xt7r7s7hr08q https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7r7s7hr08q/data/mets.xml Beauchamp, Jereboam O., 1802-1826. 1857  books b92hv6248b38a318572009 English Boston Traveller? : Boston? Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Beauchamp, Jereboam O., 1802-1826. Beauchamp s confession. text Beauchamp s confession. 1857 2009 true xt7r7s7hr08q section xt7r7s7hr08q 
    
    
    
    
    
    
   [From the Boston Traveller, April, 1857.]

THE BEAUCHAMP TRAGEDY IN KENTUCKY.'

We were led, a short time since, to recall, in connection with the novel of W. Gilmore Simms, and review the circumstances connected with the well-nigh forgotten Beauchamp tragedy, in which everybody in the country was interested thirty years ago. In noticing Mrs. Howe's new play, recently, wo-spokc of its similarity, in a single point, to this Beauchamp story; but the whole history of the strange affair is worth recalling from oblivion.

Our main authority is the confession of Beauchamp himself, made shortly before his execution, and printed in n thick pamphlet, at Bloomfield, Ky., in 1826. This pamphlet, which contains also some letters of Beauchamp, some verses by himself and his wife, and an account of his last hours, is exceedingly rare; and we heartily wish 'it could be re-printed, for it has vastly more interest than any novel Mr. Simms ever wrote.

The details therein given may seem like those of a common murder,   too common in these days, unfortunately,   deriving their interest only from a morbid craving for a knowledge of 6uch horrors. But there is a deeper reason why the atrocities of Beauchamp and his wife 6tand in prominence on the sad calendar of crime. The feeling which impelled them was an insatiable thirst for vengeance, it was true ; but this finds some excuse in the greatness of their victim's guilt; while it is exalted above the fury of the ordinary murder by the solemn fanaticism which made them regard it as a dutv, and by the tenderness of their love for each other. Nothing can he more touching than the, gentleness and reverence with which, every where in his confession, Beauchamp speaks of his wife; and 
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she, in turn, seems to have felt the most enthusiastic affection for him. He was her chovalier   her champion, and tho champion of injured virtue everywhere; and in her steady refusal to outlive him, she shared the constancy of a-Roman matron, and died as heroically as Brutus's Portia or the famous Lucretia.

Some verses by Mrs. Beauchamp, written just before her death, and printed in the pamphlet referred to, support the conception of her character which one forms from hes wonderful story. They all relate to her husband's crime and fate, and their style indicates a cultivated mind and a lofty and poetic nature ; a single stanza, in which she speaks of her husband's dying with her, evinces this :

"And wedded to his sido my form shall He Encircled by his arm, for naught but Fato Could move my stubborn spirit, free to die With all my soul holds dear, or good, or great."

Novels and plays have been built upon this story, and perhaps that of Mr. Simms is the best among them; but is impossible for fiction to equal tho awful simplicity with which Bcauchamp's confession portrays the whole series of events. Not even Othello so much absorbs our interests or moves our emotions. The action proceeds with tho dreadful certainty of the Greek tragedy, whero an invincible fate drives on the noble and generous to crime. In the wilderness of Kentucky, among attorneys and planters and backwoodsmen, you see again Orestes and Elcctra, Clytemestra and Agamemnon ; and the events are as sublimo and terrible as any iEschylus or Sophocles have immortalized in verse.

11 One touch of nature makes the "Whole world kin." 
   INTRODUCTION.

"God made them lambs: we men are wolves," was the remark of a dying debauchee to a profligate friend who was endeavoring to assuage the former's remorse over visions of WTecks of female virtue he had made, by lightly arguing that his own experience should teach him that woman was all unworthy such compunctions, since she was ever ready to yield herself to tho importunate. " God made them lambs : we men are wolves,*' was his only reply.

In the above sentence is given the philosophy of female seduction ; the secret reason why some high-toned, noble-hearted women fall   they were powerless to the men they loved.

Woman is powerless to the man she loves ; but in tliis there is nothing for him to glory over   nothing to cover her with shame. It is Nature's law; it is of divine appointment. Physically, he is her superior; and in judgment and firmness mentally so. But with her subordination comes his responsibility Woman is God's greatest trust, as well as Heaven's best gift, to man.

The most beautiful of earthly things created is woman; and modesty and purity are among her sweetest adornments. So long as she preserves these angelic attributes, she commands tho esteem of the good, tho respect of the bad ; but, parting with them, she is like a star changed to darkness   she falls as no other created thing can fall.

