knowledge. Habits of reverie and abstraction would be insensibly contracted. Present objects would gradually fade from the view, and the imagination revel, free and unfettered, amid its own creations.
He had been diligent in composition before he was sixteen; but after he left school he became indefatigable. He wrote a variety of essays, both in prose and verse, most of which imply considerable powers and uncommon acquisitions in a youth of his age. About this time, too, he invented a system of short-hand, and successfully studied French, aided only by books.
But it became necessary that his efforts should be concentrated upon a single science. A profession must be adopted. The fictions of the imagination and the enthusiasm of sentiment must give place to the sober realities of business. With the approbation of his family, he made choice of the law, and became a student in the office of Alexander Wilcox, Esq., a distinguished member of the Philadelphia Bar.
His habits of labour and application, no less than his keen discrimination and sound judgment, were admirably fitted for his new pursuit, and he entered upon it with his usual ardour and diligence. He became a member of a law society, over whose deliberations he presided with credit and ability. The recorded decisions which his duty as president required him to make evince unusual research and solidity of judgment. But polite literature and liberal studies could not be relinquished. Law he studied from a principle of duty or necessity; but literature had his secret soul. Though the dry abstractions and bewildering subtleties of law had something in them which particularly suited his laborious habits and speculative ingenuity, his literary propensities were irresistible. He became, at the same time, a member of the Belles-Lettres Club, whose principal object was improvement in literature. In this also he became a leader. The various ad dresses which he delivered before this society are creditable to his talents and indicative of vigour and originality of thought.
