To lament the days that are gone, and believe the past better than the present, is a tendency which has been remarked as far back as the days of Solomon. "Say not thou," says the wise King, "What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this." However this may be, it is a propensity, which has always existed, to compare unfavorably the present with the distant past. The Golden Age of which poets sang was in “ our fathers' day, and in the old time before them."

From this feeling the writer realizes that he is not free, and, in many respects, might be inclined to impute his estimate of the present to the waning light in which he sees it. When dealing, however, with facts with which he is well acquainted, he feels that he cannot be prejudiced; and in this way it is that he contrasts the society of the present with that which once existed in New York. From his distant home he looks back on the rush and hurry of life as it now exists in his native city; and, while he realizes its increased glitter and splendor, he feels that it has depreciated from the dignity and high tone which once characterized it.

Of the society of the olden time he can, of course, know but little by ac

tual experience. His knowledge of it began when the old régime was just passing away. In the days of his childhood, the men of the Revolution were fast going down to the grave. Of these he knew some in their old age. His father's contemporaries, however, were somewhat younger, though brought up under the same influences. But when that generation departed, the spirit which had aided in forming their characters had gone also, never again to be felt. To many of these men he looked up as if they were superior beings; and, indeed, he has felt, in all his passage through life, that he has never seen the equals of those who then stood forward prominently in public affairs.

The earliest notice we have of colonial society is in Mrs. Grant's delightful "American Lady." She was the daughter of a British officer who came over with troops during the old French war, and her reminiscences begin about 1760. Her residence was principally in Albany, with the Schuyler family. Still, she was brought in contact with the leading families of the colony, and as she was in the habit of often visiting New York, she learned much of the state of things in that city. She writes thus of the old Dutch and colonial families of that day: "They bore about

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