This autograph, impressed with the foulest name in our history, has
somewhat of the interest that would attach to a document on which a
fiend-devoted wretch had signed away his salvation. But there was not
substance enough in the man--a mere cross between the bull-dog and the
fox--to justify much feeling of any sort about him personally. The
interest, such as it is, attaches but little to the man, and far more to
the circumstances amid which he acted, rendering the villany almost
sublime, which, exercised in petty affairs, would only have been vulgar.
We turn another leaf, and find a memorial of Hamilton. It is but a
letter of introduction, addressed to Governor Jay in favor of Mr.
Davies, of Kentucky; but it gives an impression of high breeding and
courtesy, as little to be mistaken as if we could see the writer's
manner and hear his cultivated accents, while personally making one
gentleman known to another. There is likewise a rare vigor of
expression and pregnancy of meaning, such as only a man of habitual
energy of thought could have conveyed into so commonplace a thing as an
introductory letter. This autograph is a graceful one, with an easy and
picturesque flourish beneath the signature, symbolical of a courteous
bow at the conclusion of the social ceremony so admirably performed.
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