EWING. SAMUEL EWING was one of those who, with talents which might achieve an elevated rank in national concerns, prefer the pursuits of an honourable profession, and the tranquil pleasures of domestic life. He was born in the city of Philadelphia, on the 16th day of August, 1776. His father, the late Rev. Dr. John Ewing, dur ing a series of forty years, was the Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in that city, and more than half of that time held the station of Provost of the University of Pennsylvania. In this institution, which was then in the zenith of its famé, Mr. Ewing was carefully instructed under the immediate eye of his father; and he frequently exhibited proofs of that fine combination of genius and humour which characterized both his conversation and his writings. Among these juvenile efforts may be mentioned a dramatic performance, which was never acted because it was a political satire, and the allusions too personal and pungent for the stage. Soon after he graduated he was placed in the compting house of John Swanwick, an eminent merchant, and one of the Representatives in the Congress of the United States. In consequence of the bankruptcy of this gentleman, on whose patronage Mr. Ewing had mainly depended for the commencement of his career, he abandoned commercial speculations, after making one voyage in the quality of a supercargo, and devoted himself to the profession of law: a pursuit far more congenial with his talents and temperament. He became a student in the office of the late William Lewis; and was admitted to the bar of the Common Pleas in the latter end of the year 1800. About this period the literary circle in Philadelphia was enriched by the addition of a gentleman who, with many captivating qualities as a companion, possessed a mind fertile in wit and richly stored with the treasures of polite literature. Joseph Dennie had long been known to village readers, but the fame of the "Farmer's Museum" and other literary enterprises burst the obscurity of rural bounds and he aspired to flourish in a city. Philadelphia was then the seat of the federal government, and Mr. Dennie was so fortunate as to obtain a place in the Department of State, of which Mr. Pickering, at that time, was the chief officer. The duty of writing letters was assigned to him; but it may easily be imagined that the severe taste of the Secretary could not be satisfied with the tropes, the alliterations, and the conceits of Mr. Dennie. The habits, too, of " the desultory man," were at utter variance with the regular routine of official duty, which, being faithfully practised by Mr. Pickering himself, may, perhaps, have been the more rigidly exacted from his clerks. Dennie's pen soon strayed from the diplomatic bureau to a more congenial province. Under the happiest auspices, the PORT FOLIO sprung into existence on the 1st of January, 1801, and Mr. Ewing, an ardent admirer and cordial friend of Mr. Dennie, was one of his earliest and most valuable correspondents. His" Reflections in Solitude," which appeared occasionally in the columns of the Port Folio, were sought with flattering eagerness; and no reader in whose heart the muse of Cowper has found a place, will peruse the meditations of "Jacques" without emotion. Under this assumed name he surveys landscape with the eye of a painter, and displays great felicity in combining sentiment with description. Whenever, in these moral and nervous poems, he contemplates a rural object, we instantly inquire "But what says Jacques? Did he not moralize this spectacle? -Oh yes, into a thousand similes.". Many of the most humorous among the prose essays in this Miscellany were also from his various and fertile pen. He found leisure, also, to impart zest and vivacity to some of the daily gazettes, by pasquinades, the effects of which D are not yet forgotten by those who came under his lash. The elegant translator of Anacreon, on his visit to Philadelphia, in 1804, found the club of wits of that period, in the full enjoyment of health, high spirits, and literary zeal. His poems had preceded him: their exceptionable qualities, in the estimation of Mr. Dennie, were redeemed by their beauties. They had been, therefore, transplanted into the Port Folio and loudly extolled. His translation, too, was at that moment issuing from our press, under the patronage of these gentlemen, in a style of typographical beauty hitherto unknown in this country. Under these circumstances, it need scarcely be added, that the meeting on all sides was highly cordial. The evening hours which this junta enjoyed at " Number Two," after the day had been devoted to severer studies, made a strong impression upon the mind of the British poet; and his gratitude was afterwards expressed in a passage which may be introduced in this place as a beautiful tribute of genius to the powers of friendship and hospitality: Believe me, while I winged the hours, Where Schuylkill undulates thro' banks of flowers, Though few the days, the happy evenings few, So warm with heart, so rich with mind they flew, That my full soul forgot its wish to roam, And rested there as in a dream of home! O si sic omnia!-Would that he had always written thus when he recurred to American scenes! has been the fervent aspiration of many who wish to cherish the recollection of Mr. Moore with feelings of unmingled delight. The popularity of this poet, in the United States, has suffered no little diminution in consequence of certain harsh and unfounded strains, in which he indulged upon his return to England; but it may soften the resentment of some, to learn, that these tirades were deeply regretted by their author, and in subsequent editions, were cancelled as far as they remained under his control. See note, page 30. Although Mr. Ewing sought "the light of jurisprudence" with all the assiduity of one whose spirit aspires to the rock of independence; a taste for literature distinguished him through life, and there is little doubt, that if he had cultivated letters, as an author, he would have attained eminence. In the year 1809, wearied by the long probation of laborious idleness to |