Richard  Rush  was  born  in  Philadelphia,  on  the  29th  of  August,
1780.  After  having  been  at  the  usual  preparatory  schools,  he  was
entered  in  the  college  at  Princeton,  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  at  which
institution  his  father,  and  maternal  grandfather,  Richard  Stockton,
of  New  Jersey,  had  both  been  educated,  both  of  whom  were  signers
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  During  his  college  life,  he
lived,  in  part,  at  the  house  of  his  grandmother,  Mrs.  Stockton,  then
living  in  Princeton, — known  in  her  day  for  her  literary  attainments,
and  who  wrote  those  patriotic  stanzas  beginning,  "  Welcome,  mighty


chief,  once  more!"  sung  by  young  ladies  of  Trenton,  when  s
flowers  before  General  Washington,  at  the  Triumphal  Arch  in  that
town,  in  1789, — stan/as  that  Marshall  has  made,  in  some  measure
historic,  by  giving   them  a  place  in  his  account  of  Washington's
memorable  journey  from  Mount  Vernon,  on  going  to  New  York  to
be  installed  as  President.
At  college,  though  but  little  addicted  to  hard  study,  he  was  fond
of  debate  and  public  speaking,  for  which  intellectual  exercises  In-
early  exhibited  the  germs  of  future  excellence.  He  took  his  de-
gree in  the  autumn  of  1797,  being  the  youngest  in  a  class  of  thirty-
three.  Immediately  upon  his  graduation,  he  commenced  the  study
of  the  law,  in  the  office  of  William  Lewis,  Esq.,  then  one  of  tin-
leaders  of  the  Philadelphia  Bar.
The  year  following,  the  whole  country  was  in  a  state  of  martial
excitement,  under  the  wrongs  and  insults  of  France.  The  youth
of  the  country  poured  in  their  addresses  to  the  President,  Mr.
