Complete Works. Hamilton Alexander

shall then have the prospect that my children will at least be happily settled in a country it has cost me so much to give up. Will you send me the newspapers regularly instead of sending me fruit, for it is generally spoiled, and the trouble getting it thro the custom house is immense, but the papers must be those that contain your husband's writings. Adieu my dear, embrace your master for me, and tell him that I envy you the fame of so clever a husband, one who writes so well; God bless him, and may he long continue to be the friend and the brother of your affectionate

      Angelica.

      Hamilton was an omnivorous reader, for everywhere among his papers long lists of books of reference are to be found of the most varied nature, ranging from the classics to the novels of the day, and it is certain that they all played a part in much that he did and wrote. In the library left by him are to be found these books, amongst others: Hume's "Essays," "The Letters of Pliny," "Œuvres Posthumes de Frédéric, Roi de Prusse," "Traité Générale du Commerce," "CEuvres de Moliére," "Histoire de Turenne," "Gil Bias," "De la Felicité Publique," Diderot and D'Alemberts "Encyclopédie Methodique," La Rochefoucauld-Lian-court's "Travels," Journal des Etats Généraux, "Plutarch's Lives," Hampton's "Polybius," Lord Chesterfield's "Letters," Voltaire, Winn's "History of America," Cicero's "Morals," Bacon's "Essays," Ralt's "Dictionary of Trade and Commerce," Montaigne's "Essays," Cudworth's "Intellectual System," "The Orations of Demosthenes," Hobbes's "Dialogues," Robertson's "Charles V," and Enticle's "History of the Late War", "The Works of Laurence Sterne," "The Works of Edward Gibbon," "The Connois-seur," Walpole's "Anecdotes," "Works of Sir Thomas Browne," Goldsmith's "Essays," "Hudibras," "The Works of St. Anselmo," "The Letters of Socrates and Rutherfurd's "Institutes."

      His studious tastes and habits drew forth the famous comment of Talleyrand, who one night passed Hamilton's window and found him at work, and later wrote, " I have," he said, "seen a man who made the fortune of a nation, laboring all night to support his family."

      He managed to devote a great deal of time to the study of the languages. Even as late as 1794 he further perfected himself in French with the aid of a Mr. Dornat, a Philadelphia teacher, although this seems a superfluity, for he always used this tongue in his talks with Volney, de Noailles, and the many other clever men who were driven from France, and who contributed to the charm of Philadelphia society. He subscribed for, and assiduously read. La Chronique Mensuelle, Le Trône Mensuel, and the Journal Etoile.

      The Churches, who were in England, were ever on the lookout for literature that might be of use to him, and Mrs. Church, in writing to her sister from London, February 4, 1790, says: "I shall send by the first ships every well-written book that I can procure on the subject of finance. I cannot help being diverted at the avidity I express to whatever relates to this subject." She sent him Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations," and it is somewhat curious to find Sumner saying, that Hamilton did not seem to have been guided by the works of Adam Smith, although the "best-known book of this writer" was in his library, nor does he seem to have read Hume's economic writings, nor the financial essayists of the French. Though "he refers contemptuously to Turgot and Condorcet," who committed suicide by poison rather than go to the guillotine, he actually was influenced, according to one of his biographers, by John Law, who was an able but unscrupulous financier, the originator of the Mississippi Bubble, and responsible for much of the ruin of France during the reign of Louis XIV, When he wrote of John Law he was only twenty-two years old, but he recognized him then in a letter to James Duane as a person of more penetration than integrity." Had he seen the Dutch caricatures of the Rue Quimquempoix or read Saint Simon's memoirs, it is doubtful if he would have taken John Law seriously.

