from the moment that Burr dared to aspire to the high honour for which his life of intrigue had been spent, never lost sight of his victim, and would, if we may judge him by his letters, have gladly seen him end his days upon the scaffold. After Burr had been once acquitted on the charge of treason, Mr. Jefferson wrote to Mr. Hay:-" We are strongly of opinion that the prosecution against Burr for misdemeanour should proceed at Richmond. If defeated, it will heap coals of fire on the head of the judge (Marshall): if successful, it will give time to see whether a prosecution against him for treason can be instituted in any, and what other court." Now, whatever Colonel Burr may have merited, at other hands, this persecution by Mr. Jefferson and his political friends was most unjust-morally and historically unjust. From 1789 to 1800 they were fellow labourers in the same political vineyard. They were the Theseus and Pirithous of their party. They were "the twinn'd lambs" of the same flock,

"that did frisk i' the sun

And bleat the one at the other."

"A letter," says Mr. Jefferson to Burr in 1797, "will, at any rate, give me an opportunity of recalling myself to your memory, and of evincing my esteem for you." Mr. Davis has not favoured the world with any of the responsive notes of Colonel Burr's affection.

We have endeavoured cursorily to show not only that, till the period when a conflict of interests occurred, they were closely united in personal and political communion, but, as we honestly believe, that their chances of success were nearly balanced and that there was little or no disparity of intellectual merit or pretension between them.3 Burr had traits of character to which Mr. Jefferson had no claim whatever. They were both men of inordinate ambition. Mr. Jefferson masked his projects of personal and political advancement with all the adroitness of a practised and cautious engineer-never exposing himself to unnecessary risk, and directing his steps stealthily but surely to the object in view. Burr was a bad, brave man, of restless temperament and uncontrolled passions. While a soldier, there was no enterprise dangerous enough to appal himno hazard which, in pursuit of his military ambition, he would not readily run. As a politician, he was a man of desperate expedients, unshaken resolution, and indefatigable perseverance. While Mr. Jefferson was enjoying all the lucky irre

' Jefferson's Works, iv. 103.

2 Id. iii. 356.

3 In his deposition in the case of Burr v. Cheetham, Mr. James A. Bayard said, speaking of Colonel Burr, "I considered Mr. Burr personally better qualified to fill the office of president than Mr. Jefferson."

sponsibility of the vice presidential station, Burr was boldly fighting the battles of his party on the floor of the senate, mingling in all discussions with ability and decision, and seeking rather than avoiding the responsibilities of a leader.

When, in 1794, Mr. King's modified bill to increase the standing army was under consideration on the last day of the session-it having passed all its preliminary stages by a decided majority-an unanimous vote was necessary on its final passage. By the rules of the senate, the question could not be put if any member objected. Colonel Burr objected, and the bill was thus defeated. It may well be doubted whether Mr. Jefferson's temperament qualified him for such thorough and responsible party duty. Whenever, in the course of his political or professional career, he was made the object of insult, Burr was always ready to resort to the soldier's last redress; and in his personal encounters, as well the bloodless one with Mr. Church as the mortal combat with General Hamilton, he exhibited a degree of courage and composure worthy his military reputation. Even when driven into retirement, (and here the contrast is honourable to Mr. Jefferson,) his chafed and wounded spirit led him to seek solace and excitement in his Mexican expedition; and, after that failed, to sink back into gloomy misanthropy, and, unless story much wrongs his fame, freely to resort to desperate professional expedients.

The curfew of Mr. Jefferson's eventful day called him to the retirement of literary and philosophic ease, which, though ultimately and most unhappily disturbed by pecuniary embarrassments, was hallowed by the enthusiastic reverence of numerous political adherents, and by the devotion of the dominant party in our country. His death formed part of a romantic coincidence; and a nation, grateful for the good and generously forgetful of the evil he had done or wished to do, poured their willing lamentations o'er his tomb. Burr died at an equally advanced age in obscurity and neglect, without a friend or child to stand by his bed of pain. In what way his old age was passed-in what pursuits and with what feelings towards the world he was about to leave-Mr. Davis's next volume must

inform us. His preface to the volume before us gives an incident and trait of character with which, and one of familiar and corresponding interest of Mr. Jefferson's, we close these general remarks, and this hasty parallel between these two eminent

men.

