A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 103 



then the only classic tree, and every round in the ladder 

 of learning was made of its inspiring wood. Dr. Pear- 

 son, 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 neighboring forest 

 afforded. The vividness with which this system is al- 

 ways 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 

 Accidence," 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 honors 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 clas- 

 sical studies was perhaps as often reached then as now, 

 in giving young men a love for something 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 " j 