      Even Callender, one of his bitterest antagonists, admitted that "as a political writer Alexander Hamilton holds the same rank in America that Burke enjoys in England." Apart from the intrinsic merit of what he wrote his literary style was perfect, and did not partake of the florid and grandiloquent character of the productions of the latter part of the eighteenth century, and in many respects was quite his own. It was free from redundant verbiage, exceedingly direct, and he never was at a loss for words to clothe his new ideas. Sumner, whose praise is sometimes faint and often patronizing, says: "Hamilton was industrious. He wrote in a clear Style although prolix." In reference to his work while at head-quarters during the Revolution he says that "he was capable of taking the General's orders and composing a letter, to publish them which would rank as of very high literary merit among the writings of those days."

      Oliver, whose insight into Hamilton's character is unusual for a foreigner, but is also valuable from the intelligence and knowledge of men displayed, says: " There is in all Hamilton's work—writings and speeches—the Intense seriousness of youth. The qualities that made him a great statesman and a terrible combatant were force, lucidity, and conviction. His confidence in himself and in his ideas is amazing, amounting almost to fanaticism. If we seek for a complete presentment of the man in what he wrote and spoke we shall not find it. He treats his public ceremoniously and with reserve. An excessive gravity is the rule. Anger is the only passion which is permitted to appear; not a beam of humor, or a flash of wit. The whole procedure is stately and tense. This, also, is in accordance with the nature of youth." While to some extent this is true, and possibly Oliver has never had access to Hamilton's intimate correspondence, there are a few letters in existence that show the lighter vein in which he indulged. Among them are the breezy epistles to his wife, to her sister, and to the two or three French officers with whom he was on intimate terms. No better illustration of the occasional exercise of his graceful wit can be found than a letter to Miss Kitty Livingston, who seems to have been a rather light-headed and casual person. On one occasion, when she sought to secure his aid to enable certain friends to pass through the lines when the army was at Morristown, he replied:

       Alexander Hamilton to Kitty Livingston.

      Headquarters, March 18, 1779.

      I can hardly forgive an application to my humanity to induce me to exert my influence in an affair in which ladies are concerned, and especially when you are of the party. Had you appealed to my friendship or to my gallantry, it would have been irresistible. I should have thought myself bound to have set prudence and policy at defiance, and even to have attacked wind-mills in your ladyship's service. I am not sure but my imagination would have gone so far as to have fancied New York an enchanted castle—the three ladies so many fair damsels ravished from their friends and held in captivity by the spells of some wicked magician—General Clinton, a huge giant, placed as keeper of the gates—and myself, a valorous knight, destined to be their champion and deliverer.

      But when, instead of availing yourself of so much better titles, you appealed to the cold, general principle of humanity, I confess I felt myself mortified, and determined, by way of revenge, to mortify you in turn. I resolved to show you that all the eloquence of your fine pen could not tempt our Fabius to do wrong; and, avoiding any representation of my own, I put your letter into his hands and let it speak for itself. I knew, indeed, this would expose his resolution to a severer trial than it could experience in any other way, and I was not without my fears for the event, but if it should decide against you, I anticipated the triumph of letting you see your influence had failed. I congratulated myself on the success of my scheme; for, though there was a harder struggle upon the occasion between inclination and duty, than it would be for his honor to tell; yet he at last had the courage to determine that, as he could not indulge the ladies with consistency and propriety, he would not run the risk of being charged with a breach of both. This he desired me to tell you, though, to be sure, it was done in a different manner, interlaced with many assurances of his great desire to oblige you, and of his regret that he could not do it in the present case, with a deal of stuff of the same kind, which I have too good an opinion of your understanding to repeat. I shall, therefore, only tell you that whether the Governor and the General are more honest or more perverse than other people, they have a very odd knack of thinking alike; and it happens in the present case that they both equally disapprove the intercourse you mention, and have taken pains to discourage it. I shall leave you to make your own reflections upon this, with only one more observation, which is that the ladies for whom you apply would have every claim to be gratified, were it not that it would operate as a bad precedent. But, before I conclude, it will be necessary to explain one point. This refusal supposes that the ladies mean only to make a visit and return to New York. If it