sition to amend the constitution, and which was, that "no person should be eligible as a senator for more than six years in any term of twelve years, and that they should at all times within the period of six years be subject to recall by the state legislatures, and to the substitution of others." Mr Hamilton, on that occasion, took broad views of the nature of man, his passions, pursuits, interests, prejudices, duties; and he drew his deductions from the design and necessity of government, the settled principles of policy, and the history and melancholy infirmities of all free, and especially of all federal governments, ancient and modern. Instability, a fluctuating policy, and corrupt and vindictive factions, were prominent features and practical consequences in the history of most republican systems, and their necessary tendency was to weaken the sanctity of contracts, lessen the security of property, destroy a proud and just sense of national honour, and finally to forfeit the respect and confidence of the rest of mankind. He contended, therefore, that in all just policy, we ought not to hesitate to infuse a principle of stability into the structure of our national government, by the creation of a senate, to be comparatively small in the number of its members, and to have them chosen for considerable periods of time, so as to inspire them with a feeling of independence, and a lively sense of character, in the due discharge of their trust. Upon no other plan, could the Senate, either in its legislative or executive character, be able to perform its functions as the balance-wheel of the machine. In no other way would that body be able to become the requisite check to the mischiefs of misguided zeal and factious policy in the more popular branch, or to the abuses and misrule of the president, in the exercise of the treaty and the appointing powers. During the sitting of the convention, information was received that New Hampshire had adopted the constitution, and she made the ninth state that had ratified it. That great event wrought at once a momentous change in the condition of the United States; inasmuch as the confederation became there by ipso facto dissolved, and the new constitution had become, or would be when organized, the existing national government of the nine states which had ratified the same. But that fact, solemn and weighty as it was, did not seem to disturb the tranquillity, or shake the purpose, of a majority of the convention. Mr. Smith and Mr. Lansing both declared that the event had no influence on their deliberations. The convention continued its sharp debates for three weeks longer, and apparently regardless of that information, until all hopes of an auspicious issue to the business seemed to be lost. It was in the midst of that gloomy period, and just before the clouds began to disperse, and serene skies to appear and gladden the moral atmosphere of the place, that Mr. Hamilton made one of his most pathetic and impassioned addresses. He urged every motive and consideration that ought to sway the human mind in such a crisis. He touched with exquisite skill every cord of sympathy that could be made to vibrate in the human breast. Our country, our honor, our liberties, our firesides, our posterity, were placed in vivid colors before us. He alluded to the distresses and national degradation which dictate the call for a general convention, and he portrayed in matchless style the characters in that illustrious assembly, composed of the wisest and brightest of our American statesmen. To discriminate largely might be invidious; but it could not be so, he said, to select Franklin, revered by the wise men of Europe, and Washington, crowned with laurels, and refulgent with glory. era. Intelligence was shortly afterwards received, that Virginia had also adopted the constitution. Mr. Hamilton read with much sensibility a letter to that effect, communicated by express from Mr. Madison. It produced at once a visible change in the disposi tion of the house, and led it to think of adopting the constitution upon certain terms. A resolution to that effect was before the house, when Mr. Smith moved that the constitution be ratified upon condi tion, that certain powers contained in the instru ment should not be exercised until a general convention of the states had been called to propose amendments. This proposition was discussed for several days, and under the impression in one part of the house, that the adoption of the constitution with that qualification annexed, would readily be received by the existing Congress. Mr. Hamilton was strenuous and peremptory in his opinion, that such a conditional ratification would not and could not possibly be accepted. He assured the house that all expectations from such a source would prove delusive. This opinion gained ground, and the members generally and gradually assumed a more conciliatory tone; and all vehemence in debate seemed to cease as by common consent. Convictions once beginning