Page:The amorous intrigues and adventures of Aaron Burr.pdf/5

 He was no dreamer, who invested the fair sex with the bright creations of a vivid fancy, but a man of sound, cool, and accurate judgment, keen discrimination, and one who possessed great knowledge of human nature. As a lawyer he was pre-eminent, and as a statesman he had no superior. He was a man of great benevolence, and impoverished himself by his liberality to those who stood in need of pecuniary aid; but among the women, it must be confessed, that he was often led away by the warmth of his temperament.

The infancy and boyhood of Aaron Burr passed under the most favorable circumstances. They were such as to give him an exalted opinion of that sex which is so capable of imparting to us the keenest enjoyments, both of a physical and moral nature. He associated with none but respectable young ladies of family and of education.

The grandfather of Burr was a German of noble lineage, and his father, the Rev. Aaron Burr, was educated at Yale College, and was subsequently appointed the President of the New Jersey College, known afterwards as Nassau Hall.

President Burr, father of our hero, was married, in his 38th year, to the daughter of Jonathan Edwards, the celebrated metaphysician and divine. President Burr was celebrated for his eloquence and his piety, and was also noted for his eccentricity.

The mother of our hero, Esther Burr, thus speaks of him in a letter to her father, President Edwards:

"My little son [then twenty months old] has been sick with the slow fever since my brother left us, and has been brought to the brink of the grave. But I hope, in mercy, God is bringing him up again."

Aaron not only recovered, but possessed a good constitution, great muscular power, and an independent, self-relying mind. This he evinced by running away from his preceptor, when only four years of age.

Aaron Burr was born on the 6th of February, 1756, in Newark, State of New Jersey. His father died in August, 1757, and his mother during the following year, leaving two children, Aaron and his sister Sarah. Sarah married Judge Tappan Reeve. Colonel Burr inherited a handsome estate on the death of his father.

Although deprived of his pious and highly respectable parents, Burr fell into good hands.

Aaron and his sister were transferred to the family of Timothy Edwards, their mother's eldest brother, who lived in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

In 1762 Mr. Edwards removed to Elizabethtown, New Jersey. A