jamais arrivé, puisque la mort pouvoit les séparer des objets de leur affection? Quelle triste économie que celle de l'ame! elle nous a été donnée pour être développée, perfectionnée, prodiguée même dans un noble but.

"Plus on engourdit la vie plus on se rapproche de l'existence matérielle, et plus l'on diminue, dira-t-on, la puissance de souffrir. Cet argument séduit un grand nombre d'hommes, il consiste à tâcher d'exister le moins possible."

Thus terminates a work, which for variety of knowledge, flexibility of power, elevation of view, and comprehension of mind, is unequalled among the works of women; and which, in the union of the graces of society and literature with the genius of philosophy, is not surpassed by many among those of men.

ORIGINAL.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SKETCH

OF

FISHER AMES.

FISHER AMES was born April 9th, 1758, at Dedham, a village of Massachusetts, about nine miles south of Boston. He sprung from a family, which, although little distinguished by wealth or public honours, was one of the oldest in Massachusetts, and traced his descent in the paternal line from that celebrated calvinistic divine, the Rev. William Ames, whose widow and children emigrated to New England in 1634. Mr. Ames's father was a physician sufficiently respectable both in character and attainments, who seems to have possessed in an uncommon degree that singular versatility of talent, and fertility of rce, which characterize the genuine New-England man. He resided and pursued his profession at Dedham, but finding the practice which that village afforded insufficient for his support, he increased his income by keeping a tavern; to which two professions he soon added a third, apparently equally incongruous, by the annual publication of an almanac, which he continued for nearly forty years, and which finally acquired great currency and reputation throughout all the eastern colonies. Fisher Ames was the youngest of five children. Ames died in 1764, leaving him, then in his sixth year, to the care of his mother, an intelligent and industrious woman, whose maternal fondness, or well judging partiality, induced her to determine, in spite of the difficulties and privations of her situation, to cultivate the talents of this her favourite child, by a liberal education. With this view, she resolved to keep up the public house which had been established by her husband, and by attention to that business, united to great diligence and economy, she finally suc

Dr.

Author of the Medulla Theologie, and several other tracts of scholastic and controversial divinity, of high repute in their day.

ceeded in her laudable purpose. She has lived to see all her fond anticipations realized, and at length to pay that heaviest of all the taxes which nature has imposed upon length of days, and to see the son of her love go down to the grave before her.

It is somewhat curious, that although Mr. Ames's biography has been repeatedly written, and more than once with great elegance and ability, these simple facts are now for the first time plainly related to the public. His biographers and eulogists seem to have wished to veil the humble circumstances of his family as much as possible, and endeavour to conceal the tavern keeper and the maker of almanacs behind a cloud of vague generalities and studied circumlocutions. The fond partiality of friendship may perhaps serve to excuse all this; yet surely there is not much either of good sense or good taste in this squeamish delicacy. The facts, as they relate to a great man, are curious and interesting, and, as they give a clearer view of the state of society and condition of life in which his youth was passed, are of some importance in making up the general estimate of his character and talents.

Until within a few years the ordinary classical education of New England, with some few highly honourable exceptions, has been hasty and superficial; this defect was, in the case of young Ames, increased by frequent change of instructors. Such knowledge as was to be obtained, in spite of these disadvantages, he acquired with a quickness and accuracy, which gave bright promise of his maturer powers.

Soon after he had entered his twelfth year he was entered at Harvard College. This early admission to academic life, although it may excite the surprise of an Oxford scholar, is by no means uncommon upon this side of the Atlantic, where our colleges, unsupported by any of those rich foundations which the munifi cence or superstition of former days have established in many of the European universities, have of necessity adapted themselves to the literary wants of the country, and forming a system of edu cation, somewhat between the discipline of the great English schools, and that course of general scientific instruction given in the Scotch and continental universities, are employed, literally, in the education of youth. We have as yet no Oxford to which our young men, when thoroughly grounded in the elementary learning of the schools, may resort either for the cultivation of