Every living creature has a defence given it; and fear, timidity, and shame are the natural safeguards of woman. The true woman instinctively shrinks from the evil approaches of man. To the citadel of her purity there is but one unwalled entrance    her heart. She must love; she must have something to worship, to cling to and adorn, or her earthly mission   to bless   would 
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not be fulfilled; her very weaknesses demand that she Iiavo somo one to lean upon and coufide in, possessed of attribues the opposito of her own   one able to sustain and protect her   and for this being, when the object of her first affections, she is ever willing to leave father, mother, sister, brother; to sacrifice homo and tho world, and sometimes   too often   her heaven and her God.*

Woman, then, is as God created her   subordinate to man; and he who gains and honorably and justly wears a pure woman's love, has secured to himself tho greatest of earthly blessings ;    while he who wins only to blast and destroy, by the very act so distorts his own vision that earth's fairest flowers seem to him but contemptible weeds. He curses where to bless would ro-act upon himself, and creates in his own bosom a hell when he might have drawn around himself a heaven.

Tho most blighting, detestable, and least punished of all villains, is the systematic seducer.t Like the drunkard, his appetite feeds upon itself; like the foul wolf, he hunts for the mere pleasure of destroying. His crimes go mostly unpunished, because exposure would but heap additional anguish upon his victim's head ; privacy and delicacy prevent the line of his guilt being satisfactorily drawn, and consequently the public and tho law seem indifferent to his sins ; it is only when some startling

* It is proper to qualify this and a previous assertion by stating that it is meant to apply mostly to yocno women who have had but little knowledge of the world   the fact that most cases of seduction occur when the man is far in advance in years of his victim, goes to sustain the hypothesis presented.

t Base and soulless as is the deliberate seducer, there is yet one meaner villain extant   the one who from malice, jealousy, or revenge, blasts tho reputation of an innocent girl by anonymous slander. The following is a case in point; and the cowardly scoundrel it refers to deserves, when discovered, to be driven, like Matt. Ward, beyond the pale of civilized society.

" A young lady of estimable character, who had for some months been teaching the school in the Townley District, was, not long ago, discharged by the trustees on account of accusations against her virtue contained in an anonymous letter received by one of their number. It has since been ascertained that the chargos were utterly false, but the poor girl's reputation will probably never be entirely purged of tho stains which were thus so cruelly east upon it." 
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act of merited vengeance, like to the Beauchamp or Hcberton tragedy, proving by its very desperation that a deep, foul, premeditated wrong has been perpetrated, and at which, as in tho latter case, the people and the press cry out, "The argument is conclusive; justice, not law, for the actors," that society is enabled to vindicate itself as the willing punisher of Virtue's destroyer, and judicial authority, unavoidably blind to the first outrage, is forced with seeming reluctance to overlook the second.

Death is a punishment for the murderer ; the Penitentiary for the mutilator of another's body; the State Prison for the robber and burglar ; and imprisonment for whoever obtains goods under false pretences. What, then, docs that man deserve who, under honorable pretences, intrudes himself upon the domestic circle   easts his toils around its brightest ornaments   deceives, crushes, and marks with a shameful, indelible stain a father's hope and mother's pride; who, for the gratification of an idle hour, destroys what has cost others years of toil and solicitudo to rear ; and sends forth to curse the world one who otherwiso might have passed a happy, useful existence ?

Manifestly tho seducer's crime equals all tho above-named combined ; and equally evident is it, that if legislation cannot .sfactorily reach and commensuratcly punish the seducer, neither will public. opinion at this time suffer the law to deal harshly with the man who avenges a daughter's or a sister's wrongs, when the circumstances of tho ease unmistakably evinco the chastisement is just. No jury can be found to convict so unhappy, so unfortunate an offender, so long as it remains evident that Fear, not of public justice, but of private retribution, is, as now, almost the solo safeguard of society against that unprincipled ravager of domestic peace, the Systematic Seducer.

The Hcberton case, above referred to, justifies this assertion ; Heberton was a wealthy roui   a professed debauchee-; and publicly boasted of his triumph over one particular victim, a school girl, and daughter of a wealthy Philadelphia merchant; the father demanded marriage to cover the offence, and the brother threatened death as tho alternative of refusal. Heberton laughed 
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them to scorn, at first; but afterwards, becoming intimidated, secreted himself, and in attempting to escape to a vessel bound for Europe, was mot in his carriage on board the ferry boat, and shot dead by the avenging brother; the latter immediately surrendered himself, was soon tried, and the jury acquitted him ; the crowds which thronged the court house and tho adjacent streets endorsing the verdict with loud cheers, and the press throughout the country sustaining the righteous judgment.

