September, 1789. At the age of fifteen, he entered Yale College, and graduated in 1808, with a high reputation for scholarship. At the Commencement of 1812, he delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society a descriptive poem, entitled The Judgment, which gained him high reputation. It is in the form of a "vision," and is designed to represent the fearful events of the great day of final retribution.' In 1820, he published Percy's Masque, a Drama in Five Acts, founded upon the ballad of "The Hermit of Warkworth," by Bishop Percy. In 1822, he was married to Cornelia Lawrence, daughter of Isaac Lawrence, Esq., of New York, and took up his residence in New Haven, at "Sachem's Wood," the name of his beautiful seat, occupied with the pursuits of a man of taste and fortune.

During the year 1824, Hadad, a Dramatic Poem, was written, and the next year was committed to the press. It is based upon the belief in a former intercourse between mankind and the good and evil beings of the spiritual world, and the scene is laid in Judea, in the time of King David. Hadad, a Syrian prince, is in Jerusalem, and falls in love with Tamar, the sister of Absalom; but she will give no encouragement to him unless he renounce his heathenism and conform to the Jewish worship. This is generally considered the most finished of his productions. In 1839, he published, in Boston, in two volumes, all the abovementioned poems, with Demetrio, a Tragedy in Five Acts, founded on an Italian tale of love, jealousy, and revenge; and Sachem's Wood, together with several orations which he had delivered on public occasions.

For some time previous to this, the health of Mr. Hillhouse had been failing, and in the autumn of 1840 he left home, for the last time, to visit his friends in Boston. He returned somewhat benefited; but, on the second day of the following January, his disorder assumed an alarming form, which terminated fatally on the evening of the fourth of that month.3

SCENE FROM HADAD.

The garden of ABSALOM's house on Mount Zion, near the palace, overlooking the city. TAMAR sitting by a fountain. [Enter HADAD.]

Had.

Delicious to behold the world at rest.

Meek Labor wipes his brow, and intermits

The curse, to clasp the younglings of his cot;

Herdsmen and shepherds fold their flocks-and, hark!
What merry strains they send from Olivet!

The jar of life is still; the city speaks

1 "In Hadad and The Judgment his scriptural erudition and deep perceptions of the Jewish character, and his sense of religious truth, are evinced in the most carefully-finished and nobly-conceived writings."-H. T. TUCKERMAN.

2" Hillhouse's dramatic and other pieces are the first instances, in this country, of artistic skill in the higher and more elaborate spheres of poetic writing. He possessed the scholarship, the leisure, the dignity of taste, and the noble sympathy requisite thus 'to build the lofty rhyme;' and his volumes, though unattractive to the mass of readers, have a permanent interest and value to the refined, the aspiring, and the disciplined mind."-H. T. TUCKERMAN.

3 Read criticisms upon his writings in the "North American Review,” January, 1826, by F. W. P. Greenwood, and January, 1840, by John G. Palfrey; also, the leading article in the "New Englander," November, 1858, by H. T. Tuckerman.

In gentle murmurs; voices chime with lutes
Waked in the streets and gardens; loving pairs
Eye the red west, in one another's arms;

And nature, breathing dew and fragrance, yields
A glimpse of happiness, which He, who form'd
Earth and the stars, had power to make eternal.

Tam. Ah, Hadad, meanest thou to reproach the Friend Who gave so much, because he gave not all?

Had. Perfect benevolence, methinks, had will'd
Unceasing happiness, and peace, and joy;
Fill'd the whole universe of human hearts

With pleasure, like a flowing spring of life.

Tam. Our Prophet teaches so, till man rebell'd.
Had. Mighty rebellion! Had he 'leagured heaven
With beings powerful, numberless, and dreadful,
Strong as the enginery that rocks the world
When all its pillars tremble; mix'd the fires
Of onset with annihilating bolts

Defensive volley'd from the throne; this, this
Had been rebellion worthy of the name,
Worthy of punishment. But what did man?
Tasted an apple! and the fragile scene,
Eden, and innocence, and human bliss,
The nectar-flowing streams, life-giving fruits,
Celestial shades, and amaranthine flowers,
Vanish; and sorrow, toil, and pain, and death,
Cleave to him by an everlasting curse.

