scenes of this Hyde Park circle, it will not be taken amiss if there is here added, from the same pen, the few concluding lines which chronicle the end.

"In the month of May, 1821, while preparing for the annual spring visit to the city, Mrs. Bard was attacked with a pleuritic affection; which, after a few days, gave evidence of a fatal termination. Dr. Bard, though laboring under a similar attack, would not be separated from her, but continued to be, as formerly, her companion, nurse, and physician. Such a long and affectionate union as theirs had been, had early excited the wish, the wish the prayer, and the prayer the expectation, that in death they were not to be divided. What was thus both wished for, and expected, had become, it seems, the subject of their sleeping thoughts; and a remarkable dream of Mrs. Bard's to this effect was now remembered, and repeated by her husband, with feelings not of superstition, but pleasing anticipation.

“The last effort of his pen was to give comfort to those who were absent. This letter, which conveyed to his daughter the first intimation of danger, brought her to her paternal home a few hours too late to receive a mother's blessing, but in time to spend a few short ones of affectionate intercourse with her dying father. It was passed with calmness by both; indeed, there was no room for sorrow in such a tranquil, peaceful departure. His calm, but affectionate inquiries about absent friends, his rational directions as to future arrangements, and his freedom from all perturbation of spirit, were so for

eign to the conception of departing humanity, that the feelings could not realize it, there were in it no images of grief from which imagination might draw her pattern.

"Under these circumstances, not of stoical but Christian composure, he sank to rest at five o'clock in the morning of the 24th May, in the eightieth year of his age, twenty-four hours after the death of his wife! A common grave received their remains. "Their affectionate relative, Mrs. Barton, sank under the bereavement, and within a few days joined them in the land of rest.

"Of that which has been the great aim of the author, the display of private character, he has spoken confidently, because he knew intimately; and in the varied relations of social and domestic life, having proposed him as a model to himself, he is not afraid to hold him up to others as an example worthy of imitation."

Whatever may be thought of this picture, it is certainly very unlike anything of the present day, and as such, like some portrait of the old masters, will be gazed upon with interest. But may I not claim more for it? Is there not in it a something which the families of this restless generation, without knowing exactly what it is they lack, are constantly sighing after? Repose of mind, united with a pervading faith, intellectual activity, and general cheerfulness, which, if we picture to ourselves at all, seems more, what we are hoping for in heaven, than a condition possible on earth. Yet here it was, not

only on the earth, but on the familiar banks of the Hudson River, and attained, too, at a very economic expenditure of money. One of the worst quarrels occurring in this family circle, and which lasted nearly a week, arose from sending a party home from the mansion-house, on a stormy night, in the farm wagon instead of in the family coach, which had only lately been freshly painted. This was considered a pitch of meanness not easily forgiven, and a heavy sacrifice to the muses in the shape of poetical letters back and forth was necessary before tranquillity was restored. It may not be easy to analyze a family's happiness, but when we have the character of their faith, their occupations, pleasures, causes of quarrel, and modes of peace-making, the elements of a fair judgment are in our hand. Then by placing these alongside our own and comparing the two, we approach at least, that which must have a distinct existence as truth, the formula of earthly happiness.

THE

CHAPTER V.

PROFESSIONAL DUTIES: 1817-1824.

HE close of the year 1817 found my father and his family, of which Miss Bard was now an acknowledged member, settled in New York city. Their residence at that time was in the old college building at the foot of Park Place, the wings to one of which they afterwards removed - being then in course of erection. "Comfortable but not fashionable," are the epithets used in writing to absent friends. In fact, it must at that time have been but a dreary looking place, especially to those fresh from the beauties of the country and of Hyde Park. The larger trees of the college green, planted by Dr. Bard, were indeed there, but the space between the buildings and College Place was filled with small wooden houses occupied by a low class of the colored population of the city. The terraces and plantings of after years, and the fine private residences of College Place, had not yet made their appearance. It was then almost what the worst surroundings of Central Park are at present. It is now, having been in the mean time one of the most beautiful and fashionable neighborhoods of this changeable city, given over entirely to the requirements of commerce, and only here and there a forlorn

house hides its diminished head amid towering stores. This oldest of the college buildings was erected and first occupied in 1760. It was then in the country, and is thus described by a traveller of the day: "The building forms one side of a quadrangle fronting Hudson's River, and will be the most beautifully situated of any college, I believe, in the world." This was its still earlier phase, and illustrates the wonderful growth of New York city. A hundred years sees one and the same spot the centre of rural beauty, of suburban nuisances, of fashion, and of

commerce.

The chair to which my father was appointed in Columbia College was that of "Moral Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Belles-lettres." He entered at once upon his duties, being then in his thirty-first year and youthful in appearance.

"Well I remember," says Dr. Johnson in the discourse already quoted from, "the youthful professor, with his dark hair, his quick glance, his brusque manner, as he was introduced to us, the collegians in the chapel, and how we found fault with him for his youthful look."

ance.

This youthfulness of appearance must have been so decided as to be, at that time, almost an annoyIt brought upon him, at the very first meeting of the college board, the somewhat embarrassing question from the venerable Dr. Wilson, "Pray, Mr. McVickar, how old are you?" But the ready reply, "Between thirty and forty," silenced such questions for the future, and proved that neither years nor wit were wanting.