ed, under the eye of a parent, is very conducive to the proficiency of a pupil-particularly, if he shows some quickness of parts and a thirst for learning. He has few temptations to idleness; his difficulties may be removed as soon as they occur; the ordinary conversation of his teacher with whom he lives, in some measure, as a companion, has a salutary influence over him; and thus favoured, he cannot but find the acquisition of knowledge easy and pleasant.-Young Livingston found it so, while he had the benefit of the instruction and company of Mr. Kent. Speaking of the advantages he enjoyed at this time, in a short memoir written by himself, he says:-"I proceeded with delight and success in my studies, during the years 1755 and 1756."

The ensuing year, he was placed in a grammar school at New Milford, in Connecticut, under the direction of the Rev. Mr. N. Taylor; and with this gentleman he continued about a year. Having finished his preparatory studies, in Sept. 1758, when only a little over twelve years old, he was examined and admitted a member of the Freshman class, of Yale College, in New Haven.

The country, at the period referred to, was not distinguished for good literature. Education was

course.

in its infancy, and what was termed a liberal one, comprehended attainments, in certain branches at least, which at the present day, in some of our principal seminaries, would hardly be deemed a sufficient preparation for commencing a collegiate The learned men of that day-and there were not a few to be found, in every profession, justly entitled to the appellation-were less indebted to early advantages than to their own genius and application, for their success in literary pursuits. Classical learning in particular was, in several colleges, lightly esteemed, or comparatively held in contempt;-and such appears to have been the fact, in the college at New-Haven, at the time of Mr. Livingston's matriculation—though probably, in point of reputation, and real merit indeed, it was not inferior to any similar institution.—It was then under the presidency of the Rev. Thomas Clapp, a distinguished mathematician, whose influence rendered the science of mathematics a leading subject of study among his scholars. This they

pursued with a degree of enthusiastic ardour;other subjects of equal, if not greater importance, were, it would seem, neglected, or treated by many as scarce deserving attention.

Almost immediately, therefore, upon Mr. Livingston's entrance, he, in common with his associates,

became enamoured of the favourite study; and it will surprise no one to learn, if his age be kept in mind, that in some branches of it-as Trigonometry, Navigation, Surveying, Astronomy, he found some things beyond his comprehension. He was chiefly occupied with these studies during the first half of his collegiate life ;-and in riper years, he ever very justly considered that half as having been spent to little purpose.

As the Latin and Greek languages were not highly rated, and but slightly studied, the stock of classical knowledge with which he had been previously furnished, was not much increased while he was in college;-but that knowledge enabled him to appear, young as he was, to considerable advantage among his fellow-students.-Some of them, pretty well grown up, it has been said, when about to prepare their classic exercises, would often pleasantly seat him upon their knees as he was then quite little,-and with all deference, learn of him. The anecdote shows that he was esteemed a remarkably good scholar in the languages.

He finished his academical course, and took the first degree in the arts, in July, 1762.

Having emerged from a state of literary pupilage, he determined to enter at once upon profes

sional studies: and the profession, which he decidedly preferred to any other, presented, it must be confessed, to a youth of his promise and connexions, very powerful attractions. He chose the law; and in the autumn of the same year-soon after his return from college-commenced his preparatory reading in the office of Bartholomew Crannel, Esq. of Poughkeepsie, a gentleman of note as an able counsellor and eloquent advocate. -He was now, as he supposed, in the broad and ample road to future distinction.-" Plans and views," he says in his own brief memoir," of future eminence engrossed all my wishes, constituted the sum of my present enjoyments, and finished the prospects of succeeding happiness,”—and there can be little question, that, had he prosecuted the study and engaged in the business of the profession, he would, before many years, have attained unto its highest honours. The talents he possessed, with his dignified and pleasing address, and with the influence, in his favour, of a large circle of respected relatives and friends, doubtless would have soon elevated him to the first place, either at the bar, or upon the bench.

As yet, it does not appear, that he knew any thing of the power of religion.-He had preserved an unsullied moral character through a season of

education, which ever abounds with temptations to folly, and in circumstances of peculiar exposure to such temptations :—and, in the sweetness of his natural disposition-in the accomplishments of his mind-in the filial respect and affection with which he behaved to his parents-in diligent attention to his studies-in every part of his deportment, he was an amiable and hopeful youth, few perhaps more so ;-affording flattering presages of no common worth and estimation, when he should be more advanced in years and fully employed in professional duties. But, as yet, he was an almost utter stranger to God and religion. He had walked according to the course of this world. He still lacked one thing, that one thing, without which all else is but vanity of transient utility at best,-unconnected with any eternal beneficial results, either to its pos

sessor or to others.

A writer of the last century has somewhere observed that "proud views and vain desires in our worldly employments are as truly vices and corruptions, as hypocrisy in prayer or vanity in alms." The observation is certainly a correct one: and a more unequivocal proof of an unhumbled, unsanc

* Law.