On the 14th of February, 1818, in the calm and philosophic retirement of Monticello, Mr. Jefferson revised his "Ana," and put the seal of final approval on that malignant tissue of exploded calumny which he destined as a posthumous memorial of unconquered prejudices, to wound the feelings of the living

and insult the memory of the dead. After the lapse of twenty years from their dates, he gave to this record of detraction "a calm revisal" and final sanction!

At page 91 of Mr. Davis's Memoir, we learn that "for more than half a century of Colonel Burr's life, the female sex seemed to absorb his whole thoughts. His intrigues were without number; his conduct was most licentious; the sacred bonds of friendship were unhesitatingly violated when they operated as barriers to the indulgence of his passions. For a long period of time he seemed to be gathering and carefully preserving every line written to him by a female, whether with or without reputation; and, when obtained, they were cast into one common receptacle-the profligate and corrupt by the side of the thoughtless and betrayed victim. All were held as trophies of victory-all esteemed alike valuable. They were calculated to excite the sympathy of the brother, the parent, the husband. Why they were thus carefully preserved, is left to conjecture. Some of them had been penned more than sixty years." Without copying Mr. Davis's silly comment on such atrocious details, we ask the reader's attention, in conclusion, to these illustrations of the septuagenary labours and recreations of Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Burr. With them ends the parallel.

We must not, however, forget Mr. Davis's volume, and in recurring to it shall endeavour to substantiate the unfavourable opinion we have already expressed. What the biographer's means and opportunities of preparing a memoir of deep interest were, appears from the following extract from the preface:

"During a period of forty years I was intimately acquainted with Colonel Burr, and have reason to suppose that I possessed his entire confidence. Some time after his return from Europe in 1812, on different occasions, he suggested casually a wish that I would make notes of his political life. When the memoirs and correspondence of Mr. Jefferson were published, he was much excited at the statements which were made in his Ana respecting the presidential contest in congress in 1801. "He procured and sent me a copy of the work, with a request that I would peruse the parts designated by him. From this time forward he evinced an anxiety that I would prepare his memoirs, offering me the use of all his private papers, and expressing a willingness to explain any doubtful points, and to dictate such parts of his early history as I might require. These propositions led to frequent and full conversations. I soon discovered that Colonel Burr was far more tenacious of his military, than of his professional, political, or moral character. His prejudices against General Washington were immovable: they were formed in the summer of 1776, while he resided at head-quarters, and they were confirmed unchangeably by the injustice which he said he had experienced at the hands of the commander in chief immediately after the battle of Long Island, and the retreat of the American army from the city of New York. These grievances he wished to mingle with his own history; and he was particularly anxious to examine the VOL. XXI. NO. 41.

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military movements of General Washington on different occasions, but more especially at the battle of Monmouth, in which battle Colonel Burr commanded a brigade in Lord Stirling's division. I peremptorily refused entering upon any such discussion; and, for some time, all communication on the subject ceased.

"Colonel Burr, however, renewed the conversation relative to his memoirs, and agreed that any thing which might be written should be confined to himself. With this understanding I frequently visited him, and made notes under his dictation. I never asked him a question on any subject, or in relation to any man or measure, that he did not promptly and willingly answer. On his part there was no desire of concealment; nor did he ever express to me a wish to suppress an account of any act of his whole life. So far as I could judge, his only apprehensions were that kind friends,' as he sometimes termed them, by attempts at explanation, might unintentionally misrepresent acts which they did not understand.

