length, arriving at a deep and rapid river,

"this satire on the animal creation, as if to revenge
herself on us for our sarcasms, plunged into the river, then
very high by the freshet, and was wafted down the current
like a bag of oats! I could hardly sit on my horse for
laughter. I am apt to laugh at the vexations of my friends.
The fellow, who was of my own age, and my room-mate, half
checked the current by oaths as big as lobsters, and the old
Rosinante, who was all the while much at her ease, floated
up among the willows far below on the opposite side of the
river."

At the same time he was an innocent young man. If he had any wild oats
in his composition, they were not sown in the days of his youth.
Expecting to pass his life as a country lawyer, having scarcely a
premonition of his coming renown, we find him enjoying the simple
country sports and indulging in the simple village ambitions. He tried
once for the captaincy of a company of militia, and was not elected;
he canvassed a whole regiment to get his brother the post of adjutant,
and failed. At one time he came near abandoning the law, as too high
and perilous for him, and settling down as schoolmaster and clerk of a
court. The assurance of a certain six hundred dollars a year, a house,
and a piece of land, with the prospect of the clerkship by and by, was
so alluring to him that it required all the influence of his family
and friends to make him reject the offer. Even then, in the flush and
vigor of his youth, he was _led_. So was it always. He was never a
leader, but always a follower. Nature made him very large, but so
stinted him in propelling force, that it is doubtful if he had ever
emerged from obscurity if his friends had not urged him on. His
modesty in these innocent days is most touching to witness. After a
long internal conflict, he resolved, in his twentieth year, to "make
one more trial" at mastering the law.

"If I prosecute the profession, I pray God to fortify me
against its temptations. To the wind I dismiss those light
hopes of eminence which ambition inspired and vanity
fostered. To be 'honest, to be capable, to be faithful' to
my client and my conscience, I earnestly hope will be my
first endeavor."

How exceedingly astonished would these affectionate young friends have
been, if they could have looked forward forty years, and seen the
timid law-student