penetrate His designs, He has chosen as the only means of obtaining the
high destinies to which we may reasonably aspire.
A. Jackson.


LI.

BURR AND BLENNERHASSETT.

A plain man, who knew nothing of the curious transmutation which the wit of
man can work, would be very apt to wonder by what kind of legerdemain Aaron
Burr had contrived to shuffle himself down to the bottom of the pack, as an
accessory, and turn up poor Blennerhassett as principal, in this treason.
Who, then, is Aaron Burr, and what the part which he has borne in this
transaction? He is its author, its projector, its active executor. Bold,
ardent, restless, and aspiring, his brain conceived it, his hand brought it
into action.

Who is Blennerhassett? A native of Ireland a man of letters, who fled from
the storms of his own country to find quiet in ours. On his arrival in
America, he retired, even from the population of the Atlantic States, and
sought quiet and solitude in the bosom of our western forests. But he
brought with him taste, and science, and wealth; and "lo the desert
smiled!" Possessing himself of a beautiful island in the Ohio, he rears
upon it a palace, and decorates it with every romantic embellishment of
fancy. A shrubbery, that Shenstone might have envied, blooms around him.
Music, that might have charmed Calypso and her nymphs is his. An extensive
library spreads its treasures before him. A philosophical apparatus offers
to him all the secrets and mysteries of Nature. Peace, tranquillity, and
innocence, shed their mingled delights around him. And, to crown the