for

gladness when any thing occurs to vex me with human nature. Apropos I am quite charmed with the description which Professor Y-gives me of your niece; what so charming as to find our own prognostics verified? I was sure she would fulfil them in all essentials; but it has happened to so many of my young friends, to have the gems of heart and mind a little marred in the polishing, or their genuine lustre spoiled by the varnish of affectation and self-conceit, that it delights me to hear of her having so entirely escaped these evils: and I heartily congratulate you on the happiness you must derive from such a child.

We also have reason to rejoice in our children, the C-s. We expect the youngest of the two sisters to return to us immediately, with her younger brother, who was so long in France, and now attends the classes here, where he thinks he derives much more benefit from the lectures, than he did from the more eloquent

but less solid lectures in Paris. Nothing appears to be more astonishing than that any people in their senses should take their children to France for education. It is, however, not seldom done. Adieu, and believe me, that in heart and spirit, you are ever dear to

Your truly affectionate

ELIZA HAMIlton.

2

A FRAGMENT.*

Ат

January 3d, 1802.

Аr your request, my dearest sister, I take

up the pen to transcribe, with some accuracy, what I have at different times expressed to you as the result of my most serious investigation of that Epistle of St. Paul's which is deemed most abstruse and difficult of comprehension. You know I have not sufficient vanity to think, that I have so much more penetration than others, as to see distinctly what to them is dark:

* This Fragment is inserted, to show in what manner the writer was led to speculate on scriptural subjects, and with what views she afterwards pursued the enquiry. The Remarks on the Romans, to which this was an introduction, were left unfinished.

if objects appear tó me more clear, it is by viewing them in a different light. It is, I suppose, from some deficiency of capacity, or rather, perhaps, from a deficiency in that stock of learning which is necessary in order to enter into the associations of the learned, that I have found all the commentators upon the sacred writings unsatisfactory and perplexing. I have, therefore, paid little attention to Scripture critics; and am, as you know, little versed in metaphysical theology. It is to the Scriptures themselves that I apply for the solution of every difficulty. It was by applying to them with seriousness, and studying them with assiduity, that, at an early period of life, I disentangled myself from the snares of scepticism, and obtained that conviction of the truth of Christianity, which has enhanced every blessing I have enjoyed, and alleviated every sorrow I have endured ; and which now is, and I trust ever will be, my joy and consolation!

Experience and reflection alike convince me of the danger and impropriety of endeavouring to explain obscure expressions by abstract reasoning; or of taking any expression separately and apart, and by reasoning abstractly upon its apparent import, building a system of our own.

When

difficulties occur, I, therefore, endeavour to reconcile them, not to any particular and favourite theory, but to the general tenor and spirit of the author. My reasons for preferring this method are these:- In a translation, the general meaning of an author may be so well preserved, as to give us the clearest idea of the sense; but from the want of words in one language exactly adapted to convey the meaning of words in another, particular words or even sentences may be liable to perversion. Even in our own language, we find the ideas attached to general terms so vague and ill-defined, as to be the cause