intimate in her family; a mutual attachment ensued, and about five years afterwards she became his wife.

A considerable portion of the volume before us is occupied with the domestic correspondence of Colonel Burr. If these letters furnish a true index to the intercourse between the husband and wife, it must have been of the most tender and confiding character. The letters of Mrs. Burr are full of expressions which indicate the

most impassioned and relying fondness; his own letters are equally affectionate and ardent. When absent, he is all impatience to return-disappointed if he does not hear from his wife by every stage-continually stealing a moment from the business of the Court to write her a single line, anticipating the moment of their re-union, and cursing the fate that separates them. We copy a few extracts from the letters of each:

FROM MRS. BURR.

1783.-"How unfortunate, my dearest Aaron, is our present separation. I never shall have resolution to consent to another. We must not be guided by others. We are certainly formed of different materials; and our undertakings must coincide with them.

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Some kind spirit will whisper to my Aaron how much his tender attention is wanted to support his Theo.: how much his love is necessary to give her that fortitude, that resolution, which nature has denied her but through his medium."

1784. My Aaron had hardly quitted the door, when I regretted my passiveness. Why did I consent to his departure? Can interest repay the sacrifice? Can aught on earth compensate for his presence? Why did I hesitate to decide? *** O, Aaron, how I thank thee! Love, in all its delirium, hovers about me; like opium, it lulls me to soft repose! Sweet serenity speaks, 'tis my Aaron's spirit presides. Surrounding objects check my visionary charms. I fly to my room, and give the day to thee.”

1785.-"My health and mind seem to require the calm recreation of friendly sympathy; the heart that has long been united to mine by the tenderest esteem and confidence, who has made every little anxiety its own, to whom I can speak without reserve every imaginary woe, and whose kind consolation shall appease those miseries nature has imposed."

"To think of me affectionately is my first command; to write me so the second. Hasten to share the happiness of thy much loved and much loving Theodosia."

1786." My heart is full of affection, my head too barren to express it. I am impatient for evening; for the receipt of your dear letter; for those delightful sensations which your expressions of tenderness alone can excite. Dejected, distracted without them; elated, giddy even to folly with them; my mind, never at medium, claims every thing from your partiality."

1787.-"Tell me, Aaron, why do I grow every day more tena. cious of thy regard? Is it possible my affection can increase? Is it because each revolving day proves thee more deserving? Surely, thy Theo. needed no proof of thy goodness. Heaven preserve the patron of my flock, preserve the husband of my heart; teach me to cherish his love, and to deserve the boon."

FROM MR. BURR.

1785.-"This morning came your kind, your affectionate, your truly welcome letter of Monday evening. Where did it loiter so long? Nothing in my absence is so flattering to me as your health and cheerfulness. I then contemplate nothing so eagerly as my return; amuse myself with ideas of my own happiness, and dwell on the sweet domestic joys which I fancy prepared for me."

1785.-"A thousand thanks for your dear, affectionate letter of Tuesday evening. I was just sitting pensively and half complain. ing of your remissness, when your letter is received, and dispels every gloomy thought. I write this from the impulse of my feelings, and in obedience to your injunctions. The letters of our dear children are a feast. Every part of them is pleasing and interesting."

1789.- "If you set no other bound to your pen than cation, you will write me the history every day, not of my gratifi. your actions only, (the least of which will be interesting,) but of your thoughts. I shall watch with eagerness and impatience the coming of every stage. Let me not be disappointed."

1791.-"Continue and multiply your letters to me. all my solace in this irksome and laborious confinement. The six They are last are constantly within my reach. I read them once a day at least. Write me of all I have requested, and a hundred things I have not. You best know how to please and interest."

These letters are only interesting as they develope the character of the parties, and as they exhibit the subject of the memoir in his personal and domestic relations. The letters to his daughter are interesting on a similar account. They possess no merit which can otherwise distinguish them from the thousands of private letters daily written by less distinguished correspondents. They are plain and unembellished in their style; with no particular grace, liveliness, or beauty of language; and such as any decent lawyer on a country circuit might send daily to his family, without exposing himself to the suspicion of any unusual epistolary talent.

The professional character of Mr. Burr, as developed in this vo lume, seems to have been that of a laborious, pains-taking, and successful lawyer in the full tide of an ample and lucrative practice. He was a calm and persuasive speaker, with great terseness and condensation of style; never attempting or reaching any high order of impassioned eloquence. The volume closes before the period of any especial interest in his public career; and his political character must form the subject of a future article on the appearance of Mr. Davis's second volume. As this will develope the secret history of the Presidential struggle, which resulted in the first election of Jefferson, and give us authentic details of Burr's alleged

conspiracy and of the duel with Hamilton, we may expect in it a work of unusual interest, with but little hazard of disappointment. Our general impressions, from a very attentive study of the volume before us, are briefly these:--Mr. Burr's chief claim to eminence was in the singular restlessness, energy, and perseverance of his character; united with great shrewdness, an admirable know. ledge of human nature, and unusual tact and quickness in applying that knowledge to the best advantage. To these qualities he owed his military reputation, his professional success, and his political distinction. Nothing has as yet appeared which entitles Mr. Burr to the consideration of unusual ability either as a writer or speaker. His letters certainly give him no claim to the first distinction, nor is there any evidence to justify us in assuming the last. We think that he formed a most correct estimate of his own powers and capa. cities; and that he had abundant reason to be more tenacious of his military, than of his professional, political, or moral character. He possessed all the qualities requisite for distinguished success as a soldier; and we doubt not, that on a favourable theatre for the de velopment and display of his talents, he would have attained a most enviable and honourable eminence. It is in this point of view only that his character, as far as it is developed in the present volume, possesses more than ordinary interest. The merely professional career of a laborious and successful lawyer is as destitute of attractiveness as that of any other plodding and successful man of business. The public triumphs of the lawyer are those of the bar, and we have no evidence that Burr exhibited at any time any remark. able display of eloquence. We should infer that his appearance the bar was that of a second-rate advocate. In his personal character he was a profligate libertine; and his domestic letters prove him to have been one of the most consummate of dissemblers. think, therefore, it may be safely assumed, that to the period of his forty-fourth year, at which time the volume before us closes, Mr. Burr's claim to remembrance rests solely upon his MILITARY TA

LENTS AND CHARACTER.

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