Robert Hamilton

“ Hamilton's lips, for by that lightning touch of association, memory, thought, whatever it may be, which joins events together, and unites present with past, so that almost a life seems crowded in a moment, such a suspicion flashed upon her as to make her feel sick and giddy, and turn so unusually pale, as effectually to rouse Robert, and make him spring up to get her a chair. ”

“ Then he said something which might have been addressed to me or might merely have been a mutter to himself, but a sudden furious anger flamed up within me that such a creature should address me. For an instant I felt like wheeling about and smashing my stick over his head, but I walked on, and entering the Hamilton went to my apartment. For some time I tossed about the bed trying to get the sound of his voice out of my ears, but could not. It filled my head, that muttering sound, like thick oily smoke from a fat-rendering vat or an odor of noisome decay. ”

“ Meanwhile the countess had directed her steps to the spot where Sir Edward Hamden sat with Miss Mortimer. Perfectly acquainted with the baronet, “Pray,” she said, “Hamden, do you know who that charming youth is that danced with me?” “I understand his name is Hamilton,” replied Hamden. “What a graceful figure, what a bewitching countenance, what eyes, and such a look as he has with him: it is well for me that I am past my teens, and not a susceptible romantic girl.” ”

“ Having completed his education at the university of Edinburgh, where he was distinguished in mathematics, Robert was induced to enter a banking-house in order to acquire a practical knowledge of business, but his ambition was really academic. In 1769 he gave up business pursuits and accepted the rectorship of Perth academy. In 1779 he was presented to the chair of natural philosophy at Aberdeen University. For many years, however, by private arrangement with his colleague Professor Copland, Hamilton taught the class of mathematics. ”

“ Hamilton on the highway first scared him back to partial common-sense. Added to this my entreaties, and he became docile, and then, little by little, dropped his preacher's mad harangue to talk like a reasonable creature and wag his tongue unlarded with his garbled metaphors and his half-baked parables which no doubt no simple forest-runner could digest on the raw printed page. I pitied him sincerely. Truly, a little learning makes one wondrous kind. ”

“ Would your Murphys or your Vanburghs, and your Steeles and your Congreves, your Homes, your Rowes, your Southerns, or your Otway, equal this work?” “I dare say,” said Hamilton, “no production of theirs would ever resemble it; even Sheridan himself, if he were to try his hand, would not make it so pure; he certainly has astonishing genius, but I doubt if he were to try this German mode, with all his brilliancy of fancy, if he could make so unique a performance, and resolutely exclude from every scene and passage, nature, truth, and probability. ”

“ A dead stillness ruled over the house, as if a Sheridan, Fox, or a Pitt, had been speaking; not a whisper was heard, except low breathings of admiration. One indeed would whisper to his neighbour, “Vara weel laad.” Hamilton having finished, the chief orators of both parties vied with each other, in bestowing praises on this exhibition of the young member. The question being adjourned, our hero went to the lobby, to look for his uncle, and just as he met him, found himself surrounded by gentlemen, congratulating him on the fame he had established at the very outset of his parliamentary career. ”

“ Look at me, Mrs. Hamilton."
"I will not," she said, between her teeth.
"Tell me," I pleaded, "what is your Christian name. I do really wish to know, Mrs. Hamilton."
Spite of the angry red in her cheeks she laughed outright, glanced sideways at me, and laughed again, so blithely that I thought I had truly never seen such careless ripened healthy beauty in any woman.
"My name is Marie Hamilton, of Saint Sacrement, please you, kind sir," she lisped, with an affected simper which set us both a-laughing again. ”

“ He had been captivated by the charms of Miss Hamilton, but he was not so deeply enamoured that ambition did not give him a contrary pull. He was a very handsome fellow, and much admired among the French ladies, in whom political regeneration had not produced moral: he was greatly addicted to gallantry, and nothing is more destructive of virtuous love than habitual dissipation when at a distance from the beloved object. ”

“ You will not give up the fight after the first engagement—you!"
"Oh, no! not I!" cried Hamilton. "I shall fight on until I have made Thomas Jefferson President of the United States. Should I not laugh? Was any man ever in so ironical a situation before? I shall move heaven and America to put Pinckney in the chair, and I shall fail; and to save the United States from Burr I shall turn over the country I have made to my bitterest enemy."
"That would not be my way of doing, sir," said Robert. "I'd fight the rival chieftain to his death. ”

“ They were the men who were to throw their weight on the side of the new government. How persistently Hamilton sought to inform himself of the precise nature of the interests needing protection in the separate localities, from New Hampshire to Georgia, is evidenced by his unpublished correspondence with business men in all the commercial centres. [221]
The third interest which Hamilton consolidated was composed of the land speculators and promoters and embraced all the leading men of the time—Washington, Franklin, Robert Morris, James Wilson, William Blount, and other men of eminence. ”

“ Robert was to learn the more important aspects of the business, eventually succeed his father as president, leaving the details, however, to a competent staff. His income would enable him to live according to his own ideas of life—to ride, to hunt, to fish, to play tennis, to acquire the easy culture that comes with leisure, to surround himself with a society of men and women of similar tastes and to patronize, perhaps even essay, the arts. The older Hamilton had been able, in a measure, to live in accordance with these ideas. ”

“ As the son and heir of Robert E. Hamilton, owner of extensive cotton plantations, cotton mills and hardwood forests in Georgia, Robert, jr., had no particular need to establish a career, and, although literature attracted him, he preferred to enjoy rather than to try to produce it.
“There are too many writers already,” Hamilton would say. “What we need are more persons who can distinguish between good and bad writing. We need a larger dilettante class, for the sake of the writers themselves, and as I have no real inspiration I might as well belong to the dilettantes.” ”

