too old or infirm to carry arms in the revolutionary contest The other, was a maiden lady of the society of friends, who, upon occasion of my mother being in want of a female domestic, offered to assist her for a short time, came into the family soon after I was born, and never left it until taken from us by death, at an advanced age, in the year 1794. Her name was Ann Burgess; she was a woman of good understanding and reputably connected.

With the exception of the family of doctor Denormandie, our own, and perhaps one or two more, the principal inhabitants of Bristol were Quakers. Among these, the names of Buckley, Williams, Large, Meritt, Hutchinson and Church, are familiar to me. The last, bred to the trade of a cooper, but who had put his son in the business, and employed himself more in the management of a small farm and nursery of fruit trees, was a sincere and steady friend to our family. He was married to the sister of Ann Burgess, just mentioned, and was a very worthy man, possessing a good natural understanding, with a strong addiction to philosophical speculations. His attachment to my father went beyond friendship: it reached to admiration and veneration. He thought him, as he has often told me, one of the best and wisest men that ever lived. I never knew him do a foolish thing, said he, but once. Upon my asking him what that was; it was, said he, on occasion of some worthless fellow reporting that he had seen one or more Indians in the swamp beyond the church, assembling a body of the militia, of which he was colonel, and marching out with drums beating and colors flying, against the supposed enemy. But this instance is equivocal. Whether my father gave credit to the report or not, others might, and no doubt did believe it: It was also incumbent on him to be alert; to inculcate that duty upon his men. and to inure them to alarms : and although more silence, and less parade, might

have been more truly military, yet something of the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war," is allowable to militia, particularly to a body which had certainly never encountered an enemy. Besides, to the calm incredulity of friend Church upon this occasion, we might perhaps safely add, a little both of the spirit of party and of quakerism. The people of his society, from principle averse to war, were charged with being too friendly to the Indians; with being too ready to palliate their enormities, and consequently, indisposed to listen to the alarming accounts, which the panic produced by Braddock's defeat, had spread throughout the country. By this event, every obstacle to their incursions being removed, in the minds of the timid they were to be looked for every where. From the consternation that prevailed, I can still recollect, that the horrors of a discomfiture by such a foe, were among my most early and lively impressions. To the terrors of the tomahawk and the scalping knife, the imagination adds the savage yells, the gloomy woods and dismal swamps, which are their usual accompaniments; and, hence, minds that have been deeply impressed by the fatal fields of Braddock and St. Clair, are well prepared for the sombre interest imparted by Tacitus's affecting description of that of Varus, visited after an interval of six years, by Germanicus:-Occulta saltuum, mastos locos, visuque ac memoria deformes. Medio campi albentia ossa, ut fugerunt, ut restiterunt disjecta vel aggerata. "Those deep and dreary recesses, hideous both to sight and memory; with the whitening bones, "scattered or heaped together, as either they be longed to those who fell in flight, or met their fate "resisting."

There being no traces in my memory, of any incidents worthy of remark, during the period of my infancy, I pass on to the era of my removal to PhiJadelphia, for the sake of my education. This, I

He

suppose to have been, between my sixth and seventh year. I recollect little or nothing of going to school at Bristol, further than that there was one, and the master's name Pinkerton, a kind, good humored Irishman, from whom I might have learned, that as one thing was cruel big, so another might be cruel little. In the city, I lived with, and was under the care of my grandfather. The school he first put me to, was that of David James Dove, an Englishman, and much celebrated in his day, as a teacher, and no less as a dealer in the minor kind of satirical poetry. To him were attributed some political effusions in this way, which were thought highly of by his party, and made a good deal of noise. had also made some figure, it seems, in the old world, being spoken of, as I have heard, though in what way I know not, having never seen the work, in a book, entitled-The life and adventures of the Chevalier Taylor.* As the story went, some one reading this performance to Mr. Dove on its first appearance, with the mischievous design of amusing himself at his expense, as he knew what the book contained, he (Dove) bore testimony to the truth of the contents, with which, he said, he was perfectly acquainted, exclaiming as the reader went along, true, true as the gospel! but when the part was reached, in which he himself is introduced in a situation somewhat ridiculous, he cried out, it was a lie, a most abominable lie, and that there was not a syllable of truth in the story. At any rate, Dove was a humorist, and a person not unlikely to be engaged in ludicrous scenes. It was his practice in his school, to substitute disgrace for corporal punishment. His birch was rarely used in canonical method, but was generally stuck into the back part of the collar of the unfortunate culprit, who, with this

