the colour of panegyric; but the recollections which the facts must excite in the breasts of his candid rivals, will corroborate its accuracy.

For a short period Mr. Burr acted as Attorney-General to the State; but his professional reputation, already at the acme of splendour, could derive no new lustre from the office. It however should be remembered that in State prosecutions, a disposition to aggravate the enormities of the accused was never attributed to him.

At length Mr. Burr was removed by the Legislature of the State to the Senate of the United States. The deliberations of that body being conducted in secret, the public possessed but slender means of knowing and appreciating the merits of individual members. But it is certain, from the lead he took in some of its most important transactions, and from the deference shewn his opinions by his senatorial colleagues, that the character for ability which he had previously acquired, must have been there well sustained. It was, indeed, universally acknowledged, that no other State was so respectably represented as the State of New-York, in the combined talents of Mr. Burr and Mr. King.

His time of service expiring, Mr. Burr again returned to the exercise of his profession with a facility which would induce a

belief that his legal pursuits had never been interrupted.

Such are the outlines of the character of the man who, cultivating literature himself, loved to encourage it in others; and who, with a condescension little known to patrons, sought out my obscure lodgings in a populous city, and invited me to his house.

I found Mr. Burr at breakfast, reading my translation over his coffee. He received me with that urbanity which, while it precludes familiarity, banishes restraint; and discovered by his conversation, that he was not less skilled in elegant literature, than the science of graciousness and attraction.

Mr. Burr introduced me to his daughter, whom he has educated with uncommon care; for she is elegant without ostentation, and learned without pedantry. At the time that she dances with more grace than any young lady of New York, Miss Theodosia Burr speaks French and Italian with facility, is perfectly conversant with the writers of the Augustan age, and not unacquainted with the language of the Father of Poetry. Martel, a Frenchman, has dedicated a volume of his productions to Miss Burr, with the horatian epithet of "dule decus."*

[* Probably Michel Martel, who published at New York, 1791, Elements: New Essays on Education. A Selection of Bon Mots &c.]

Fortune had now opened to me les entrées of the house of Mr. Burr, to whose table and library I had the most unrestrained access. But Mr. Burr did not stop here; he proposed to me the study of the law, which I imprudently declined, and thus neglected to take that flood in the tide of my affairs which led immediately to fortune. A student of the law could not have formed himself on a better model than Mr. Burr; for at the same time that he was perhaps the most skilled of any man in the practice, he was also the most eloquent:

Του κ' απο γλωσσης μελιτος γλυκιων ρεεν αυδή.

The favorable reception given to the campaign in Italy, of which the whole impression was soon diffused through the different States of the Union, animated Caritat with courage for another publication; and few men knew better how to gratify present curiosity, by directing his attention to temporary subjects.

In the preceding winter an occurrence had happened of which the public had not abated their eagerness to know the particulars. A German by the name of Ferdinand Lowenstoff had become enamoured of a young girl named Elizabeth Falkenham, a native of New York. Ferdinand was forty, but Elizabeth had scarcely seen sixteen summers. Ferdinand, notwithstanding the disparity of their

years, found means to win the affections of Elizabeth, who consented to marry him; but it was judged expedient to defer their marriage till the return of Elizabeth's brother-inlaw, from Germany, who had left his child under her care. In the meantime love prevailed over prudence, and the lover unloosed the virgin zone of his yielding fair. At length the brother returned from Germany, but would not consent to the marriage, and to release himself from the importunities of Ferdinand, confined his sister-in-law to her chamber. The indignation of the lover was inflamed, and to banish from his mind an object whom he could not obtain, he married a French lady from Guadaloupe, remarkable for the beauty of her person, and the vivacity of her conversation. But the charms of a newer object, however lovely and eloquent, could not obliterate the impression which Elizabeth had made: he pined for her in secret, and became a victim to melancholy.

In this harassed state of mind Ferdinand continued some months, when a letter was privately delivered him, in the superscription of which he recognized the hand-writing of Elizabeth. It was short but emphatical. "I am pregnant, and resolved on death!"

Ferdinand, far from discouraging, fortified Elizabeth in her resolution by professing an earnest desire himself to share her fate, and

seek an oblivion also of his own woes in a voluntary death. The reply to the letter in which Ferdinand desires to die with this unhappy girl, is an injunction to break without delay his union with visible nature, to rush before his Maker "with all his imperfections on his head." It goes further; it proposes to add the crime of murder to that of suicide.

"But why recal your resolution because of "the child of my womb? Let it not see the light of a world that has nothing but misery "for its portion; come to me this night! Bring

with thee poison! Bring with thee pistols! "And when the clock strikes twelve we'll both "become immortal!"

From this it is plain that Ferdinand was at first held in suspense between contrary impulses; but his mind was not long diverted from its purpose, for contriving an interview with Elizabeth the same night, he first shot her with a pistol, and afterwards himself. The fatal event took place at a house in the Bowery, where the lovers were found weltering in their blood, and letters explaining the motive of their rash conduct were placed on a table. Such deliberate suicide was perhaps, unexampled, and the letters that had passed between the unhappy pair, I dilated into a volume, which Caritat published to the emolument of us both, and, I hope, without injury to the world.