his head was laid in
the grave, his indolent, and comparatively uneducated offspring, were compelled
to yield precedency to the more active energies of a class, whose exertions had
been stimulated by necessity. This is a very common course of things, even in
the present state of the Union; but it was peculiarly the fortunes of the two
extremes of society, in the peaceful and unenterprising colonies of Pennsylvania
and New-Jersey.
    The posterity of Marmaduke did not escape the common lot of those, who
depend rather on their hereditary possessions than on their own powers; and in
the third generation, they had descended to a point, below which, in this happy
country, it is barely possible for honesty, intellect, and sobriety, to fall.
The same pride of family, that had, by its self-satisfied indolence, conduced to
aid their fall, now became a principle to stimulate them to endeavour to rise
again. The feeling, from being morbid, was changed to a healthful and active
desire to emulate the character, the condition, and, peradventure, the wealth,
of their ancestors also. It was the father of our new acquaintance, the Judge,
who first began to re-ascend in the scale of society; and in this undertaking he
was not a little assisted by a marriage, which aided in furnishing the means of
educating his only son, in a rather better manner than the low state of the
common schools in Pennsylvania could promise; or than had been the practice in
the family, for the two or three preceding generations.
    At the school where the reviving prosperity of his father was enabled to
maintain him, young Marmaduke formed an intimacy with a youth, whose years were
about equal to his own. This was a fortunate connexion for our Judge, and paved
the way to most of his future elevation in life.
    There was not only great wealth, but high court interest, amongst the
connexions of Edward Effingham. They were one of the few families, then resident
in the colonies, who thought it a degradation to its members, to descend to the
pursuits of commerce; and who never emerged from the privacy of domestic life,
unless to preside in the councils of the colony, or to bear arms in her defence.
The latter had, from youth, been the only employment of Edward's father.
Military rank, under the crown of Great Britain, was attained with much longer
probation, and by much more toilsome services, sixty years ago, than at the
present time. Years were passed, without murmuring, in the subordinate grades of
the