her,
although as convivial in his tastes as my father was the reverse. I
remember that once, when a temperance meeting was going on in one of our
large parlors, Mr. King called and, finding my father thus engaged,
began to frolic with us young people. He even dared to say: "How I
should like to open those folding doors just wide enough to fire off a
bottle of champagne at those temperance folks!"

He was the patron of my early literary ventures, and kindly allowed my
fugitive pieces to appear in his paper. He always advocated the
abolition of slavery, and could never forgive Henry Clay his part in
effecting the Missouri Compromise. He and his brother James, my father's
junior partner, were sons of Rufus King, a man eminent in public life. I
was a child of perhaps eight years when I heard my elders say with
regret that "old Mr. King was dying."

Quite late in his life, Mr. Charles King became President of Columbia
College. This institution, with the houses of its officers, occupied the
greater part of Park Place. Its professors were well known in society.
The college was very conservative in its management. The professor of
mathematics was asked one day by one of his class whether the sun did
not really stand still in answer to the prayer of Joshua. He laughed at
the question, and was in consequence reprimanded by the faculty.

Professor Anthon, of the college, became known through his school and
college editions of many Latin classics. Professor Moore, in the
department of Hellenics, was popular among the undergraduates, partly,
it was said, on account of his very indulgent method of conducting
examinations. Professor McVickar, in the chair of Philosophy, was one of
the early admirers of Ruskin. The families of these gentlemen mingled a
good deal in the society of the time, and contributed no doubt to impart
to it a tone of polite culture. I should say that before the forties the
sons of the best families of New York city were usually sent to Columbia
College. My own brothers, three in number, were among its graduates. New
York parents in those days looked upon Harvard as a Unitarian
institution, and shunned its influence for their sons.

The venerable Lorenzo Da Ponte was for many years a resident of New
York, and a teacher of the Italian language and literature. When
Dominick Lynch introduced the first opera troupe to the New York public,
sometime in the twenties, the audience must surely have comprised some
of th