Memoirs of Aaron Burr Part 2

CHAPTER III.

In college, young Burr formed intimacies which ripened into lasting friendship. The attachment between him and Colonel Matthias Ogden, of New-Jersey, was both ardent and mutual; and, it is believed, continued during the life of the latter. Colonel Knapp says, "Samuel Spring, D.

D., late of Newburyport, was in college with Colonel Burr, and part of their college life was his chum. The doctor was a student of mature age, and had a provisitorial power over Burr in his daily duties. He has often spoken of his young friend with more than ordinary feeling.

He, in fact, prophesied his future genius, from the early proofs he gave of intellectual power in the course of his college life."

At Princeton, Burr enjoyed the counsel and advice of the late William Paterson, subsequently one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States. To be thus early in life honoured with the respect and esteem of such a man as Judge Paterson, was highly flattering. Their correspondence commenced in 1772, and continued until the decease of the judge. Extracts from his letters to Colonel Burr will be given occasionally. He says, in a letter dated

"Princeton, January 17th, 1772.

"Dear Burr,

"I am just ready to take horse, and therefore cannot have the pleasure of waiting on you in person. Be pleased to accept of the enclosed notes on _dancing_. If you pitch upon it as the subject of your next discourse, they may, perhaps, furnish you with a few hints, and enable you to compose with the greater facility and despatch. To do you any little services in my power will afford me great satisfaction, and I hope you will take the liberty (it is nothing more, my dear Burr, than the freedom of a friend) to call upon me whenever you think I can.

"When I shall be here again is uncertain--perhaps not before vacation.

Forbear with me while I say _that you cannot speak too slow_. Your good judgment generally leads you to lay the emphasis on the most forcible word in the sentence; so far you act very right. But the misfortune is, that you lay too great stress upon the emphatical word.

Every word should be distinctly p.r.o.nounced; one should not be so highly sounded as to drown another. To see you shine as a speaker would give great pleasure to your friends in general, and to me in particular. I say nothing of your own honour. The desire of making others happy will, to a generous mind, be the strongest incentive. I am much mistaken if such a desire has not great influence over you.

You are certainly capable of making a good speaker. Exert yourself. I am in haste.

"Dear Burr, adieu.

"WM. PATERSON"

Another letter, dated

"Princeton, October 26th, 1772.

"Dear Burr,

"Our mutual friend, Stewart, with whom I spent part of the evening, informed me you were still in Elizabethtown. You are much fonder of that place than I am, otherwise you would hardly be prevailed upon to make so long a stay. But, perhaps, the reason that I fear it, makes you like it. There is certainly something amorous in its very air. Nor is this a case any way extraordinary or beyond belief. I have read (and it was in point, too) that a flock of birds, being on the wing, and bending their flight towards a certain town in Connecticut, dropped down dead just as they were over it. The people were at first fairly at a loss to account for this phenomenon in any natural way.

However, it was at length agreed on all hands that it was owing to the noisomeness of the atmosphere, the smallpox at that time being very rife in the place. I should never have given credit to the report, had it not come from so good a quarter as that of New-England. For my part, I always drive through Elizabethtown as quickly as possible, lest the soft infection should steal upon me, or I should take it in with the very air I breathe.

"Yesterday I went to hear Mr. Halsey, and there, too, I saw his young and blooming wife. The old gentleman seems very fond of his rib, and, in good sooth, leers very wistfully at her as she trips along by his side. Some allowance, however, must be made; he is in the vale of life; love is a new thing to him, and the honey-moon is not yet over.

'They are amorous, and fond, and billing, Like Philip and Mary on a shilling.'

I have promised to pay him a visit; Stewart, or some of the tutors, I believe, will accompany me, and I hope you will too.

"Since commencement I have been at a Dutch wedding, and expect to be at one or two more very shortly. There was drinking, and singing, and fiddling, and dancing. I was pleased extremely. Every one seemed to be in good-humour with himself, and this naturally led them all to be in good-humour with one another.

"When the itch of scribbling seizes me, I hardly know when to stop.

The fit, indeed, seldom comes upon me; but when it does, though I sit down with a design to be short, yet my letter insensibly slides into length, and swells perhaps into an enormous size. I know not how it happens, but on such occasions I have a knack of throwing myself out on paper that I cannot readily get the better of. It is a sign, however, that I more than barely esteem the person I write to, as I have constantly experienced that my hand but illy performs its office unless my heart concurs. I confess I cannot conceive how I got into so scribbling a vein at present. It is now past eleven o'clock at night, and besides being on horse the greater part of the day, I intend to start early to-morrow for Philadelphia. There I shall see the races, and the play, and, what is of more value far than all, there, too, I shall see Miss -----, you know who.

"The enclosed letter to Spring I commit to your care. I should have sent it before, as I wrote it immediately after you left this place, but I really thought you were in New-England long ere now. I know not his address; perhaps he is at Newport, perhaps he is not. If, on inquiry, you find that the letter is wrongly directed, pray give it an envelope, and superscribe it anew. If he is still at Newport, it would, perhaps, more readily reach him from New-York than from any part of New-England that you maybe at. I have said that if I am mistaken in directing the within letter, you should cover it and give it the proper address. Do, dear Burr, get somebody who can write at least a pa.s.sable hand to back it, for you give your letters such a sharp, slender, and lady-like cast, that almost every one, on seeing them, would conclude there was a correspondence kept up between my honest friend Spring and some of the female tribe, which might, perhaps, affect him extremely in point of reputation, as many people suppose that nothing of this kind can be carried on between unmarried persons of the two s.e.xes without being tinged with love; and the rather so, since the notion of Platonic love is, at the present day, pretty generally, and I believe justly too, exploded. Platonic love is arrant nonsense, and rarely, if ever, takes place until the parties have at least pa.s.sed their grand climacteric. Besides, the New-England people, I am told, are odd, inquisitive kind of beings, and, when p.r.i.c.ked on by foolish curiosity, may perhaps open the letter, which I do not choose should be common to every eye.

