the motive that here made the biographer fastidious in his narrative the "quorum pars magna fui," that made him silent instead of communicative; this portion, therefore, of the life we would gladly have had from another pen-"suo ingenio, alieno judicio"-our author's materials but another's use of them—one that could have spoken of domestic scenes without violating the modesty of self-dignity. In a second edition, which we here confidently predict for this work, these partial defects will, we trust, be amended or supplied, and then, in our judgment, the book will take its place among the Lives that do most credit to American talent as well as American patriotism.

The compend of the "Life," put forth by the Harpers, adds, of course, nothing to our stores of knowledge, and consequently calls for little reference. It is a praiseworthy effort, however, from a youthful candidate, though as would seem from Mr. Jay's recent charges made against it in the public prints, wanting accuracy in some of its details. The volume comes forth, however, under the editorial guarantee of the well-known name of Professor Renwick.

We have said above, it were not easy for the biographer of Jay to satisfy us. Now, lest we be held herein more fastidious than wise, we must be permitted to pause a moment over our conceptions of what Biography may, and therefore should, be. It is, then, we deem, in its very nature, a work of high ART; subject, therefore, to all its rules of unity, order, and arrangement of parts. The life written, must be as the life spent-ONE, with the golden thread of a living identity running through it. Hence, alone, comes its power to awaen personal sympathy-we must feel that we have before as, not a name nor a series of facts, but a living and breathing man, so that all things recorded of him, partake of the interest felt in him- he becomes to us, in short, the hero of an Iliad, great or small, as the case may be, but still the poetic centre to which all minor interests point. But the artist must go yet deeper. This is still but the external picture; the soul of biography lies in its inward portrait in the exhibition of character in the man opened, "disembowelled" before us. We must see of what he is made, we must understand not only the work our hero did, but the spirit in which he did it -not only where and for what, but how he fought in the great battle field of life with what arms he stood accoutred, as well as with what success he wielded them. We must

behold him at work and see him, day by day, at that which God gave him to do-whether as a son or a slave he wrought in it with a selfish or a generous spirit with an eye fixed on expediency, or a heart set on duty- whether governed by circumstances, or governing them through the energy of a resolved will. Now, short of this, biography attains not its END, for we know not the man it tells us of- we feel not for him, sympathize not with him, and, above all, gather no wisdom from his example. With it, again, biography is the ruling department of all literature. It, alone, is true history; nay, it, alone, gives the essence of all moral teaching, and all other forms of composition have their roots of interest and their fruit-bearing power from it-developing, at every step, this great universal truth, that man sympathizes but with man, and, therefore, that the picture of man, that is, biography, in some form or other, lies at the foundation of all other writing. Thus, then, to write a life that well deserves to be written, is, obviously, no easy task. Clear vision, that looks into the depths of character, the comprehensive grasp, that gives unity to minutest details, and, above all, the sympathetic power, which breathes life into dead facts-these are rare, yet needful qualities for the true biographer-so rare, in truth, as almost to justify the thought of Carlyle, that a well written life is about as rare in the world as a well spent one.

Now, the life, as well as character, of Jay, is one fittest above most to bring forth and reward such skill and labor in his biographer. Passing by, for the present, deeper views of it, it is divisible, in the first place, with singular accuracy, into the threefold natural aspect of man-youth, manhood, and age; each, again, by singular agreement, sharing its equal third of a life prolonged to its eighty-fourth year; namely, twentyeight years of quiet, studious youth, or professional labor, unknown to the world; twenty-eight years, again, of public life and manhood, in the world's eye- unintermitted official toil, without one day passing in which he was not in the service of his country; and, lastly, twenty-eight years of age, passed in a voluntary retirement, equally unbroken-withdrawn from the world that is, and devoted to preparation for a higher and a better world to come. Now, there is something so striking in this artistical coincidence, that, being unnoticed by his biographer, we add the needful data to verify it. Born 12th December, 1745, Jay had just completed his twenty-eighth year, when the Boston Port Bill

(31st March, 1774) waked the continent into a' flame, and the hitherto silent young patriot with it. Popular movement, then, for the first, took form. A New York Committee of Correspondence was then appointed; Jay, young as he was, placed at its head, and at once absorbed in its responsible executive duties. Up to that hour, his life had been one of peaceful private study; from that hour, not one of private life, for eight-and-twenty years, intervened, till, in his fiftysixth year, (1801,) we see him withdrawing from all public employment, seeking a life of tranquillity, but not of indolence, in which twenty-eight years again came round, his life closing 14th May, 1829, in his eighty-fourth year; and, to add to this singular equivalence, it may be further noted, that these divisions correspond precisely with those of his bachelor, wedded, and widowed life- having married the very year that he entered into public station, and lost the companion of his toils the very year after he quitted it. Now, all this, however trivial, as compared with its higher questions, would yet afford, we think, to his biographer (regarded in the light of the artist) a beautiful coincidence of framework, as it were, in which to embody and exhibit to the reader the successive phases of Jay's singularly-marked, externally-varied, yet inwardly-uniform character-like the consecutive compartments of some great entablature unfolding in color or relief the varied events of some heroic life. In the FIRST of these, we would see exhibited the advancing steps of a wellordered youth-grave and severe, but faithful and affectionate, though not one easily guided, except through his own judgment-a youth, ripening, by degrees, into clear and strong manhood into all moral and intellectual fitness for the high, stern duties, that as yet lie hid in the darkness of the unopened compartment before him. In unfolding the SECOND, there would open to us, in long procession, high and heroic deeds of worth, like the unbroken series of sculptured marble, in high or low relief, on the frieze of some ancient temple. The THIRD, again, would unfold to us a new and more touching scene-the quiet and peaceful picture of an honorable and honored age, with a back-ground, as in the Homeric shield, of waving grain, and glad reapers, and harvest home; and then the grateful and solemn rites of religion; and, to close the scene, a sacred, slow procession, leading on the hero of the piece to the portals of some dark temple whose gates open to receive him, and there we lose him, at least from mortal eyes,