Tam. Ah! talk not thus.

Had. Is this benevolence ?

Nay, loveliest, these things sometimes trouble me;
For I was tutor'd in a brighter faith.

Our Syrians deem each lucid fount, and stream,
Forest, and mountain, glade, and bosky dell,
Peopled with kind divinities, the friends

Of man, a spiritual race, allied

To him by many sympathies, who seek

His happiness, inspire him with gay thoughts,

Cool with their waves, and fan him with their airs.

O'er them, the Spirit of the Universe,

Or Soul of Nature, circumfuses all

With mild, benevolent, and sunlike radiance;
Pervading, warming, vivifying earth,

As spirit does the body, till green herbs,

And beauteous flowers, and branchy cedars rise;
And shooting stellar influence through her caves;
Whence minerals and gems imbibe their lustre.
Tam. Dreams, Hadad, empty dreams.

They invocate with cheerful, gentle rites,

Hang garlands on their altars, heap their shrines
With Nature's bounties, fruits, and fragrant flowers.
Not like yon gory mount that ever reeks-

Tam.

Cast not reproach upon the holy altar.

Had. Nay, sweet.-Having enjoy'd all pleasures here That Nature prompts, but chiefly blissful love,

At death, the happy Syrian maiden deems
Her immaterial flies into the fields,

Or circumambient clouds, or crystal brooks,
And dwells, a Deity, with those she worshipp'd,
Till time or fate return her in its course

To quaff, once more, the cup of human joy.
Tam. But thou believ'st not this?

Had. I almost wish

Thou didst; for I have fear'd, my gentle Tamar,
Thy spirit is too tender for a law

Announced in terror, coupled with the threats
Of an inflexible and dreadful Being.

Tam. (In tears, clasping her hands.)

Witness, ye heavens! Eternal Father, witness!
Blest God of Jacob! Maker! Friend, Preserver!
That, with my heart, my undivided soul,
I love, adore, and praise thy glorious name,
Confess thee Lord of all, believe thy laws
Wise, just, and merciful, as they are true.
O Hadad, Hadad! you misconstrue much
The sadness that usurps me: 'tis for thee

I grieve for hopes that fade--for your lost soul,
And my lost happiness.

Had. O say not so,

Beloved princess. Why distrust my faith?

Tam. Thou know'st, alas! my weakness; but remember,

I never, never will be thine, although

The feast, the blessing, and the song were past,

Though Absalom and David called me bride,

Till sure thou own'st, with truth and love sincere,
The Lord Jehovah.

HADAD'S DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF DAVID.

'Tis so; the hoary harper sings aright;
How beautiful is Zion!-Like a queen,
Arm'd with a helm, in virgin loveliness,
Her heaving bosom in a bossy cuirass,
She sits aloft, begirt with battlements

And bulwarks swelling from the rock, to guard
The sacred courts, pavilions, palaces.

Soft gleaming through the umbrage of the woods,
Which tuft her summit, and, like raven tresses,
Wave their dark beauty round the tower of David.
Resplendent with a thousand golden bucklers,
The embrasures of alabaster shine;
Hail'd by the pilgrims of the desert, bound
To Judah's mart with orient merchandise.

But not, for thou art fair and turret-crown'd,
Wet with the choicest dew of heaven, and bless'd
With golden fruits, and gales of frankincense,
Dwell I beneath thine ample curtains. Here,

Where saints and prophets teach, where the stern law
Still speaks in thunder, where chief angels watch,
And where the Glory hovers, here I war.

HOW PATERNAL WEALTH SHOULD BE EMPLOYED.

