engaged in the busy and active pursuits of the world, and rising to eminence in their respective professions. This one a soldier, here a lawyer, a physician, a divine, a merchant, or a wealthy farmer. Dl lives here surrounded, with all the comforts and happiness that arises from domestic felicity and retirement, blessed in his amiable and lovely partner, and three smiling cherubs, the offspring of their union. I came unexpectedly upon them, and found them seated to gether, with their lovely infants playing around them, who flew into my arms, seeming to recognise me as a friend of their parents; I soon won their little hearts. We passed the evening in recalling times that are passed, and in talking over the adventures of his love, in which my friend represented himself sometimes as the sad emblem of despair, and again the happy picture of revived hope, as the goddess of his idolatry frowned or smiled. At parting I put into her hands those beautiful lines of Thomson, so applicable to their situation, which I had scribbled with my pencil:

"Happy they! the happiest of their kind!

"Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate,

"Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend.”

She read them with satisfaction, and her eyes beamed upon her husband with inexpressible love.

I left this happy couple with regret at my own hapless fate, who am most unfortunately gifted by nature with proud, cold, and insensible feeling, that can never suffer me to become the willing happy slave of woman.

Le, whom we all loved and esteemed for his amiable and engaging manners, became the melancholy victim of despair and hopeless love; scorned and rejected by the woman, whom he fondly hoped would become the friend of his heart, and consoler of its cares, he fell into a dull and gloomy habit of retirement; the world with all its pleasure to him, was a mere blank; he relinquished all his former companions and pursuits; for a while Reason maintained her sway; but possessed of the most keen and tender sensibility, he sunk under this misfortune; his strength of mind was broken, his early impressions of piety were destroyed, and in a moment of phrenzy and despair, he committed that most horrid of crimes, which in opposition to reason, virtue, and religion, violates the decrees of God and man: he fell by his own hands. As usual, the funeral rites were refused to this unfortunate young man, and he lies in a retired and sequestered corner of the wood, in which we have so often played together. I walked to his lonely and solitary tomb encircled with deep shaded cypress, and shed

a tear of regret and affection over our lost companion. Peace to his departed shade!

The unfortunate girl, who loved him, but tampered with his feelings, and trifled with his passion, discovered her folly and cruelty, when too late, and became the miserable object of delirious phrenzy. She wandered about desolate and forlorn; her form and countenance once so lovely and expressive, is now changed into the wan and withered figure of despair; her eyes once beaming intelligence and serenity, now gleam with the wild stare of madness; her hollow cheeks; her projecting features, and pallid, death-like complexion; her dishevelled hair; her hurried, and irregular step; the wild touching tones of her voice, while with frantic and incoherent words, she calls upon her Henry; mourns his untimely end; imprecates herself as the cause, and implores the Mercy of Heaven to avert the merited curses from her head. All these, mark her as the hopeless, irrecoverably lost maniac. I conversed with her until my feelings were wrought to the highest pitch; I offered assistance; I attempted to console, but all in vain; and I tore myself away in a state of mind, almost equal to her own.

Hr, who was gallant, gay, and generous, and possessed of a large fortune, entered as an officer in the Austrian army, and has risen to considerable rank; and Sd, whom I remember as a spritely mischievous boy, is here transformed into the sleek and rigid tutor; and I need scarcely recall to your remembrance our noble friend Jarvis, who lives in the memory of every American, who gloriously preferred certain death to an abandonment of his post while contending against the enemies of his country, and bravely kept his dangerous station in the main top of the Constellation, while fighting under the command of the gallant Truxtun. Even in his boyish plays he discovered that manly and generous spirit, which in after years, gained him the applause and regret of his countrymen, and the honourable resolve of Congress, so justly due to his memory.

FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER

OF

MRS. ELIZABETH FERGUSON.

MRS. ELIZABETH FERGUSON was the daughter of Dr. Thomas Grame, by Anne, the daughter of Sir William Keith, then governor of

Pennsylvania. Her father was a native of Scotland, and a graduate in medicine. For nearly half a century he maintained the first rank in his profession in the city of Philadelphia. He held, during a great part of this time, the office of collector of the port. Her mother possessed a masculine mind, with all those female charms and accomplishments which render a woman alike agreeable to both sexes. They had one son and three daughters, all of whom attained to the age of maturity. The subject of this memoir was the youngest of them. She discovered, in early life, signs of uncommon talents and virtues, both of which were cultivated with great care, and chiefly by her mother. Her person was slender, and her health delicate. The latter was partly the effect of native weakness, being a seven months' child, and partly acquired by too great application to books. She passed her youth in the lap of parental affection. A pleasant and highly-improved retreat, known by the name of Græme Park, in Montgomery county, twenty miles from Philadelphia, in which her parents spent their summers, afforded her the most delightful opportunities for study, meditation, rural walks, and pleasures, and, above all, for cultivating a talent for poetry. This retreat was, moreover, consecrated to society and friendship. A plentiful table was spread daily for visitors, and two or three young ladies from Philadelphia generally partook with Miss Græme of the enjoyments which her situation in the country furnished. About her seventeenth year she was addressed by a citizen of Philadelphia of respectable connexions and character. She gave him her heart, with the promise of her hand upon his return from London, whither he went to complete his education in the law. From causes which it is not necessary to detail, the contract of marriage, at a future day, was broken, but not without much suffering on the part of Miss Græme. To relieve and divert her mind from the effects of this event, she translated the whole of Telemachus into English verse; but this, instead of saving, perhaps aided the distress of her disappointment in impairing her health, and that to such a degree as to induce her father, in conjunction with two other physicians, to advise a voyage to England for its recovery. Her mother concurred in this advice, but for another reason besides that of restoring her daughter's health. This venerable and excellent woman had long laboured under a disease which, she believed, would have a fatal issue. She anticipated the near approach of death; and that it might be less terrible to her, she wished her daughter to be removed beyond the sphere of the counter attraction of her affections from the world of spirits, which her presence near her deathbed, would excite. This feeling is not a solitary or casual one, in the human mind. Archbishop Lightfoot wished to die from home, that he might dissolve more easily his ties to his family. A lady in Philadelphia, some years ago, in her

