hundreds of
politicians and statesmen of the day get both the web and woof of
their thoughts from Hamilton's brains. He, more than any man, did
the thinking of the time.

His fooling was as inimitable as his use of passion and logic, and on
one occasion he treated Gouverneur Morris, who was his opposing counsel,
to such a prolonged attack of raillery that his momentary rival sat with
the perspiration pouring from his brow, and was acid for some time
after. During his earlier years of practice, while listening to
Chancellor Livingston summing up a case in which eloquence was made to
disguise the poverty of the cause, Hamilton scribbled on the margin of
his brief: "Recipe for obtaining good title for ejectment: two or three
void patents, several _ex parte_ surveys, one or two acts of usurpation
acquiesced in for the time but afterwards proved such. Mix well with
half a dozen scriptural allusions, some ghosts, fairies, elves,
hobgoblins, and a _quantum suff_. of eloquence." Hamilton also
originated the practice of preparing "Points," now in general use.

VIII

Hamilton, after the conclusion of the great libel case in the spring of
1804, returned from Albany to New York to receive honours almost as
great, if less vociferous, than those which had hailed him after the
momentous Convention of 1788. Banquets were given in his honour, the bar
extolled him, and the large body of his personal friends were triumphant
at this new proof of his fecundity and his power over the minds of men.
They were deeply disturbed on another point, however, and several days
after his arrival, Troup rode out to The Grange, Hamilton's
country-seat, to remonstrate.

Hamilton, several years since, had bought a large tract of wooded land
on Harlem Heights and built him a house on the ridge. It commanded a
view of the city, the Hudson, and the Sound. The house was spacious and
strong, built to withstand the winds of the Atlantic, and to shelter
commodiously not only his family, but his many guests. The garden and
the woods were the one hobby of his life, and with his own hands he had
planted thirteen gum trees to commemorate the thirteen original States
of the Union. Fortunately his deepest sorrow was not associated with
this estate; Philip had fallen before the house was finished. This
brilliant youth, who had left Columbia with flying honours, had brooded
over the constant attacks upon his father,--still the Colossus in the
path o