tion of hers she always applied to
the place:

_"In this path,
How long soe'er the wanderer roves, each step
Shall wake fresh beauties; each last point present
A different picture, new, and each the same."_

That entire neighbourhood was rich in game,--we have already seen that
the Dutch farmers thought highly of the duck shooting near the Sand
Hill Road, and that Minetta Brook was a first-class fishing stream.
Birds of all sorts were plentiful, and the Adamses did their best to
preserve them on their own place. But too keen sportsmen were always
stealing into the Richmond Hill grounds for a shot or two. "Oh, for
game laws!" was her constant wail. In one letter she declares: "The
partridge, the woodcock and the pigeon are too great temptations for
the sportsman to withstand!"

And please don't forget for one moment that this was at Charlton and
Varick streets!

The House on the Hill was the home of quite ceremonious entertaining
in those days. John Adams, in another land, would surely have been a
courtier--a Cavalier rather than a Roundhead. John T. Morse, Jr., says
that the Vice-president liked "the trappings of authority." The same
historian declares that in his advice to President Washington, "... he
talked of dress and undress, of attendants, gentlemen-in-waiting,
chamberlains, etc., as if he were arranging the household of a
European monarch."

Gulian C. Verplanck (sometimes known by the nom de plume of "Francis
Herbert"), wrote in 1829, quite an interesting account of Richmond
Hill as he personally recalled it. He draws for us a graphic picture
of a dinner party given by the Vice-president and Mrs. Adams for
various illustrious guests.

After entering the house by a side door on the right, they mounted a
broad staircase with a heavy mahogany railing. Dinner was served in a
large room on the second floor with Venetian windows and a door
opening out onto the balcony under the portico. And then he gives us
these vivid little vignettes of those who sat at the great table:

In the centre sat "Vice-president Adams in full dress, with his bag
and _solitaire_, his hair frizzed out each side of his face as you see
it in Stuart's older pictures of him. On his right sat Baron Steuben,
our royalist republican disciplinarian general. On his left was Mr.
Jefferson, who had just returned from France, conspicuous in his red
waistcoat and breeches, the fashion of Versailles. Opposite sat