FROM TIMOTHY DWIGHT.

New-Haven, March, 1772.

DEAR AARON,

By a poor candle, with poor eyes and a poorer brain, I sit down to
introduce a long wished-for correspondence. You see how solicitous I
am to preserve old connexions; or, rather, to begin new ones.
Relationship, by the fashionable notions of those large towns, which
usurp a right to lead and govern our opinions, is dwindled to a formal
nothing--a mere shell of ceremony. Our ancestors, whose honesty and
simplicity (though different from the wise refinements of modern
politeness) were perhaps as deserving of imitation as the insincere
coldness of the present generation, _cousin'd_ it to the tenth degree
of kindred. Though this was extending the matter to a pitch of
extravagance, yet it was certainly founded upon a natural, rational
principle. Who are so naturally our friends as those who are born
such? I defy a New-Yorker, though callous'd over with city politeness,
to be otherwise than pleased with a view of ancient hospitality to
relations, when exercised by a person of good-breeding and a genteel
education.

Now, say you, what has this to do with the introduction of a
correspondence? You shall know directly, sir. The _Edwardses_ have
been always remarkable for this fondness for their relations. If you
have the least inclination to prove yourself a true descendant of that