The mischievous, and truly American notion, that, to enjoy a respectable position, every man must traffic, or preach, or practise, or hold an office, brings to beggary and infamy many who might have lived, under a juster estimate of things, usefully and happily; and cuts us off from a needful, as well as ornamental portion of society. The necessity of laboring for sustenance is, indeed, the great safeguard of the world, the ballast, without which the wild passions of men would bring communities to speedy wreck. But man will not labor without a motive; and successful accumulation, on the part of the parent, deprives the son of this impulse. Instead, then, of vainly contending against laws as insurmountable as those of physics, and attempting to drive their children into lucrative industry, why do not men, who have made themselves opulent, open their eyes, at once, to the glaring fact, that the cause -the cause itself-which braced their own nerves to the struggle for fortune, does not exist for their offspring? The father has taken from his son his motive!—a motive confessedly important to happiness and virtue, in the present state of things. He is bound, therefore, by every consideration of prudence and humanity, neither to attempt to drag him forward without a cheering, animating principle of action-nor recklessly to abandon him to his own guidance-nor to poison him with the love of lucre for itself; but, under new circumstances, with new prospects, at a totally different starting-place from his own, to supply other motivesdrawn from our sensibility to reputation, from our natural desire to know, from an enlarged view of our capacities and enjoyments, and a more high and liberal estimate of our relations to society. Fearful, indeed, is the responsibility of leaving youth, without mental resources, to the temptations of splendid idleness! Men who have not considered this subject, while the objects of their affection yet surround their table, drop no seeds of generous sentiments, animate them with no discourse on the beauty of disinterestedness, the paramount value of the mind, and the dignity of that renown which is the echo of illustrious actions. Absorbed in one pursuit, their morning precept, their mid-day example, and their evening moral, too often conspire to teach a single maxim, and that in direct contradiction of the inculcation, so often and so variously repeated: "It is better to get wisdom than gold." Right views, a careful choice of agents, and the delegation, betimes, of strict authority, would insure the object. Only let the parent feel, and the son be early taught, that, with the command of money and leisure, to enter on manhood without having mastered every attainable accomplishment, is more disgraceful than threadbare garments, and we might have the happiness to see in the

inheritors of paternal wealth, less frequently, idle, ignorant prodigals and heart-breakers, and more frequently, high-minded, highlyeducated young men, embellishing, if not called to public trusts, a private station.

WILLIAM JAY, 1789-1858.

WILLIAM JAY, the son of that wise statesman and able jurist, John Jay, the first Chief-Justice of the United States, was born in the city of New York, June 16, 1789. In 1807, he graduated at Yale College, and studied law in Albany, but, through infirm health, never practised his profession, and took up his residence at the paternal mansion, in Bedford, Westchester County, New York, which he afterwards inherited. In 1812, he was married to Augusta McVickar, daughter of John McVickar, Esq., of New York,-a lady in whose character were blended all the Christian virtues. She died in April, 1857.

Soon after his marriage, Mr. Jay was appointed First Judge of the county of Westchester, and he was continued upon the bench by successive Governors, of opposite politics, through the varied changes of party, till 1843. His first appearance as a writer was in his advocacy of the claims of the American Bible Society, which led him into a controversy with Bishop Hobart, and which excited great attention at the time from the ability with which it was conducted. He was always a warm advocate of Sunday-schools, of temperance, and of peace, and he was for many years the President of the American Peace Society, for which he wrote several addresses. In 1833, he published, in two volumes, octavo, The Life and Writings of John Jay.

But his distinctive life-work was what he did in behalf of the Anti-Slavery cause. His first publication upon this subject was in 1834, entitled An Inquiry into the Character and Tendency of the American Colonization and American Anti-Slavery Societies. This was followed by A View of the Action of the Federal Government in Behalf of Slavery. Since that time, his writings upon the subject have been constant and numerous, as occasions and subjects arose upon which he deemed it his duty to let his views be known. The chief of the pamphlets thus written were published in 1853, in a large duodecimo of 670 pages, entitled Miscellaneous Writings on Slavery. All his publications on this subject are uniformly characterized by the candor of a philosopher, the accuracy of a statesman, the courtesy of a gentleman, and the charity of a Christian. The extent of his information and the correctness of his assertions, in all historical subjects, were alike remarkable. None of his statements in his carefully-written History of the Mexican War have ever been refuted,--a history that will remain an enduring monument to his truthfulness and faithfulness in historic research, to his unbending integrity, and to his pure and elevated Christian principles.

Judge Jay died at his residence in Bedford, Westchester County, New York, on the 14th of October, 1858, leaving an example worthy of all imitation. In the discharge of his judicial duties for thirty years, he showed himself the wise and upright as well as learned judge; while in his private life he was a model of personal excellence, an exemplification of the true Christian character.