A. BURR.



On the 12th of March, 1775, Burr writes Ogden:--

I have received your and Aaron's [3] letters. I was a little
disappointed that you did not send an acrostic; but I still entertain
some secret hope that the muse (who, you say, has taken her flight)
will shortly return, and, by a new and stricter intimacy, more than
repay the pains of this momentary absence. Your happiness, Matt., is
really almost the only present thing I can contemplate with any
satisfaction; though I, like other fools, view futurity with
partiality enough to make it very desirable; but I must first throw
reason aside, and leave fancy uncontrolled. In some of these happy
freaks I have endeavoured to take as agreeable a sleigh-ride as you
had to Goshen; but I find it impracticable, unless you will make one
of the party; for my imagination, when most romantic, is not lively or
delusive enough to paint an object that can, in my eyes, atone for
your absence. From this you will conclude that the news you heard of
me at Princeton is groundless. It is so far from being true, that
scarce two persons can fix on the same lady to tease me with. However,
I would not have you think that this diversity of opinion arises from
the volatility of my constitution, or that I am in love with every new
or pretty face I see. But, I hope, you know me too well to need a
caution of this nature. I am very glad to hear of -----'s downfall.
But, with all that fellow's low-lived actions, I don't more sincerely
despise him than I do certain other narrow-hearted scoundrels you have
among you. Mean as he is, he appears to me to have (or rather to have
had) more of something at bottom that bordered on honour, than some