The other affair referred to had a different termination ; not, as the writer believes, because the seducer was less guilty in the eyes of the community, than Heberton, but principally because Beauchamp stooped to secret assassination, instead of openly and boldly challenging the world to witness the deed, and thus, as it were, throwing himself upon its judgment and its mercy.

Col. Sharp, in 1826, Attorney-General of Kentucky, a man of prepossessing manners and winning address, was the seducer of Miss Cooke, an orphan girl, universally admired, until her misfortune universally respected, (even then heartily pitied,) and as the sequel shows, possessed of qualities which, under a more favorable initiation, would have mado her worthy the hand of any hero.

Some time after this circumstance became public, Beauchamp, then a student at law, and a generous, noble-hearted, impetuous young man, incited by a chivalrous feeling, sought out Miss Cooke at the plantation to which she had retired to bury herself from the world, and though then but nineteen, took upon himself the task of avenging her wrongs, at that time the theme of every tongue.

He managed to obtain a private interview with Col. Sharp at the river's side; announced himself as the avenger whom Miss Cooke had promised Col. Sharp when she last forbade him her presence, should some day confront him; challenged him to fight; and when words could not provoke Col. Sharp to select weapons with which to defend himself, Beauchamp struck him in the face, and finally kicked the coward from the field. Col. Sharp protested he could not fight in such a cause; he studiously 
   avoided Beauchamp, and in no possible way could the latter incite him to an encounter.

Three or four years after their first interview, Beauchamp married Miss Cooke; and even at that date so strong, was the public sentiment against Col. Sharp, and so much was he annoyed by it, that in the hope to allay its force he had the temerity to commit a greater outrage almost than the first, by originating a story that tho birth of a certain negro child furnished unmistakcablo evidence that he could not have been guilty of tho crime towards Miss Cooke that he was charged with. The bounds of human endurance were then passed, and Col. Sharp's fate scaled.

Beauchamp and his wife now resolved to delay retribution no longer ; but the happy life   tinged but by one bitter thought    which they had latterly been leading, made earthly existence gweet; and though Beauchamp would have willingly sacrificed his life on the altar of his own and his wife's injured honor, she who had once made him swear to avengo her wrongs, as the price of her hand   who had pleaded that so long as Col. Sharp lived she could not feel worthy to become his wife   now, with a true woman's affection, made him again vow not to oxpose his life to the law for tho sake of a cowardly wretch who fled his presence, and basely shrank from giving him any chance whatever for satisfaction or redress.

And here was the great mistake which no after Roman firmness or sacrifice on their part could retrieve ; the world detests the skulking assassin, but in its secret heart applauds whoever with sufficient motive rids it of a tyrant or social monster, and who, by going to judgment along with his victims, as did the Samson of Scripture, or by surrendering themselves to certain death, as did Charlotte Corday, prove conclusively to the world that it was no petty personal malice, or hope of earthly advantage that incited them to the deed.

Beauchamp killed Col. Sharp; calling him to his door, late at night, showing him his face, and then striking so sure a blow that he died instantly; and though so well had Beauchamp 
   planned everything to escape detection, that nothing bnt perjury could link out a chain of even circumstantial cvidenco against him, yet so powerful and unscrupulous were the friends of Col. Sharp, that he was convicted of murder, and died upon the gallows ; his wife perished by her own hand on the same day as her husband, (in fact was dying and insensible as he quitted her side,) and was buried in the same grave with him. And however deplorable this termination to their sad career, and however questionable the commission of suicide, under any circumstances whatever, the last two acts of this terrible drama seem essential to evince to the world that Col. Sharp was worthy of his fate, and his victim of her husband's devotion. At all events, the case presents a moral wo are bound to profit by ; but not without paying a tribute to the courage and constancy, to the touching devotion to each other of the least censurable of thoso who furnished this costly bequest, and a prayer to that Tribunal which is alone competent to weigh their sins that their errors may he mercifully dealt with.

