then rather as an act of necessity than of pleasure. But many pages of the manuscript in question are taken up with copies of what he calls Forms of Writing, such as notes of hand, bills of exchange, receipts, bonds, indentures, bills of sale, land warrants, leases, deeds, and wills, written out with care, the prominent words in large and varied characters in imitation of a clerk's hand. Then follow selections in rhyme, more distinguished for the sentiments they contain, and the religious tone that pervades them, than for their poetical beauties.

But the most remarkable part of the book is that, in which is compiled a system of maxims, and regulations of conduct, drawn from miscellaneous sources, and arranged under the head of Rules of Behaviour in Company and Conversation. Some of these are unimportant, and suited only to form the habits of a child; others are of a higher import, fitted to soften and polish the manners, to keep alive the best affections of the heart, to impress the obligation of the moral virtues, to teach what is due to others in the social relations, and above all to inculcate the practice of a perfect self-control.

In studying the character of Washington it is obvious, that this code of rules had an influence upon his whole life. His temperament was ardent, his passions strong, and, amidst the multiplied scenes of temptation and excitement through which he passed, it was his constant effort and ultimate triumph to check the one and subdue the other. His intercourse with men, private and public, in every walk and station, was marked with a consistency, a fitness to occasions, a dignity, decorum, condescension, and mildness, a respect for the claims of others, and a delicate perception of the nicer shades of civility, which were not more the dic

tates of his native good sense and incomparable judgment, than the fruits of a long and unwearied discipline.

He left school in the autumn preceding his sixteenth birth-day. The last two years had been devoted to the study of geometry, trigonometry, and surveying, for which he had a decided partiality. It is probable, also, that his friends, discovering this inclination, encouraged him in yielding to it, with the view of qualifying him for the profession of a surveyor, which was then a lucrative employment, and led to opportunities of selecting valuable new lands. During the last summer he was at school, we find him surveying the fields around the school-house and in the adjoining plantations, of which the boundaries, angles, and measurements, the plots and calculations, are entered with formality and precision in his books.

Nor was his skill confined to the more simple processes of the art. He used logarithms, and proved the accuracy of his work by different methods. The manuscripts fill several quires of paper, and are remarkable for the care with which they were kept, the neatness and uniformity of the handwriting, the beauty of the diagrams, and a precise method and arrangement in copying out tables and columns of figures.

These particulars will not be thought too trivial to be mentioned, when it is known, that he retained similar habits through life. His business papers, daybooks, legers, and letter-books, in which before the revolution no one wrote but himself, exhibit specimens of the same studious care and exactness. Every fact occupies a clear and distinct place, the handwriting is round and regular, without interlineations, blots, or blemishes; and, if mistakes occurred, the faulty words were so skilfully erased and corrected, as to render the defect invisible except to a scrutinizing

eye. The constructing of tables, diagrams, and other figures relating to numbers or classification, was an exercise in which he seems at all times to have taken much delight. If any of his farms were to be divided into new lots, a plan was first drawn on paper; if he meditated a rotation of crops, or a change in the mode of culture, the various items of expense, labor, products, and profits were reduced to tabular forms; and in his written instructions to his managers, which were annually repeated, the same method was pursued.

While at the head of the army this habit was of especial service to him. The names and rank of the officers, the returns of the adjutants, commissaries, and quartermasters, were compressed by him into systematic tables, so contrived as to fix strongly in his mind the most essential parts, without being encumbered with details. When the army was to march, or perform any movements requiring combination and concert, a scheme was first delineated; and at the beginning of an active campaign, or in the preparation for a detached enterprise, the line of battle was projected and sketched on paper, each officer being assigned to his post, with the names of the regiments and strength of the forces he was to command.

During the presidency it was likewise his custom to subject the treasury reports and accompanying documents to the process of tabular condensation, with a vast expenditure of labor and patience; but it enabled him to grasp and retain in their order a series of isolated facts, and the results of a complicated mass of figures, which could never have been mastered so effectually by any other mode of approaching them. Such were some of the benefits of those parts of his