mercy of our foe--began to think, not of setting up for herself, not of
withdrawing from the copartnership, without the consent of the whole
sisterhood, but of coming together for conference and proposing to the
general government, not to become neutral after the fashion of Kentucky,
in our late misunderstanding, not of playing the part of umpire between
the belligerents, like that heroic embodiment of Southern chivalry, nor
of holding the balance of power, but, on being allowed her just
proportion of the public revenues, to undertake for herself, and agree
to give a good account of the enemy, if he should throw himself upon her
bulwarks, whether along the seaboard, or upon her great northern
frontier.

He had just escaped from Newburyport, after writing the "Portrait," a
severe and truthful picture of the times, which went far to give him a
national reputation--for the day; and opened a law office at 103 Court
Street, Boston, where he found nothing to do, and spent much of his time
in cutting his name on little ivory seals, and engraving
ciphers--"J.P."--so beautiful in their character, and so graceful, that
one I have now before me, an impression taken by him in wax, with a
vermilion bed,--for in all such matters he was very particular,--were
enough to establish any man's reputation as a seal engraver. It bears
about the same relationship to what are _called_ ciphers, that Benvenuto
Cellini's flower-cups bore to the clumsy goblets of his day.

He was never a great reader, not being able to read more than fifty
pages of law and miscellany in a day, though he managed, for once, while
a tutor in Colonel Alston's family at Charleston, South Carolina,
beginning by daylight and continuing as long as he could see, in
midsummer, to get through with one hundred pages of Blackstone; but the
"grind" was too much for him,--he never tried it again. He read Gibbon,