And what is.this moral 1 First, that seduction, murder, suicide, and legal homicide all resulted, in this case, as they may in others, not altogether from the want of principle on the part of the man, but as much, perhaps, from lack of knowledge of her own danger and weaknesses, on the part of the woman; and second, that woman may suffer the greatest of wrongs, and still be worthy not only of our pity but our respect   that there is a vast difference between the voluntarily fallen and the cast down   for though we may seldom have hopes of tho one, it is unjust and unreasonable to lack faith in the other.

The importance and the truth of these two points it will be the principal object of this book to evince; but mainly the first, for the obvious reason that

The prevention of evil is always better than the cure. 
   EDITOR'S PREFACE.

Tnia "Confession" is reprinted from the orginal, and very rare pamphlet, printed at Bloomfield, Kentucky, in 1826, a copy of which is in the library of the Boston Athenaeum.

With the exceptions that will be enumerated, this is an exact reprint. Under the painful circumstances as stated in the preface, tho manuscript was evidently written in great haste, and did not receive the author's revision. After his execution it was very carelessly printed at a country newspaper office. The whole appearance of the pamphlet, which is on coarse and dingy paper, and in some parts almost illegible, indicates that the printers wero innocent of the most common experience in proof-reading, and of the typographic art in general. Words are often spelled in two or three different ways on the same page ; the punctuation is so badly adjusted that some sentences required to be studied before the sense is apparent; and the narrative is disfigured with many blunders for which the printers, and not the author, is responsible.

Beauchamp, although not a practical writer, was a man of some education, and of more than ordinary intelligence. His language is often ungrammatical, and abounds with Western provincialisms. While it has not been easy, in every instance, to make the distinction, an attempt has been made to correct the errors of the press, and to retain the distinctive features of the author's style, with all its imperfections. The spelling (except in a few instances that seemed to be the author's own method) has been made uniform, and the punctuation has been so arranged as to exhibit the author's meaning.  La several in- 
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stances a word omitted, that was needed to complete the sentence, has heen supplied in brackets. No changes have been made other than those the author would have made himself could he have revised the proofs. No attempt has been made to put tho Confession into correct English. The author's errors in composition, arising cither from haste, excitement, or inexperience in writing, are interesting as illustrating the wretched man's position and mental training, and they have therefore been retained.

A biographical sketch of Col. Sharp ; a historical account of the Old Court and New Court party controversy, which is alluded to so frequently in the Confession, and some other cotem-porary statements with regard to these transactions, are appended in the Supplement. / 
   PREFACE.

I am this day condemned to die by my country's laws. My country has extended the limited time fixed for my existence on earth, in order that I might write an account of the causes which have led to my death.

The short time I have to live, together with the multiplied duties I have to perform towards consoling my family and friends, will unavoidably render the details of facts which I shall leave for the perusal of my countrymen, greatly disconnected and confused. I shall abandon all studied style; I shall only in laconic language record facts.

I do not regret to die. My fate has moved all who stood allied to me by either ties of friendship or of kindred, more than it has me. I am satisfied. I die for pursuing what the dictates of my clearest and most deliberate judgment had determined it was at least justifiable in me to do, if not my duty to do ; and for which no guilty pang of conscience has ever yet reproved "me, or lhe_ certain prospect of death made me feel the least regret. And if my death teaches a respect for the laws of my country, my example will be not less serviceable in teaching respect for those laws of honor, to revenge the violation and outrage of which I so freely die.

The death of Col. Sharp, at my hands, will teach two lessons not altogether uncalled for by the present moral and political state of society in Kentucky. It will teach a certain class of heroes who make their glory to consist in triumphs over tho virtue and happiness of worthy unfortunate orphan females, to pause sometimes in their mad career; and reflect, that though the deluded victim of their villany may have no father to protect or avenge her, yet some friendly arm may sooner or later be led by her to avenge her blighted prospects.   Some great 
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men never think their fame complete till somo worthy widowed matron mourns at their hands tho immolation of a favorite daughter, the pride and comfort of her declining years. To such I have spoken a loud and lasting warning. My example, or rather that of Col. Sharp, will also teach the unprincipled politician in his career of ambition, that if his dishonor has driven from society, and buried in a living grave, an unfortunate female who had fallen a victim to his villany, it may bo better to lie under the reproach of her seduction, than to hazard farther insult to so deep an injury, by adding slander and detraction to such an outrage upon every human feeling.

