A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 79 



thought. However, the birch was then the only classic tree, 

 and every round in the ladder of learning was made of its 

 inspiring wood. Dr. Pearson, perhaps, thought he was only 

 doing justice to his pupil s claims of kindred by giving him 

 a larger share of the educational advantages which the 

 neighbouring forest afforded. The vividness with which 

 this system is always remembered by those who have been 

 subjected to it would seem to show that it really enlivened the 

 attention, and thereby invigorated the memory, nay, might 

 even raise some question as to what part of the person is 

 chosen by the mother of the Muses for her residence. With 

 an appetite for the classics quickened by Cheever s Acci 

 dence/ and such other preliminary whets as were then in 

 vogue, young Quincy entered college, where he spent the 

 usual four years, and was graduated with the highest honours 

 of his class. The amount of Latin and Greek imparted to 

 the students of that day was not very great. They were 

 carried through Horace, Sallust, and the De Oratoribus of 

 Cicero, and read portions of Livy, Xenophon, and Homer. 

 Yet the chief end of classical studies was perhaps as often 

 reached then as now, in giving young men a love for some 

 thing apart from and above the more vulgar associations of 

 life. Mr. Quincy, at least, retained to the last a fondness for 

 certain Latin authors. While he was President of the 

 College, he told a gentleman, from whom we received the 

 story, that, if he were imprisoned, and allowed to choose one 

 book for his amusement, that should be Horace/ 



In 1797 Mr. Quincy was married to Miss Eliza Susan 

 Morton, of New York, a union which lasted in unbroken 

 happiness for more than fifty years. His case might be cited 

 among the leading ones in support of the old poet s axiom, 

 that 



He never loved, that loved not at first sight ; 



for he saw, wooed, and won in a week. In later life he tried 

 in a most amusing way to account for this rashness, and to 

 find reasons of settled gravity for the happy inspiration of 

 his heart. He cites the evidence of Judge Sedgwick, of Mr. 

 and Mrs. Oliver Wolcott, of the Rev. Dr. Smith, and others, 

 to the wisdom of his choice. But it does not appear that he 

 consulted them beforehand. If love were not too cunning 

 for that, what would become of the charming idyl, renewed 

 in all its wonder and freshness for every generation ? Let us 



