poral power. That this desire should unconsciously gain ground in a virtuous and ardent mind, is not wonderful; when one considers how the best propensities of the human heart are flattered, by supposing that we only sway the minds of others, to incline them to the paths of peace and happiness, and derive no other advantage from this tacit sovereignty, but that of seeing those objects of affectionate solicitude grow wiser and better.

To return to the apostolic and much beloved Frielinghuysen. The progress which this regiment made in the good graces of his flock, and the gradual assimilation to English manners of a very inferior standard, alarmed and grieved the good man not a little; and the intelligence he received from some of the elders of his church, who had the honor of lodging the more dissipated subalterns, did not administer much comfort to him. By this time the Anglomania was beginning to spread. A sect arose among the young people, who seemed resolved to assume a lighter style of dress and manners, and to borrow their taste in those respects from their new friends. This bade fair soon to undo all the good pastor's labors. The evil was daily growing; and what, alas, could Domine Frielinghuysen do but preach! This he did earnestly, and even angrily, but in vain. Many were exasperated but none reclaimed. The good domine, however, had those who shared his sorrows and resentments; the elder and wiser heads of families, indeed a great majority of the

primitive inhabitants, were steadfast against innovation. The colonel of the regiment, who was a man of fashion and family, and possessed talents for both good and evil purposes, was young and gay; and being lodged in the house of a very wealthy citizen, who had before, in some degree, affected the newer modes of living, so captivated him with his good breeding and affability, that he was ready to humor any scheme of diversion which the colonel and his associates proposed. Under the auspices of this gallant commander, balls began to be concerted, and a degree of flutter and frivolity to take place, which was as far from elegance as it was from the honest artless cheerfulness of the meetings usual among them. The good domine more and more alarmed, not content with preaching, now began to prophesy; but like Cassandra, or to speak as justly, though less poetically, like his whole fraternity, was doomed always to deliver true predictions to those who never heeded them.

Chapter XXXV

PLAYS ACTED.

NOW

DISPLEASURE OF THE DOMINE

OW the very ultimatum of degeneracy, in the opinion of these simple good people, was approaching; for now the officers, encouraged by the success of all their former projects for amusement, resolved to new fashion and enlighten those amiable novices whom their former schemes had attracted within the sphere of their influence; and, for this purpose, a private theatre was fitted up, and preparations made for acting a play; except the Schuylers and their adopted family, there was not perhaps one of the natives who understood what was meant by a play. And by this time, the town, once so closely united by intermarriages and numberless other ties, which could not exist in any other state of society, were divided into two factions: one consisting almost entirely of such of the younger class, as, having a smattering of New York education, and a little more of dress and vivacity, or perhaps levity, than the rest, were eager to mingle in the society, and adopt the manner of those strangers. It is but just, however, to add, that only a few of the more estimable were

included in this number; these, however they might have been captivated with novelty and plausibility, were too much attached to their older relations to give them pain, by an intimacy with people to whom an impious neglect of duties the most sacred was generally imputed, and whose manner of treating their inferiors, at that distance from the control of higher powers, was often such as to justify the imputation of cruelty, which the severity of military punishments had given rise to. The play, however, was acted in a barn, and pretty well attended, notwithstanding the good domine's earnest charges to the contrary. It was The Beaux Stratagem; no favorable specimen of the delicacy or morality of the British theatre; and as for the wit it contains, very little of that was level to the comprehension of the novices who were there first initiated into a knowledge of the magic of the scene, yet they "laughed consumedly," as Scrub says, and actually did so, "because they were talking of him." They laughed at Scrub's gestures and appearance; and they laughed very heartily at seeing the gay young ensigns, whom they had been used to dance with, flirting fans, displaying great hoops, and, with painted cheeks and colored eye-brows, sailing about in female habiliments. This was a jest palpable and level to every understanding; and it was not only an excellent good one, but lasted a long while; for every time they looked at them when restored to their own habits, they laughed anew at the recol

"It is much,"

lection of their late masquerade. says Falstaff, "that a lie with a grave face, and a jest with a sad brow, will do with a fellow who never had the ache in his shoulders." One need only look back to the first rude efforts at comic humor which delighted our fathers, to know what gross and feeble jests amuse the mind, as yet a stranger to refinement. The loud and artless mirth so easily excited in a good-humored child, the naïveté of its odd questions and ignorant wonder, which delight us while associated with innocence and simplicity, would provoke the utmost disgust if we met with them where we look for intelligence and decorous observances. The simplicity of primitive manners, in what regards the petty amusements, and minute attentions, to which we have become accustomed, is exactly tantamount to that of childhood; it is a thing which, in our state of society, we have no idea of. Those who are from their depressed situation ignorant of the forms of polished life, know, at least, that such exist; and either awkwardly imitate them, or carefully avoid committing themselves, by betraying their ignorance. Here, while this simplicity (which by the bye, was no more vulgar than that of Shakespeare's Miranda), with its concomitant purity, continued unbroken by foreign modes, it had all the charm of undesigning childhood; but when half education and ill supported pretensions took place of this sweet attraction, it assumed a very different aspect, it was no