to operate, were borne along with increasing force against the stream of preju dice. "We did not come here," said Mr. Jay, "to carry points, or gain party triumphs. We ought not to expect it, or wish it. We were without a national government, and on the eve of an untried Everything demanded moderation and concession. The laurels of mere party victory, might be bedewed with the tears, or stained with the blood of our fellow-citizens." Mr. Hamilton disclaimed all intention of wounding the feelings of any individual, though he had expressed himself in the course of the debates in strong language, dietated by strong emotions, for on no subject had his mind been agitated with more painful concern. The spirit of the house became liberal and cheering; and at last Mr Jones moved to substitute the words in full confidence, in lieu of the words, upon condition, in the form of the ratification. He was supported by Mr. Smith, who had so eminently distinguished himself, and by Mr. Platt, then first judge of the county of Dutchess, who made a few plain observations in a direct and downright manner, of his sense of duty, and of his determination to follow it. Twelve members came over from the antifederal side of the house, and they were sufficient to constitute the majority which unconditionally ratified the constitution. I have always considered the members who made this memorable and unbought sacrifice of error, prejudice, and party discipline, on the altar of patriotism and their country's welfare, as entitled to the highest commendation. It was quite an heroic effort, to quit such a leader as Governor Clinton, though it was to follow their own convictions. It was understood that several other members were inclined to follow the same course, but they could not be brought to desert the governor, who remained inflexible. Had he consented to vote for the constitution, the ratification of it would probably have been unanimous. As it was, the spirit of conciliation which closed the labors of that illustrious assembly, was deemed most auspicious, and as affording a new and instructive example of wisdom and moderation to mankind. ABIEL HOLMES. ABIEL HOLMES, the author of the American Annals, one of the pioneer works of American History, was born in Woodstock, Conn., a town formerly under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, December 24, 1763. His father, Dr. David Holmes, had served as captain with the provincial forces in the old French war in Canada. Abiel graduated at Yale in 1783, and soon after accepted the appointment of Tutor in the college, having first preached a short time to a society in Midway, Georgia. In 1788 he was settled over the congregation in Midway, where he had formerly preached, and maintainel a happy relation with them until 1791, when the state of his health compelled him to remove to the north. In 1790, he married Mary, daughter of Dr. Ezra Stiles, the president of Yale College. She died in 1795, leaving no children. In 1792, Mr. Holmes was installed as pastor of the First Congregational Church in Cambridge, Mass., and occupied this position until 1832, a long period of forty years, when the increase of new theological opinions caused a division of the society. He retained his connexion with the "orthodox" portion of the parish, a colleague having been settled with him, to whom he soon resigned his share of the duties, and passed the remainder of his life peacefully and happily in Cambridge. His religious and ecclesiastical faith was that of the Puritans. His position at Cambridge was, therefore, peculiarly difficult and delicate, surrounded as he was with communities of different faith, and in the immediate vicinity of an institution at that time almost exclusively under Unitarian influence. But he was charitable by nature, and disposed to live peaceably with those whose faith differed from his own. For a long course of years he was in the habit of exchanging pulpits with the Unitarian clergy of the neighborhood, and never ceased to be on the most friendly terms of intercourse with many among them. In the year 1800 he married Sarah, daughter of the Hon. Oliver Wendell, of Boston.* In his literary career Dr. Holmes, in 1798, wrote the life of his father-in-law, President Stile, a work of genuine worth and character. In 1805 he published his American Annals, a work in two volumes octavo, containing the outlines of American History from 1492 to the period of its publication, a work of careful collection and research; and in 1829 he published a second edition of the work, enlarged with a continuation of the record. The American Annals employed him some ten years in composition, and much labor was expended on its revision. This was a labor of love. To verify a doubtful legend; to disprove a questionable tradition by new testimony; to get at the absolute fact and let this tell its own story: such labor as this was his highest literary pleasure. Like a famous observer in science he might have adopted the saying of Rousseau as his motto, "I know that truth is in things, and not in my mind that judges of them, and that the less of myself I mingle with them the nearer I shall come to the truth." He observed the remark, however, very differently from the famous egotist who originated it. The children of this second marriage were, 1. Mary Jackson, married to Usher Parsons, M.D.; 2. Ann Susan, married to the Hon. Charles Wentworth Upham; 8. Sarah Lathrop, who died in childhood; 4. Oliver Wendell, the poet and physician; 5. John Holmes of Cambridge. VOL. 1.