Taking this rule as a guide, the ancestor of our

Judge must have been a man of no little note.

It is, however, a subject of curious inquiry at the present day, to look into the brief records of that early period, and observe how regular, and with few exceptions how inevitable, were the gra dations, on the one hand, of the masters to pover ty, and on the other, of their servants to weal'.h. Accustomed to ease, and unequal to the struggles incident to an infant society, the affluent emigrant was barely enabled to maintain his own rank, by the weight of his personal superiority and ac quirements ; but the moment that his head was laid in the grave, his indolent, and comparatively un educated offspring, were compelled to yield pre cedency to the more active energies of a class, whose exertions had been stimulated by necessity. This is a very common course of things, even in the present state of the Union ; but it was peculiar ly the fortunes of the two extremes of society, in the peaceful and unenterprising colonies of Penn sylvania and New-Jersey.

The posterity of Marmaduke did not escape the common lot of those, who depended rather on their hereditary possessions than on their own powers; and in the third generation, they had descended to a point, below which, in this happy country, it is barely possible for honesty, intellect, and sobriety, to fall. The same pride of family, that had, by its self-satisfied indolence, conduced to aid their fall, now became a principle to stimu late them to endeavour to rise again. The feel ing, from being morbid, was changed to a health ful and active desire to emulate the character, the condition, and, perad venture, the wealth, of their ancestors also. It was the father of our new ac quaintance, the Judge, who first began to re-ascend the scale of society ; and in this undertaking he