"I cannot forget the charms of that domestic life which he made so attractive to his children and to the large circle of kindred and friends who were admitted to its enjoyments. It was in 1836 that, with our beloved friend Hobart, I was invited to spend the Christmas holidays at Bedford. We were boys together at that time, and I remember to what hours we prolonged our recreations, with no other restriction than your father's cheerful injunction, as he bade us good-night: 'Young gentlemen, please remember not to laugh too loudly; it might deprive some of us of the sleep which you seem not to require for yourselves.' How merrily we 'saw the old year out and the new year in,' that Christmas-tide! I often thought of Irving's 'Bracebridge Hall' as realized in America, in the home of your happy boyhood. Year after year, winter and summer, through college life, you led me to renew my holidays in Bedford. How much I learned from your father's condescension to boyhood in conversing with his boy-visitors as if they were men! He drew out our opinions and encouraged us to state them frankly when he suspected that we had the boldness to prefer our crude ideas to his own judicial and grave conceptions of fact and principle. He played chess with his youthful guests, but never permitted them to beat him, as that would have been no compliment to lads who worked hard and wished to win in a fair game.
"I have rarely seen a household in which family life was ordered more particularly with reference to religion. There was much of the Huguenot in the piety of the Judge, but nothing of the Puritan. Family prayers were observed twice a day, the servants attending and sharing in the responses. After-evening prayers in those early days, we enjoyed a few cotillons and contra-dances, Mrs. Jay presiding at the piano. And when the ladies had withdrawn, chess-playing and other games occupied us, not infrequently until after midnight. Sundays in the old homestead, after church-going, were like other days, save in the chastened cheerfulness of conversation and employment. A feature of Sunday evenings was the custom for every member of the family to recite something in prose or poetry, and the Judge often closed such recitals by reading selections from Bishop Heber, Mr. Milman, and other favourites of those times. In the third decade of this century, the daughters of 'the governor,' Mrs. Banyer and Miss Jay, were often the guests of their brother. They would have been interesting figures in any society, and were eminent in New York for their Christian virtues and devotion to every good work. The elder sister, born in Spain, seemed to preserve in her face and carriage something borrowed from her native climate, while Mrs. Banyer, born in France, was not less conspicuously marked by characteristics of her French ancestry. While the only son of Judge Jay is a recognized type of his father's principles and character, his daughters not less resembled their mother—a lady whose memory I hold in very great respect, with an affectionate estimate of her worth as a beautiful example of her gracious sex, in all characteristics 'wherein there is virtue and wherein there is praise.'
"I feel, at this distance of time, that I owe much to the friendship of Judge Jay, apart from the pleasures it conferred upon me. How much he taught me! How often his maxims led me to correct my faults, though he never seemed to instruct, much less to rebuke! Even in his decline, and when he was nearing the end, he favoured me with an occasional letter. Need I say that, while entirely free from cant and pharisaic professions, such letters were models of Christian submission, and not less of 'faith, hope, and charity'? I have frequently reflected upon them as I find myself approaching the end. His lofty example leads me to say with the inspired moralist: 'Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.'"
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
The Life of John Jay. With Selections from his Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers. In two volumes, 1833.
War and Peace. The Evils of the First and a Plan for Preserving the Last. London, 1842.
A Review of the Causes and Consequences of the Mexican War, 1849.