To justify myself before my country, and for the satisfaction of my family, who feel dishonored by my condemnation, I shall submit to the world a plain, unreserved narrative of the motives that led me to become an assassin.

And to place in a fair light all the feelings which have led to the assassination of Col. Sharp, I shall be unavoidably led to give some few abstracted remarks upon what sort of beings both myself and my wife are; for this murder is neither imputable to one or the other of us, but to both. And as my wife is, I know, inflexible in her determination, that as I die for her she will die with me, I have no motive to conceal the part she acted; the more especially as she insists to let the world know all tho agency she has had in bringing about a revenge for the deep, indelible wrong which Col. Sharp had done her and her family.

May 22, 1826.

J. 0. Beauchamp. 
   CONFESSION.

I am the second son of a most worthy and respectable farmer. My parents, at an early period of my life, became professors of the Christian religion, and ever after lived quite piously up to its dictates. The early part of my education, which generally has a lasting impression upon the bent of tho rnind, was of a most pious and salutary kind. I was much a favorite with my fond father, although of a most wild, eccentric, and ungovernable temper of mind. But he was nattered by his friends that I early showed some indications of genius. Wherefore, at their solicitations, he determined to give me an education much beyond his limited fortune; for he was not wealthy, though his enterprise and industry had made him comfortably independent for tho countrylife.

I was placed quite early in the best schools within his reach. I was naturally of a most volatile, idle, and wild disposition; but the great ease with which I acquired whatever learning I turned my attention to, enabled me to so far gain the praise of my tutors as to interest my father's friends to advise him to put me somewhere under an able teacher in order to a thorough classical education ; although his numerous rising family seemed to render his ability to complete it hopeless. But fortune placed me under the care of a man of great abilities and learning, to whose paternal affection and attachment to me I cannot here withhold this last passing tribute of my gratitude. This was Dr. Benjamin Thurston, than whom I have not found on the earth one man who approaches nearer tho dictates of honor and philosophy.

Under him and some other teachers, although I was several times interrupted from my course of education by being taken home, and other casualties, I acquired by the time I was 
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fifteen or sixteen years of age, a good English edncation, a knowledge of the Latin language, and a respectable acquaintance with the sciences. But feeling for tho difficulties under which I saw my father laboring to do equal justice to others of his numerous family of younger children, who now began to claim more of his exertions for their education, I resolved no longer to burthen him with mine, but to henceforth shift for myself, and, as well as I could, complete my education by my own exertions.

Reluctant as I was to quit my courso of learning, I turned my attention, for a time, to make a little money by keeping a store. But this soon growing insupportable to me, as it quite took me off from all pursuit of education, I procured a recommendation from my former tutors to teach a school myself, although quite too young for such a trust. In this way I made some money, and then again went to farther prosecuto my edu-tion. But in a little time I was invited by my former friend and benefactor, Dr. Thurston, into his school, where I assisted him in his duties ; and by the time I was eighteen years old, completed my education so far as I thought it necessary or important to go, preparatory to the study of the law, which all my friends advised me to pursue. Mingling with my acquaintances of the bar at Glasgow, and those attending the courts there from Bowling-Green, I was about this time attracted by a general burst of generous indignation amongst them towards Col. Solomon P. Sharp, of the bar, from Bowling-Green, for the seduction of Miss Ann Cooke, of that place. I was acquainted with Col. Sharp personally, and somewhat intimately too, for being greatly delighted with his eloquence, and designing to study tho law myself, I had sought his acquaintance, and had expressed some thought of endeavoring to place myself in a situation where I could study under his direction. I should have mentioned to him my wish but for this very story about Miss Cooke. Now I was not personally acquainted with Miss Cooke. I knew, however, tho Cooke family by character; and I had heard the gentlemen of the bar of my acquaintance from Bowl- 
   ing-Grcen, spenk often in high and enthusiastic terms of Miss Ann Cooke for intelligence, etc.; and the more especially when the execrations of Col. Sharp, for her seduction, was in the high tone to which it was at first carried amongst them. But there was a young gentleman from Bowling-Grecn, at that time, a room-mate and bosom friend of mine, who had been intimately acquainted with Miss Cooke, and much devoted to her.