-33 In 1817 Dr. Holmes delivered a course of Lectures on Ecclesiastical History in Harvard College. He published in the Massachusetts Historical Collections a Memoir of the French Protestants; and a History of the Town of Cambridge. Besides the works thus enumerated he published various sermons. Occasionally, like many of his clerical contemporaries, he indulged in verse, not, however, in any more serious efforts than a slight translation or an occasional hymn. His fondness for history and antiquarian research was no doubt favored and fostered by his early relations with his revered father-in-law, President Stiles. But the author of "The History of the Judges " joined to his learning a love of theory leading him at times towards credulity, which his son-in-law did not inherit. The master was fond of wide speculations; the pupil was content with the humble task of collecting, sifting, verifying, and classifying the facts of history. To the same master is to be traced the love of the Hebrew language, which he always retained. He often referred to his first lessons received from the lips of the President himself. He had Greek and Latin enough for the reading of sacred and classical books, and so much of French and Spanish as was necessary for the consultation of historical authority. He had too a scholar's taste in books. Without being a book collector in the strict sense, he had a fondness for good editions, and there were few happier moments than when he brought home an Elzevir, or a Stephanus, or a Frobenius, and introduced the venerable new comer to his somewhat crowded shelves. In his personal character he was of a kindly and genial disposition, and the somewhat severe forms of belief in which he was bred, and to which he was faithful through life, never chilled his social nature. In the general love and confidence of his parish and supported by the Christianity which he had served, he died at Cainbridge, June 4, 1837.* ST. JOHN HONEYWOOD. ST. JOHN HONEYWOOD was born in 1764, the son of an English physician who had settled in Leicester, Mass. In 1766 the father, then a surgeon in the American army, lost his life at Ticonderoga, leaving his son an orphan and destitute. He was educated at the expense of a few friends at the school of Mr. Tisdale, in Lebanon, Conn., and continued his studies at Yale College, where he became domesticated in the house of the President, the Rev. Dr. Stiles, who always maintained a high regard for his pupil. He took his degree in 1782, and passed the two following years as a teacher in an academy at Schenectady, New York. He then removed to Albany and studied law in the office of Peter W. Yates. After having been admitted to the bar, he removed to Salem, Washington Co., where he practised his profession during the remainder of his life. He was one of the Presidential electors by whom John Adams was chosen the successor of Washington. He Mass. Hist. Collections, vol. vii. We are indebted for the personal reminiscences to a communication from the pen of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. married in 1788 a daughter of Col. Mosely of Westfield, Mass., and died Sept. 1, 1798. Noney wrodz The volume of his poems would have appeared in the author's lifetime, but death interrupted his plan of publication, and the work fell for biographical notice and editorship into the hands of his successor, who married his widow, a matter-of-fact man, who records this circumstance with coolness, and offers as an apology for the paucity of the facts his limited knowledge of the author; with whom his acquaintance seems to have been mainly of a posthumous character. Of the literary habits of Honeywood he records the composition of one of his short poems on fifty separate pieces of paper-which, he trusts, with some uncertainty, have been correctly joined together. The little volume which contains these poems was published in New York by T. & J. Swords in 1801, and was dedicated to Josiah Ogden Hoffman, then Attorney-General of the State. Unimportant as a collection of poetry, it is a curious picture of the closing years of the last century when Washington declined a re-election to the Presidency (the subject for several pages of heroic verse), when Shea rebelled in Massachusetts (celebrated in an ironical song), when Europe was seething with the coming Revolution (a lively news-monger's ballad), and Citizen Adet went home to France full of the prestige of the new republic