last moments said to her daughter, who sat weeping at her bedside, "Leave me, my child; I cannot die while you are in the room." Many instances of similar conflicts between religion and nature have occurred in domestic history which have escaped general observation.

Mrs. Græme died, according to her expectations and wishes, during her daughter's absence, leaving behind her two farewell letters to be delivered to her upon her return; one, upon the choice of a husband, and the other upon the management of a family. These letters contain many original ideas, and the most ardent expressions of maternal affection. The tenor of these expressions may easily be conceived by the following sentence extracted from the introduction to one of them. "I have rested for some time with my pen in my hand, from being at a loss to find out an epithet to address you with, that shall fully express my affection for you. After a good deal of deliberation, I can find nothing that pleases me better than my own dear Betsy'. "*

Miss Græme spent a year in England, where she was accompanied by the Rev. Dr. Richard Peters of Philadelphia, a gentleman of highly polished manners, and whose rank enabled him to introduce her to the most respectable circles of company. She sought, and was sought for, by the most celebrated literary gentlemen who flourished in England at the time of the accession of George the third to the throne. She was introduced to this monarch, and particularly noticed by him. The celebrated Dr. Fothergill, whom she consulted as a physician, became her friend and correspondent as long as he lived. An accident attached the sentimental and then popular author of Tristram Shandy to her. She took a seat upon the same stage with him at the York races. While bets were making upon different horses, she selected a small horse that was in the rear of the coursers as the subject of a trifling wager. Upon being

* Mrs. Græme left letters to several of her friends, to be delivered to them after her death. The following is an extract from one of them to Mrs. Redman, the wife of the late Dr. John Redman:

"I have been waiting with a pleasing expectation of my dissolution a great while, and I believe the same portion of grace which has been afforded me hitherto, will not be withdrawn at that trying hour. My trust is in my heavenly Father's mercies, procured and promised for the all-sufficient merits of my blessed Saviour, so that whatever time it may be before you see this, or whatever weakness I may be under on my deathbed, be assured this is my faith; this is my hope from my youth up until now. And thus, my dear, I take my final leave of you. Adicu, forever.

Sept. 22, 1762:

ANNE GRÆME."

asked the reason for doing so, she said that the "race was not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong." Mr. Sterne, who stood near to her, was struck with this reply, and, turning hastily towards her, begged for the honour of her acquaintance. They soon became sociable, and a good deal of pleasant conversation took place between them, to the great entertainment of the surrounding company.

Upon her return to Philadelphia, she was visited by a numerous circle of friends, as well to condole with her upon the death of her mother, as to welcome her arrival to her native shores. She soon discovered by the streams of information she poured upon her friends, that she had been "all eye, all ear, and all grasp," during her visit to Great-Britain. The Journal she kept of her travels, was a feast to all who read it. Manners and characters in an old and highly civilized country, contrasted with those to which she had been accustomed in our own, accompanied with many curious facts and anecdotes, were the component parts of this interesting manuscript. Her modesty alone prevented its being made public, and thereby affording a specimen to the world, and to posterity, of her happy talents for observation, reflection, and composition.

In her father's family she now occupied the place of her mother. She kept his house, and presided at his table and fire-side in entertaining all his company. Such was the character of Dr. Græme's family for hospitality and refinement of manners, that all strangers of note who visited Philadelphia were introduced to it. Saturday evenings were appropriated for many years during Miss Græme's winter residence in the city, for the entertainment not only of strangers, but of such of her friends of both sexes as were considered the most suitable company for them. These evenings were, properly speaking, of the attic kind. The genius of Miss Græme evolved the heat and light that animated them. One while she instructed by the stores of knowledge contained in the historians, philosophers, and poets of ancient and modern nations, which she called forth at her pleasure; and again she charmed by a profusion of original ideas, collected by her vivid and widely expanded imagination, and combined with exquisite taste and judgment into an endless variety of elegant and delightful forms. Upon these occasions her body seemed to evanish, and she appeared to be all mind. The writer of this memoir would have hesitated in giving this description of the luminous displays of Miss Græme's knowledge and eloquence at these intellectual banquets, did he not know there are several ladies and gentlemen now living in Philadelphia, who can testify that it is not exaggerated.

It was at one of these evening parties she first saw Mr. Hugh HenBy Ferguson, a handsome and accomplished young gentleman who had