were agreeably free; conviviality at the table was the fashion,
and strong expletives had not gone out of use in conversation. Society
was the reverse of intellectual: the aristocracy were the merchants and
traders; what literary culture found expression was formed on English
models, dignified and plentifully garnished with Latin and Greek
allusions; the commercial spirit ruled, and the relaxations and
amusements partook of its hurry and excitement. In their gay,
hospitable, and mercurial character, the inhabitants were true
progenitors of the present metropolis. A newspaper had been established
in 1732, and a theater had existed since 1750. Although the town had a
rural aspect, with its quaint dormer-window houses, its straggling lanes
and roads, and the water-pumps in the middle of the streets, it had the
aspirations of a city, and already much of the metropolitan air.

These were the surroundings in which the boy's literary talent was to
develop. His father was a deacon in the Presbyterian church, a sedate,
God-fearing man, with the strict severity of the Scotch Covenanter,
serious in his intercourse with his family, without sympathy in the
amusements of his children; he was not without tenderness in his nature,
but the exhibition of it was repressed on principle,--a man of high
character and probity, greatly esteemed by his associates. He endeavored
to bring up his children in sound religious principles, and to leave no
room in their lives for triviality. One of the two weekly half-holidays
was required for the catechism, and the only relaxation from the three
church services on Sunday was the reading of "Pilgrim's Progress." This
cold and severe discipline at home would have been intolerable but for
the more lovingly demonstrative and impulsive character of the mother,
whose gentle nature and fine intellect won the tender veneration of her
children. Of the father they stood in awe; his conscientious piety
failed to waken any religious sensibility in them, and they revolted from
a teaching which seemed to regard everything that was pleasant as wicked.
The mother, brought up an Episcopalian, conformed to the religious forms
and worship of her husband, but she was never in sympathy with his rigid
views. The children were repelled from the creed of their father, and
subsequently all of them except one became attached to the Episcopal
Church. Washington, in order to make sure of his escape, and feel safe
while he was sti