her school daily and is in good spirits. Desires her kindest love to Aaron, longing to see him, but can't bear to think of going through the Green Woods for she says they are dark-now Sall you must know is no friend to darkness, nor ever will be. .

But Aaron's boyhood was not an altogether unhappy one, for there was living in the same house a younger brother-in-law of Timothy's, Matthias Ogden; and with only the latter's seniority of a year separating the two boys there sprang up between them a close and lasting friendship. Aaron was little -he seemed almost diminutive and slenderly built, but he was very strong and hardy; he loved to ride, and fish, and hunt; he was always somewhere out of doors with Matthias, playing games or sailing on the river.

Except when they were at their books-their spellers and readamadeasies, their Cocker's Arithmetick, perhaps, and their Burr's Latin Grammarunder the eye of various tutors whom Timothy provided for their proper instruction. And among them young Tapping Reeve, who was in time to marry Sally and take her to Litchfield, in Connecticut, where he founded the first law school in the country, and became a Judge of the Superior Court and eventually Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State. But Sally was not to be with him then, for she was an invalid for many years, and died in 1797.

And Aaron made good progress with his bookswith his ancestry he could not have done otherwise. When he was seven only, his cousin Pierrepont wrote that "Aaron Burr is here, is hearty, goes to school, and learns bravely." So bravely that at the age of

eleven he was ready to go to College-Cotton Mather had entered Harvard when he was twelve and presented himself for admission to the Freshman Class at Princeton, where it would then be his privilege to study catechetical divinity, Greek, Latin, a little logic and ethics, some mathematics and "physick" perhaps, and "declaim" upon and " dispute" such weighty questions as whether, when Balaam's ass spoke, there was any change in its organs. But Aaron's application was rejected because of his youth -and because he looked so much younger even than he was and he went home to follow the studies of the first two years of the College curriculum alone. Then, at the age of thirteen, he applied again, for admission into the Junior Class-and was again rejected, but this time they finally allowed him to enroll as a member of the Sophomore Class.

So "little Burr" came once more to Princeton, to his father's College, and lived pleasantly for a while in that town in which they were one day to bury him

CHAPTER III

INSATIATE HELLUOS

I

PRINCETON, in 1769, was just a small village, "surrounded by dense forests," in a region thinly populated by Quakers and Dutch, and many miles from any town or navigable water. It was, however, the half way stop between New York and Philadelphia, and the College Tavern was crowded almost every night with travellers, and with students gathered there to enjoy the forbidden pleasures of billiards, and the excellent wines and punches for which the inn was so famous. Miss Betsey Stockton was belle of the town; Mr. Witherspoon was President of the College, and "mercy on me!" William Paterson wrote to his chum John MacPherson, in friendly scorn, "we shall be over-run with Scotchmen, the worst vermin under Heaven."

In the College, things went merrily enough. The faculty had forbidden the playing of shinny, one learns from Mr. Slosson, because there were “many amusements both more honorable and more useful" in which the students were indulged; but the undergraduates did not restrict themselves to these, since in 1770 Philip Fithian was writing that they enter

tained themselves "strewing the entries in the Night with greasy Feathers; freezing the Bell. . . . Picking from the neighborhood now and then a plump fat Hen or Turkey. Darting Sunbeams upon the Town People, Reconoitering Houses in the Town, and ogling Women with a Telescope; Making Squibs and other frightful compositions with Gunpowder, and lighting them in the Rooms of timorous Boys and

As for the hens and turkeys, Philip was sorry to inform his father, in 1772, "that two of our Members were expelled from the College yesterday; not for Drunkenness, nor Fighting, not for Swearing, nor Sabbath Breaking. But, they were sent from this Seminary, where the greatest Pains and Care are taken to cultivate and encourage Decency, and Honesty, and Honour, for stealing Hens! Shameful, mean, unmanly Conduct!" However, "if a Person were to judge of the generality of students by the Conduct of such earth-born, insatiate Helluos; or by the detested character of wicked Individuals how terrible an Idea must he have!"

2

But during his Sophomore year, at least, Aaron was no insatiate Helluo. He had had so much trouble persuading the authorities to admit him that he was not inclined to risk expulsion by any lack of regard for his studies. He often worked eighteen hours a day; he restrained himself to the most abstemious régime; and at the end of the year he was easily head of his Class. At Commencement the following year, "about twenty Gentlemen of liberal

Education" awarded him the first premium for "reading the English language with propriety, and answering questions on Orthography," and the second premium for "reading the Latin and Greek languages with propriety." And at his own graduation exercises, in 1772, at which William Paterson found the speakers tolerable-none of them very bad nor very good "our young friend Burr made a graceful appearance; he was excelled by none, except perhaps by Bradford."

During his Senior year, Aaron very considerably relaxed the severity of his routine; he occupied himself with general reading, he was always borrowing from the Treasurer, and, according to his memoirs, spent his time in "the constant pursuit of pleasure." For a while, to be sure, he came under the influence of a great religious revival which occurred that winter, and believed himself to be profoundly moved spiritually, but President Witherspoon assured him that it was only a fanatical emotion. He probably joined his classmates frequently at the Tavern, and dined agreeably while they sang Jersey Blue, and Pauvre Madelon, and They Call me honest Harry O. He even played billiards once for money, and won, but the episode embarrassed him and he never again throughout his life played any game for stakes.

Under the guidance of his great friend William Paterson-a graduate of 1763 whose home was at Princeton-Aaron wrote a number of essays during his college course, many of which were submitted to Paterson for criticism, and one of which-on Dancing -usually attributed to Aaron, was actually written by the other. They were on a variety of subjects