delight, and he seldom failed to leave his mark in this way on the landscape, wherever he found even a temporary home.

His reading and the division of his time during this period of study was remarkably systematic. I have before me a little book of "memoranda," dated January 7, 1807, which begins with an exact division of time and subjects or books for every day in the week. Then follows a diary, not of thoughts, but of accomplished work. His chief studies during this year appear to have been Hebrew, Italian, and French, with such reading as Paley, Sir William Jones, Robertson's "Charles V.," and Shakespeare. On February 2d, he writes, "Determine henceforward to learn ten lines of poetry before breakfast every morning, to begin with Horace's "Ars Poetica." A few days after, "Formed a scheme of artificial memory by letters and applied it to Bossuet's Chronology.'

The latter part of the year a fuller diary is commenced, with notes upon his reading. The first page is entitled, “The Economy of my Time,” and beside the schedule for each day, shows this proportion per week: Latin, six hours; Greek, six; Hebrew, twelve; Divinity, eighteen; French, three; Italian, three. It may not be without interest to give two brief specimens of these notes of the young student of twenty, now left so much to his own guidance, as exemplifying that practical straightforward habit of mind. which displays itself throughout, and which became a life characteristic.

"Monday, December 7th.- Virgil's 'Eneid:'

read four hundred lines, which finishes lib. XII. The battle between the two heroes is not the masterpiece I expected from the pen of Virgil. The one is a braggadocio, the other a coward; the gods arrange the matter among themselves, and the reader is left to wade through the description, without interest as to the combatants or anxiety as to the event."

"Saturday, 20th December. - Greek Testament: read sixth and seventh chapters of Matthew. Began to study Greek on a new plan, i. e. not to plague myself with the critical acquaintance of every word, but having a sufficient idea of the grammar to judge of the parts of the verbs, &c., to devote myself to the acquisition of words, and thus facilitate the reading of the language. 'Tis.wonderful the small stock of words that is gained by a boy in this or the Latin language after three or four years' hard application in the common way; and of course how difficult he finds it to read at first sight a common sentence. Youth is the proper time for the acquisition of words, when the memory is both quick and retentive, and when as yet they are content to heap up arbitrary sounds without adding to their stock of ideas."

During 1808 the same diary is kept up, but now in French, and some little French book is always kept in the pocket for chance moments of reading. For a small portion of the year the diary is kept in Latin, and a volume of "Discerpta" shows a very fair range of theological reading.

Thus was passed a youth marked by the self-discipline of the determined student, added to the gen

eral self-restraint of a Christian young man. How far it was a preparation for happiness or the reverse is a question to which the succeeding pages of this thread of an individual life should supply an

answer.

CHAPTER II.

MARRIAGE AND ORDINATION: 1809-1811.

THE

lives.

year 1809 brings us to the event which more or less shapes and colors the future of most

Early in this year my father became engaged to Eliza, youngest daughter of Dr. Bard, of Hyde Park. The family with which he thus connected himself was one of distinctive if not remarkable characteristics. Like many of the older families of New York, such as the Jays, Bowdoins, Pintards, and Boudinots, the Bards were descended, and in their case on both sides, from French refugees, who, preferring their faith to their country, became exiles to America at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Dr. Samuel Bard, grandson to the refugee, was educated in the medical schools of Scotland, then justly celebrated, and became one of the first physicians in New York city. Not troubling himself much about politics, and finding plenty to occupy him in his profession, he still was a Tory in feelings and had more than once to leave the city during the Revolutionary War. His character and reputation, however, and the preference given to him by General Washington, soon reestablished him in full practice, and in 1778 and at

the age of fifty-six, having made a competency, and taken Dr. Hosack as his partner, he retired to Hyde Park, a most beautiful spot, about eighty miles up the Hudson River. This property was part of a patent right which his maternal grandfather obtained when private secretary to Lord Cornbury, governor of the province of New York, and favorite cousin of Queen Anne. This was the origin of the name, the tract being called "Hyde Park," as a sort of compliment to his patron.

To this romantic and beautiful spot Dr. Bard had retired about eleven years before the event which was now to add a new member to his family, and join a new and influential current to the life stream whose course we are pursuing. He was a sort of a patriarch in his neighborhood. His only son, William Bard, was married and resided near; his elder daughter, married to Judge Johnston, was also with a large family settled close by; while his own household consisted of his wife, his aunt, Mrs. Barton, his sister Miss Sally Bard, and his only unmarried child, Eliza, now engaged to be married to the subject of this memoir. If this detail seems over minute, it must be pardoned as necessary to enable the reader to enter into the happiest if not the most influential portion of my father's life.

One letter from father to daughter, shortly before the engagement, is here inserted to help to picture the home into which father was about to enter:

MY DEAR CHILD,

my