Hearing the high account which he gave of her character, and the animated representation which an enthusiastic devotee would make of the dishonor to an injured female to whom he was much devoted, he much inflamed the indignation so infectious in the youthful bosom for injuries of this kind, and which had been caught and kindled in my bosom from those of the profession with whom I then associated. My friend held Col. Sharp in utter contempt aad abhorrence, and from him I imbibed somewhat of my personal dislike, insomuch that I felt a disinclination to enter into even those cordial salutations of friendship which had heretofore characterized our intercourse. He was a man of the greatest penetration, and I think on one occasion noticed this; for he had learned my design to enter the study of the law, and I suppose had heard some one speak of my thought of jrtudyjng under him ; for he asked me once if I intended to go immediately to the study of the law. I replied I should in a few months. He said lie learned I had intended to go to Bowl-ing-Green, and wished to study with him. I replied with rather more austerity than politeness, I should probably go to Bowling-Green, but I had not determined to study with him. The manner in which I spoke this I saw startled some little surprise in his countenance, more from my impoliteness than anything else. However, it passed off with his flattering me with auguring well of my success, and by saying if I should come to Bowling-Grecn he would be pleased to have it in his power to facilitate in any way my progress. It may seem strange that I should have been so easily infected with dislike towards one I had heretofore admired, merely by the tale of his dishonor towards a female to whom I was an utter stranger.  But such was the 
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enthusiasm of all my passions, that, when I had a hosom friend all his partialities were my partialities, all his antipathies mine. Besides, this was a species of dishonor which, from my earliest recollection, had ever excited my most violent reprobation. I had ever said I would as soon receive into my friendship a horse thief as a man, however high his standing, who had dishonored and prostrated the hopes of a respectable and worthy female. And I still say there is more intrinsic dishonor and baseness in it than in stealing a man's horse, and should bo received with less forgiveness or countenance by society.

Under these habitual feelings and sentiments it is not so strange that I should participate, in a strong degree, with my friend in his contempt and dislike of Col. Sharp for his dishonor towards a worthy orphan female whom my friend represented in such high terms. With these prepossessions of sympathy for Miss Cooke, I retired to spend a few months in a country life with my father, previous to my entering the study of the law. This I done to reinstate my health, which had become much impaired by a life, of late, too sendentary and studious. My father lived in the country in Simpson county, which was one or two counties removed from Glasgow, where I had been going to school. Since my last visit to my father's, Miss Cooke had retired to a romantic little farm within a mile of my father's, there to spend in seclusion the remainder of her days, with only her aged mother and a few servants. Immediately on learning that, when I arrived at my father's, I determined to become acquainted with one I had heard so much talk about. But to my great disappointment and mortification I learned she sternly refused to make any acquaintances, or even to receive the society or visits of her former acquaintances. This, for somo time, prevented my visiting her. But my anxiety and curiosity increased with, the accounts I continued to hear of her, till at length I resolved to intrude a visit upon her, however unwel-comely I anticipated she would receive it; tho more especially if unaccompanied by an introduction from any friend or acquaintance of hers.  I, however, ventured over one evening, and 
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I

(

was ushered into a room by the servants; but after waiting there some time I yet saw no one but the servants, although as I approached the house I had 6een Miss Cooke in that very room. I was at length served by servants with some fruits; but Miss Cooke had retired, declining to see me. I sent for her. She came. I introduced myself to her, and told her that notwithstanding I had learned she was disinclined to make any acquaintances, or to receive the visits of any one, I had been impelled to obtrude a visit upon her. I spoke of her friend and acquaintance of Glasgow, whom I had heard speak very highly of her, and that he had so heightened my anxiety to become acquainted    with her that I had resolved to hazard tho mortification which her persisting to declino any acquaintance with me would give me. I told her, that spending my life very lonesomely in tho country, without either books or society, I had the more hope she would excuse my intrusion, and at least, if she refused me her society, or to become acquainted with my sisters, who wished to visit her, she would favor mo with the benefit of her library whilst I remained in the county, as I had been told she had a very choice selection of books. She replied, that as to her society, she had retired to that secluded spot never again to mix with the world ; that the reason she had left Bowling-Green was to avoid society, and she must therefore tell me frankly it would bo against her wishes to receivo company; but that as to her library, it was quite at my service, and it would give her much pleasure to contribute in any degree to my amusement or advancement by the loan of any books she had. She then spread her library open to me, and wo continued all tho evening iu my selecting and reading some books of philosophy which she had pointed out as favorites of hers, and in the conversations to which this led.

On the approach of night, when I spoke of taking my leave, I selected only one book to take home with me ; but she insisted on my taking several. I said I would read the one I had selected, and return for oth