As you would not come for pepper seed, nor to drink
ader, nor to see the Dedham canal up Charles river, which
is not to be seen, I will readily admit that you both come to
see Mrs. A. and your humUe servant. I will not enlarge
on the weight these last motives would have with any other
good people, but my vanity stiffly muntains that they have
influence wiUi you. Indeed it founds itself a good deal on
such kind of pretensions.
Sir, I was elected President — not of the United States ;
and do you know why I did not accept 1 I had no inclina-
tion for it. The health I have, would have been used up at
Cambridge in a year. My old habits are my dear comforts,
and these must have been violently changed.
How much I was in a scrape in consequence of the offer,
and with what three weeks' mystery and sJddreas I extricated
myself, are themes for conversation when we meet. I have
extric^ed myself, and feel like a truck or stage horse, who
is onc« more allowed to roll in the dirt without his harness.
Everybody Ikas heu-d of Mrs. A.'s proposing that I should
take H, A., if 1 went to Cambridge, as ahe would neither
go nor learn Greek.
ty Google



S56 WORKS OF riSH££ AMES.
Apropos of Hannah Adams. Her abridgment of her
History of New England, for the use of schools, has, I be-
lieve, superior merit. I have read a chapter, and, after
reading more, shall put my name to the recommendation of

the work. Young , and others, friends to

modest merit, have bought the whole of her first edition^
and a second is preparing. I wish to see it in use.
