If I speak freely of him,
it is because I know him, and because you seem curious to pry into
these secret histories of national men. It is not to be repeated to
offend Judge Reeve, or disturb our relations as friends; for we are
such, and have been for fifty years.
"Colonel Burr has ever been remarkable for abilities from his boyhood.
Reeve and the celebrated Samuel Lathrop Mitchell were his classmates,
and agree that he had no equal in college. They were educated at
Princeton. Burr showed not only talent, but application, and a most
burning ambition. He showed, too, that he was already unscrupulous in
the use of means to accomplish his object. There are stories told of
his college-life very discreditable to his fame. He was as remarkable
in his features as in his mind. His capacious forehead, aquiline nose,
and piercingly brilliant eyes, black as night, with a large, flexible
mouth, Grecian in form, made him extremely handsome as a youth. His
manners were natural and elegant, and his conversational powers
unequalled. They are so to-day. Think of these gifts in a man
uninfluenced by principle, and only obedient to the warmer passions.
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