and thus closes the entablature of human life-"sic transit gloria mundi." Of these successive pictures, (thus to speak,) the first is given by his biographer pleasingly, at least — materials, perhaps, were wanting to make it more full and graphic, though we think it might have been done. On the second, he has, evidently, laid out his strength-Jay, as a public man and given it ably and well. The third, as already hinted, through filial or personal modesty, inadequately, in point of fulness, at least-awakening, rather than gratifying our sympathies, and leaving to us, we deem, but half told the noblest part of his story-the statesman, content in voluntary retirement; the public man, happy, encircled but by his children; the Christian, ripening for heaven, through the quiet and gentler duties of earth. But the veil of domestic life is too sacred to be raised, at least by a son; and thus does the world lose the best part of its lesson-the practical exhibition of a Christian's faith, in making age lovely as well as venerable-a temper, gentle and affectionate, which nature had made stern and unyielding, and which the infirmities of age would, doubtless, without it, have rendered fretful or selfish. This noble picture we know to have been the truth; and, knowing it, would gladly, for the benefit of the world, have seen it more fully portrayed by family letters and personal narrative. But we yet hope the time for this will come. Our present object is to awaken the desire for it on the part of the public, as well as the motive for it on the part of the biographer, and, also, to pay our personal debt of gratitude to the memory of one, whom thus living we reverenced. In doing this, we will hold to our scheme proposed, and look at Jay's life and character, as exhibited in rapid review, through each of its notable divisions.

Of its primary one, comprising the first twenty-eight years of life, we have fewer details, as already said, than we could have wished; enough, however, to show the boy as "father of the man," and that the marked traits of Jay's character were early developed, and came as much from nature as from culture. The lineage from which he sprang, was like himself— one stern and uncompromising in the path of duty. Through three descending streams was there martyr's blood in his veins. His paternal ancestor, Pierre Jay, was one of the heroes of Rochelle, who, preferring exile and poverty to the loss of a good conscience, quitted France for ever, and, after many wanderings, reached America in safety about the year 1690,

where he at length gathered, by degrees, his dispersed family in safety around him, "by Divine Providence," was the thankful language of his like-minded descendant, "every member of it being rescued from the fear and rage of persecution." On the maternal side, also, through two successive links, do we trace him up to the same strong stock-the simple, true-hearted, uncompromising Huguenot; and seldom, if ever, we think, did ancestral blood flow more purely or strongly. Of his father and mother, a somewhat gentler picture is drawn, which we would quote, both for its interest and as a fair sample of the clearness and precision of the biographer's style, but space forbids. We, therefore, but refer to it. (Vol. i., pp. 10, 11.)

He

Of this true-hearted couple, JOHN JAY was the eighth out of ten children. His early education, as with most in that day, was a broken and imperfect one, not such, however, as to debar him from the advantages of a college course. was among the early students of King's College, New York; graduating thence in the year 1764, receiving its highest honor from the hands of its recently elected tory president, Dr. Myles Cooper-a man equally noted in that day for classical learning and political zeal. Two incidents here recorded of young Jay were highly characteristic, but are too long to be quoted. (Vol. i. p. 13-15.) The first evinced self-government; the second exhibited an equally prominent trait in his character rebellion against what he deemed usurped authority: "I do not choose to tell," his answer to the president's unstatutory command, was but the precursor of "I do not choose to obey," when he deemed the king to transcend his powers, and in both cases the result was the same- "a hard contest and a final victory."

On quitting college, the Law became his professional choice, and we deem it a wise or a fortunate one, for it was the very discipline his mind most needed. If in any thing that mind was one-sided, the error lay in contempt of authority; and we hold it well, both for himself and others, that he had the training of a profession that rests practically on authority. "Stare in decisis," was not one of Jay's native maxims; so that, with all the discipline of a legal profession, his three years' study and six years' practice, his mind ever continued one rather of equity than of law-standing on principles in contempt of cases. Law was, therefore, his true profession, and, like all right choices, it worked well. The extent of its