*This was Taylor the occulist, spoken of in Boswell's life of Johnson, and, who, though sprightly, was, according to the doctor, an instance how far impudence could carry ignorance. He challenged me once to talk Latin with him, says the doctor. 1 quoted some of Horace, which he took to be my own speech. He said a few words well enough.

to school.

badge of disgrace towering from his nape like a broom at the mast-head of a vessel for sale, was compelled to take his stand upon the top of the form, for such a period of time, as his offence was thought to deserve. He had another contrivance for boys who were late in their morning attendance. This was to dispatch a committee of five or six scholars for them, with a bell and lighted lantern, and in this "odd equipage," in broad day light, the bell all the while tingling, were they escorted through the streets As Dove affected a strict regard to justice in his dispensations of punishment, and always professed a willingness, to have an equal measure of it meted out to himself in case of his transgressing, the boys took him at his word; and one morning, when he had overstaid his time, either through laziness, inattention or design, he found himself waited on in the usual form. He immediately admitted the justice of the procedure, and putting himself behind the lantern and bell, marched with great solemnity to school, to the no small gratification of the boys, and entertainment of the spectators. this incident took place before I became a scholar. It was once my lot to be attended in this manner, but what had been sport to my tutor, was to me a serious punishment.

But

The school was at this time, kept in Videll's alley, which opened into Second, a little below Chesnut street. It counted a number of scholars of both sexes, though chiefly boys; and the assistant or writing master, was John Reily, a very expert penman and conveyancer, a man of some note, who, in his gayer moods affected a pompous and technical phraseology, as he is characterised under the name of Parchment, in a farce written some forty years ago, and which, having at least the merit of novelty and personality, was a very popular drama, though never brought upon the stage. Some years afterwards, Dove removed to Germantown, where he

erected a large stone building, in the view of establishing an academy upon a large scale; but I be lieve his success was not answerable to his expectations. I know not what my progress was under the auspices of Mr. Dove, but having never in my early years, been smitten with the love of learning, I have reason to conclude, it did not pass mediocrity. I recollect a circumstance, however, which one afternoon took place at my grandfather's, to the no small entertainment of the old gentleman, who often adverted to it afterwards. Dove was there, and in endeavoring to correct my utterance, as I had an ill habit of speaking with my teeth closed, as if indifferent whether I spoke or not, he bawled out in one of his highest tones: "Why dont't you speak louder? open your mouth like a Dutchman-say yaw.”

Being now, probably, about eight years of age, it was deemed expedient to enter me at the academy, then, as it now continues to be, under the name of a university, the principal seminary in Pennsylvania; and I was accordingly introduced by my father, to Mr. Kinnesley, the teacher of English and professor of oratory. He was an Anabaptist clergyman, a large, venerable looking man, of no great general erudition, though a considerable proficient in electricity; and who, whether truly or not, has been said to have had a share in certain discoveries in that science, of which doctor Franklin received the whole credit. The task, of the younger boys, at least, consisted in learning to read and to write their mother tongue grammatically; and one day in the week (I think Friday) was set apart for the recitation of select passages in poetry and prose. For this purpose, each scholar, in his turn, ascended the stage, and said his speech, as the phrase was. This speech was carefully taught him by his master, both with respect to its pronunciation, and the action deemed suitable to its several parts. Two of these specimens of infantile oratory, to the disturbance of