“ Maria cannot be mine; and why should I repine that she is to be his, whom I value above all men.” He then asked, if Hamilton thought it was in any way in his power to promote the views and interests of two persons, whom he so very highly regarded? Hamilton, with considerable solemnity, answered, “Sir Edward Hamden, I came with the highest sense of your honor, magnanimity, and generosity, and by concert with Miss Mortimer, to open confidentially, whatever regards us, to one whom we both equally esteem. ”

“ Hamilton was now extending his acquaintance among gentlemen of the law, and also men of literary eminence. He had the honour to be known to Gibbon, who thought very highly of his talents and erudition, perhaps, not the less that a masterly review of the history was found to be the production of Hamilton. ”

“ Hamilton was a young man of honour and principle, and consequently could not deliberately plan the seduction of an innocent female, nor even intentionally engage her affections and so distress her heart: but he was by no means averse to intrigues, when he conceived the object not to come under that description. Jenny Collings, the daughter to a Sheffield [130] manufacturer, after having been an apprentice in her native town, was now assistant to one of the chief milliners in Doncaster. ”

“ Hamilton, admiring the genius which beamed through this excentricity of pernicious inculcation, sought the acquaintance of Jemima, and was received with great complacency. She saw he was not yet a convert to her doctrines, or to those of her friends, Topsiturvy and St. Leon; she hoped that her philosophy would at length prevail over his present prejudices, that he might become a powerful cooperator in the grand work of transmogrifying human nature; and she judged him peculiarly qualified for the conversion of women. ”

“ In the evening, they set off for the captain’s house, and having spent the following day at this villa, the second morning returned to Brighton. Hamilton, on his arrival, found several letters; one was from a [94] bookseller of great eminence and liberality, offering very considerable terms, if he would undertake a work of magnitude, on a subject which the bookseller specified. Our hero being a man of real genius, erudition, and science, would write upon no subject which he did not understand, and was not an undertaker-general in the trade of book-making. ”

“ Hamilton, you over-rate that Strongbrain; I think very little of him, I must say, you yourself require a good deal [43] of care to form your judgment, Now you think highly of Robertson and Hume, and such men as those, you are quite led by prevailing opinion; that is always the way with men of no great reach of abilities ”

“ Hamilton informing him he himself was going to Brighton, said he would be very glad of his company; the soldier, with much pleasure, embracing this proposal, they set off. Hamilton, thoroughly confiding in the honest and intrepid countenance of his companion, asked him if he saw a fellow pass a little before he spoke; the other answered in the negative; but said, that though he had nothing to lose himself, hearing there were smugglers and footpads on the road between Hilsea and Arundel, he had brought a bayonet as well as a broad-sword, and that either of them were at his honour’s service. ”

“ At the usual hour they arrived at Northallerton, and the father having pointed out his house, which was in the immediate neighbourhood, they came to the Inn, whence the squire declared he would see his new friend fairly set off, before Maria and he should walk home. They were sitting in a parlour, and, the squire having gone out, Hamilton very strongly expressed the delight which he had enjoyed from so charming a companion, and the eagerness with which he would avail himself of her respectable father’s friendly invitation. ”

“ Hamilton observed, “displays strong discrimination; he is of naturally good intentions, and respectable capacity; but in his counsels and conduct, not possessing that firmness, without which, ability and disposition can, neither in private or public life, regularly and steadily produce beneficial effects. He is governed by talents beneath his own, one of the greatest sources of error and defect in conduct. ”

“ In the course of the evening Hamilton received from this gentleman such an accession, not only of details and facts, but of principles and views, as convinced him he would be a very valuable instructor, while the strength and splendour of his wit and [212] humour rendered him a most delightful companion. The charms of Strongbrain’s colloquial powers fascinated our hero to a very late hour, and he determined to spare no pains in cultivating so very valuable and pleasant an acquaintance: but for some weeks family parties interrupted the progress of their new acquaintance. ”

“ The levies of new regiments procured Hamilton promotion, which permitted him to return to Britain with his lady and his daughter.
Our hero was about fourteen years of age when revisited by his parents; comely, healthy, active, and strong, and in his mental powers and acquirements far beyond most youths of sixteen. Both father and mother were proud of such a son, and anticipated future eminence from so promising talents and accomplishments. As their second son was now at the same seminary, a neighbouring boarding school was commodious for the daughter. ”

“ Descending to more recent events, she would with pleasure hear the natural though homely recitals of old Maxwell, and enjoy the fire of his eye, when describing the defence of Bergen-op-Zoom, or the capture of Quebec; she was well acquainted with the events of the war just terminated, especially such as displayed heroism, or manifested British character. Such was the young lady to whom Major Hamilton was now introduced. Hamilton himself was a man of a very prepossessing appearance, tall, and graceful; in face, figure, and deportment, at once elegant and manly. ”

“ Hamilton both before and after the release spent much time in exhorting the husband of his cousin to act as became the connection which he had formed, and advised him particularly to abstain from hard drinking and from methodism, both of which intoxicating the brain, unhinging the faculties, and giving full reins to passion, often led to madness, profligacy, or both. ”

“ His own person and accomplishments were such as afforded him [158] a fair prospect of success with any woman that was unengaged; and not having discovered the state of Maria’s heart, he trusted that he would be ultimately successful. He was extremely struck with Hamilton, whose genius and erudition, his own enabled him to appreciate, and whose knowledge and conversation might be useful to him in his parliamentary exertions. ”

“ He dissuaded Robert Morris from resigning, and introduced a resolution in eulogy of Washington's management of his officers in the most critical hour of the Union's history. But his immediate accomplishment was small and discouraging, although his foresight may have anticipated what George Ticknor Curtis wrote many years later:—
The ideas of a statesman like Hamilton, earnestly bent on the discovery and inculcation of truth, do not pass away. ”