of the west, duly impressed upon his mind by a poetical address from St. John Honeywood. Then for purely domestic matters the negroes were celebrating Pinxta, the ladies were lying in in great state, or writing letters not in the best of English-at least our poet inculcates Entick in terms which would be superfluous at the present day, when learning and good sense are such common things. Since daily occasion compels us to write, Read these lines, my dear Clara, and learn to indite, Here is then the great secret, to this you'll attend, Write in just the same manner you'd speak to your friend; Avoid all hard words and bombastical strain, If your style be but chaste, it can scarce be too plain, Many persons who've got a slight tincture of knowledge, Young boarding-school misses, and students from college, By high sounding nonsense endeavor to please, These smoothly written verses, and others more pointed, show the writer to have possessed a pleasant vein of humor. His graver attempts are somewhat prosaic. THE SELFISH MAN'S PRAYER ON THE PROSPECT OF war. Again the clouds of battle lour As in the camp the soldiers learn Then while my neighbours and their sons Grant that my boys, secure from guns, May cultivate my farms And while with taxes and expense My kindred are distress'd, O grant that all my hard-earn'd pence And should the Frenchmen gain the day, Yet, if by thy disposing will, My country gains the cause, O may I find a shelter still In her indulgent laws! And should she disbelieve my word, To witness I ne'er drew my sword, Or fir'd a gun at all. For since from frailty and mistake I wish no active part to take, But leave the whole to thee! Though impious pirates on the seas Our merchants' ships despoil; Yet shall my spirit rest in case Till foes invade the soil. Then let the fiends of battle rave, My peaceful vales shall sing; Full thrice their value bring. May fat contractors, fraught with gold, May continental rags no more Usurp the place of coin; I'll joy in my own righteousness, THE PURSE: Addressed to a Friend. The Author was journeying with a friend: for convenience they pursed their money. When they parted they divided their money and their purse (which was of the double con struction), each taking one half of it. When he understood his friend was a candidate for matrimony, he returnea the half purse, with the following lines:— This purse, long sever'd from its mate, Adieu! fond purse; what though no more And cram thy sides with many a fee. For well I ween the marriage state Full oft thy succour must require, With gen'rous food to heap the plateTo crown the glass and feed the fire. The parson, sure, will ask his hire For making one who once were two; And eke, when seasons may require, For sprinkling round the holy dew. The licens'd quack, of solemn face, Of want and pinching times shall tell; For making sick what late was well. The tailor, cloth-curtailing rogue, His long-stretched bill will oft display: The lingo-prating pedagogue Shall greet thee ev'ry quarter-day. The French friseur shall oft complain Of thirst, of hunger, heat and cold; And what would best relieve his pain, I trust you never need be told. The simp'ring milliner shall prate Of caps, of stays and negligees: Then bode, O! purse impending fate, Whene'er she whispers, if you please. The cobler, too, when hunger plies, At madam's foot will lowly bend; Admire its shape and handsome size, And hopes that you will prove his friend. Then honest John comes in to tell, He longs to drink your worship's health, And that, your honour knows full well, Poor servants are not born to wealth. Next Doll, with ill-affected blush, Hints how she soon expects to wed; That cash don't grow on every bush, And that she late was brought to bed. Then every black that dwells below In sable order shall arise; First beg they may a Pinxt'ring* go, Then hint the want of fresh supplies. Now Master Jack or Dick shall come, And in discordant whine relate, How the rude boys have broke his drum, And stole away his other skate. Start not, my friend, thy better half Shall join to bear the burden down: But such rare bargains must not pass: * Whitsuntide, a holiday for servants and slaves. "And O! my dear, I cannot bear To hang in parlour or saloon. "A harpsichord, at price still lower, "A singing-bird, of tender age, From India's groves has lately flown: "Twill match the robin in the cage; And birds should never live alone." "Stop here," you cry, "O wretch profuse!" Have patience, friend, I scarce begin: Proceed, and tell, celestial Muse, The charges of a lying-in! The accoucheur, in gratitude, Must be well paid for every boy; And surely all would deem it rude, You treat not such as wish you joy. Panado, caudle, many a cup; Choice figs and raisins of the sun; And cakes of every sort made upPound cake, wig, woffal, cruller, bun: Imperial, souchong, congo teas, When gossips come to pay their court; But bucks will not take up with these; Be theirs Madeira, Sherry, Port. Pins, too, in many a shining