"I devoted the summer of 1835 to an examination of his letters and papers, of which there is an immense quantity. The whole of them were placed in my hands, to be used at my discretion. I was authorized to take from among them whatever I supposed would aid me in preparing the contemplated book." Pref. pp. 3, 4.

And that the reader may judge for himself what incidents this association and these materials, if properly improved, could have illustrated, we will give a summary of them as contained in this volume.

Aaron Burr was born at Newark, in the state of New Jersey, on the 6th February, 1756. His father, an eminent presbyterian divine of distinguished piety and learning, was the first president of Princeton college. His mother was the daughter of the celebrated Jonathan Edwards. Of the advantages of the guardianship of such parents their child was soon deprived, as both his father and mother died before he attained his third year. It is no idle speculation to attribute to this destitution of those guides who alone could have controlled his turbulent disposition, the early growth of the evil and unlicensed passions which so soon seem to have possessed young Burr, and which tenanted his bosom to the latest hour of his existence. In 1769 he entered college, and was graduated as bachelor of arts in 1772. During his collegiate and academic course, his habits and studies appear to have been most irregular, occasionally secluding himself from all companionship but that of his books, and then plunging into dissipation and pleasures of the most dissolute character.

While tracing his collegiate career, Mr. Davis-in order, we presume, to illustrate the very profound remark which he takes the trouble to quote, at page 25, from Boswell's Johnson, (the remark is Boswell's, not Johnson's,) "that, in following an eminent man from his cradle to his grave, every minute particular which can throw light on the progress of his mind is interest

ing"-records an instance of college mischief on the part of his hero, with an historic gravity at which every one whose academic recollections are not obliterated will doubtless smile.

"In the college there was a literary club, consisting of the graduates and professors, and still known as The Clio-Sophic Society. Dr. Samuel S. Smith, subsequently president of the college, was then (1773) a professor. With him young Burr was no favourite, and their dislike was mutual. The attendance of the professors was expected to be regular. The members of the society in rotation presided over its deliberations. On a particular occasion it was the duty of young Burr to take the chair. At the hour of meeting he took his seat as president. Dr. Smith had not then arrived; but, shortly after the business commenced, he entered. Burr, leaning on one arm of the chair, (for, although now sixteen years of age, he was too small to reach both arms at the same time,) began lecturing Professor Smith for his non-attendance at an earlier hourremarking that a different example to younger members was expected from him, and expressing a hope that it might not again be necessary to recur to the subject. Having finished his lecture, to the great amusement of the society, he requested the professor to resume his seat." Vol I. pp. 40, 41.

Now, whether Colonel Burr was the father of this antiquated joke, or not, we do not pretend to say; but certain it is that something very like it has been an heir-loom with every class that has been graduated from that time to the present. We remember to have seen, in a recent memoir of the late Sir Humphrey Davy by his brother, Dr. Davy, (a very interesting book, by the by, and one we will not insult by comparing it with Mr. Davis's volume,) an anecdote of the youthful philosopher not unlike the novel incident we have just mentioned. His biographer gravely relates, as a proof of precocious sagacity, that when little Humphrey, then but two years old, was told by his nurse, on the birth of a little brother or sister, that his nose was put out of joint, he deliberately put his finger to his own nose. Burr's calling Dr. Smith to order, from the chair of the Cliosophic society, was quite as worthy of historic record as Sir Humphrey's misunderstanding of the nursery taunt; though we presume Mr. Davis, from the gravity with which he tells the story, saw in the young Cliosoph the shadow of the future vice president, holding in check the zeal of John Randolph or Luther Martin on the impeachment of Judge Chase. In noticing this part of Burr's life, it should be remembered, to his honour, that whilst at college he formed relations of the most intimate and affectionate friendship with a number of individuals destined afterwards, with him, to stand prominently before their country;-men whose regard (and it appears to have been sincere in their youthful days) is no unsubstantial proof of merit in him who could conciliate it. If any thing could make us believe that even the biographer does injustice