, Freneau, to become one of the leading contributors. The
following year, even though he had never been ordained in the Church,
Brackenridge, nevertheless, a licensed divine, enlisted as Chaplain in
the Revolutionary Army, and there are extant a number of vigorous
political sermons which it was his wont to deliver to the soldiers--the
same fiery eloquence seen in his "Eulogium on the Brave Men who fell in
the Contest with Great Britain," delivered in 1778.

Some time elapsed while he travelled hither and thither with a bible in
his saddle-bags, according to description, and then Brackenridge took up
the study of law, inasmuch as his very advanced views on religious
questions would not allow him to subscribe to all the tenets of his
Presbyterian faith. This drew down upon him the inimical strictures of
the pulpit, but marked him as a man of intellectual bravery and certain
moral daring.

Having completed his law reading in Annapolis, under Samuel Chase,
afterwards Supreme Court Judge, he crossed the Alleghanies, in 1781, and
established himself in Pittsburgh, where he rapidly grew in reputation,
through his personal magnetism and his undoubted talents as a lawyer. He
was strictly in favour of the Federal Constitution, and those who wish
to fathom his full political importance should not only study his record
as Judge of the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania, when he was
appointed by Governor McKean, but, more significant still, the part he
took in the Whiskey Insurrection, which brought him in touch with Albert
Gallatin. In accord with the temper of the times, he was a man of party
politics, although he never allowed his prejudices to interfere with his
duties on the bench. As a Judge, his term of office ran from 1800 to the
day of his death, June 25, 1816.

Mr. Brackenridge, besides being the author of the dialogue and play
mentioned, likewise wrote several other dramas, among them being a
tragedy, "The Death of General Montgomery at the Siege of Quebec"
(1777), and a number of Odes and Elegies. The historical student will
find much material relating to Brackenridge's political manoeuvres, in
his book on the Western Insurrection; but probably as an author he is
more justly famous for his series of stories and sketches published
under the title, "Modern Chivalry" (1792), and representing a certain
type of prose writing distinctive of American letters of the time of
Clay and Crawford. These impressions were lat