row; Caps, bibs, and shoes of crimson skin; Small ornaments of wond'rous show, And robes to wrap the infant in. A cradle to receive the child When fortune sends a downy nap: A pious nurse, of temper mild, To hush its cries, and get the pap. Get many a volume neatly bound, And give the wanton bairn to rear; Whistles of shrill unpleasing sound, And coral sticks, the gums to wear. And next-But stop, nor think to count Unnumber'd cares, unnumber'd things: First tell the stars, then the amount Of the vast cost which wedlock brings. O! who in this unfathom'd pit, In sober sense, would dare to plunge; Run the mad chance of duns and debts, To rot in jail-to starve-to spunge. Far better on his luckless throat A millstone's pond'rous bulk were hung; Far better, in unmanly note, He to Italian ears had sung. JOSEPH BROWN LADD. JOSEPH BROWN LADD, the son of William and Sarah Ladd, was born at Newport, R. I., in 1764. He received the rudiments of an English education, and at the early age of ten produced a few verses not without merit. In 1775 his father removed to a farm at Little Compton, which he cultivated with the assistance of his sons. This mode of life was distasteful to the young poet A teacher of music. and would-be student, who was wont to hide himself away with his books, and on one occasion constructed a retreat in a thicket of alder bushes, to which he resorted, with his silent_companions, daily for many months without detection. At the end of three years his father consented to a change, and placed him in a store; but this was still more repugnant to his tastes than the farm. A printing-office was next tried, where it was supposed his interest in books would be satisfied. While he was employed in learning his new trade, a gentleman who had noticed his literary readiness, suggested to him to write ballads on certain quack doctors in the town. The success which followed the production of these satires so elated him, that he shot at higher game in the person of the celebrated divine, Dr. Hopkins, minister at Newport. The doctor did not relish the proceeding, complained to the father of his assailant, and the incident led to his withdrawal from the printing-office. In his next change he was allowed to follow the bent of his inclination, which was to become a physician, and was placed in the charge of Dr. Isaac Senter. This gentleman sympathized with the literary tastes of his pupil, and rendered him good service by lending him books, and directing his classical as well as medical studies. During the four years thus passed, most of his poems were written. Many of them were addressed, under the signature of Arouet, to Amanda, a name by which he designated a young lady to whom he was attached. She was a young orphan heiress, and her guardians are charged, by the writer of the poet's biography prefixed to the collection of his works in 1832, with throwing obstacles in the way of the union for the purpose of keeping the Incrative management of her estate in their own hands, as the trust was stipulated to terminate with the marriage of their ward. The lady favored him if the guardians did not, and they were privately engaged. In 1783, General Greene, the revolutionary hero, returned to Newport, and becoming acquainted with Ladd, who had just completed his medical education, recommended him to try his fortune at the south. In pursuance of the advice, he removed to Charleston, with letters of introduction from his distinguished friend, and was soon engaged in extensive practice. Here he also became a contributor to the public press, and published, among other articles, a criticism on Dr. Johnson, in which he exposes many of the doctor's weak points, a daring literary venture at that period. In 1785 he was appointed, by Governor Moultrie, fourth of July orator at the second celebration of the day in Charleston, the first there, or in any part, it is said, of the country, having been observed in 1778 by an address by Dr. Ramsay. In November, 1786, a political controversy in the newspapers in which he was engaged, led to a challenge from his opponent, which he felt forced, by the false public sentiment prevalent in the community, to accept. He threw away his fire, but received a wound from his antagonist which put an end to his life at the age of twenty-two. His literary remains were collected by his sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Haskins, of Rhode Island, and published, with a sketch of the author's life, by W. B. Chittenden, in 1832, forty-six years after his death. They consist of the poems to Amanda of which we have spoken, and a number of verses on patriotic and occasional topics. AN INVOCATION TO THE ALMIGHTY. WRITTEN AT THE AGE My God! the Father of mankind, I ask not titles, wealth, or state, Oh! let me feel another's pain, To charity within my breast, ODE TO RETIREMENT. Hail, sweet retirement! hail! And bear the soul away from scenery of wo. There, AMANDA, we might walk, For why should doves have more delight, |