"You gave me some hopes that you would see my good friend Reeve before you returned. If you do, make him my respectful compliments, and tell him that I fully designed to write him, but that business prevented, that laziness hindered, that--in short, tell him any thing, so it does not impeach my affection, or lead him to think I have entirely forgotten him. I am,

"Dear Burr yours sincerely,

"WM. PATERSON."

In a letter to Dr. Spring, dated October 5, 1772, speaking of the commencement, Judge Paterson says:--"The young gentlemen went through their exercises in a manner pa.s.sable enough. The speakers were all tolerable--none of them very bad nor very good. Our young friend Burr made a graceful appearance; he was excelled by none, except perhaps by Bradford. Linn, too, was pretty generally approved; but, for my part, I could not forbear thinking that he took rant, and rage, and madness for true spirit--a very common mistake."

For some months after Burr graduated (1772), he remained in college, reviewing his past studies, and devoting his time to general literature. Possessed of an ample income, having access to the college library, and continuing, from time to time, as his correspondence shows, to supply himself with scientific and literary productions, his mind was greatly improved during this period. It is true he continued to indulge in amus.e.m.e.nts and pleasures; but, sleeping little, seldom more than six hours, he found ample time for study.

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 hour, remarking 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 amus.e.m.e.nt of the society, he requested the professor to resume his seat. The incident, as may well be imagined, long served as a college joke.

FROM TIMOTHY DWIGHT.

New-Haven, March, 1772.

DEAR AARON,

By a poor candle, with poor eyes and a poorer brain, I sit down to introduce a long wished-for correspondence. You see how solicitous I am to preserve old connexions; or, rather, to begin new ones.

Relationship, by the fashionable notions of those large towns, which usurp a right to lead and govern our opinions, is dwindled to a formal nothing--a mere sh.e.l.l of ceremony. Our ancestors, whose honesty and simplicity (though different from the wise refinements of modern politeness) were perhaps as deserving of imitation as the insincere coldness of the present generation, _cousin'd_ it to the tenth degree of kindred. Though this was extending the matter to a pitch of extravagance, yet it was certainly founded upon a natural, rational principle. Who are so naturally our friends as those who are born such? I defy a New-Yorker, though callous'd over with city politeness, to be otherwise than pleased with a view of ancient hospitality to relations, when exercised by a person of good-breeding and a genteel education.

Now, say you, what has this to do with the introduction of a correspondence? You shall know directly, sir. The _Edwardses_ have been always remarkable for this fondness for their relations. If you have the least inclination to prove yourself a true descendant of that respectable stock, you cannot fail of answering me very soon. This (were I disposed) I could demonstrate by algebra and syllogisms in a twinkling; but hope you will believe me without either. I never asked for many connexions in this way; and was never neglected but once, and that by a Jersey gentleman, to whom I wrote and received no answer. I hope the disease is not epidemical, and that you have not determined against any communication with the rest of the world. It was a mortification, I confess; for I am too proud to be denied a request, though unreasonable, as many of mine are--therefore, I insist upon an answer, at least, and as many more as you can find in your heart to give me; promising, in return, as many by tale, though without a large profit. I shall not warrant their quality.

Your sincere friend,

TIMOTHY DWIGHT, JUNR.

FROM SAMUEL SPRING.

Newport, May 15th, 1772.

DEAR BURR,

It is a little strange to me that I have not heard any thing of you since your examination. I don't know but you are dissatisfied, since you are so backward to write; however, I will, if possible, keep such thoughts out of my mind till I hear from you in particular. If you are let down a peg lower, you may tell me of it. If you are permitted to live in college, you may tell me of it; and if you are turned out, you may tell me of it. If you pa.s.sed examination, and have a syllogism to speak at commencement, _if you are able to make it_, I suppose you may tell me of that likewise; or, if you are first in the cla.s.s, you may tell me, if you will only do it softly; indeed, you may tell me any thing, for I profess to be your friend. Therefore, since you can trust me so far, I expect you will now write, and let me know a little how matters are at present in college. In particular, let me know the state of the society (Cliosophic); and if I owe any thing to it, do you pay it, _and charge it to your humble servant_.

I hope you will write the first opportunity, as I trust you have got some very good news to tell me concerning the college in general, and yourself in particular. I have nothing particular to write. It is very pleasant to me where I am at present.

The study of divinity is agreeable;--far more so than any other study whatever would be to me. I hope to see the time when you will feel it to be your duty to go into the same study with a desire for the ministry. Remember, that was the prayer of your dear father and mother, and is the prayer of your friends to this time--that you should step forth into his place, and make it manifest that you are a friend to Heaven, and that you have a taste for its glory. But this, you are sensible, can never be the case if you remain in a state of nature. Therefore, improve the present and future moments to the best of purposes, as knowing the time will soon be upon you when you will wish that in living you had lived right, and acted rationally and like an immortal.

Your friend,

SAMUEL SPRING.