f Solomon was boarded with the parish
minister, in whose kindness he found a lenitive for the scholastic
discipline he underwent. This gentleman had been a soldier in the
Colonial service, and Mr. Quincy afterwards gave as a reason for his
mildness, that, "while a sergeant at Castle William, he had seen
something of mankind." This, no doubt, would be a better preparative for
successful dealing with the young than is generally thought. However,
the birch was then the only classic tree, and every round in the ladder
of learning was made of its inspiring wood. Dr. Pearson, perhaps,
thought he was only doing justice to his pupil's claims of kindred by
giving him a larger share of the educational advantages which the
neighboring forest afforded. The vividness with which this system is
always remembered by those who have been subjected to it would seem to
show that it really enlivened the attention, and thereby invigorated the
memory, nay, might even raise some question as to what part of the
person is chosen by the mother of the Muses for her residence. With an
appetite for the classics quickened by "Cheever's Accidence," and such
other preliminary whets as were then in vogue, young Quincy entered
college, where he spent the usual four years, and was graduated with the
highest honors of his class. The amount of Latin and Greek imparted to
the students of that day was not very great. They were carried through
Horace, Sallust, and the _De Oratoribus_ of Cicero, and read portions of
Livy, Xenophon, and Homer. Yet the chief end of classical studies was
perhaps as often reached then as now, in giving young men a love for
something apart from and above the more vulgar associations of life. Mr.
Quincy, at least, retained to the last a fondness for certain Latin
authors. While he was President of the College, he told a gentleman,
from whom we received the story, that, "if he were imprisoned, and
allowed to choose one book for his amusement, that one should be
Horace."

In 1797, Mr. Quincy was married to Miss Eliza Susan Morton of New York,
a union which lasted in unbroken happiness for more than fifty years.
His case might be cited among the leading ones in support of the old
poet's axiom, that

"He never loved, that loved not at first sight";

for he saw, wooed, and won in a week. In later life he tried in a most
amusing way to account for this rashness, and to find reasons of
settled gravity for the happy inspiration of his