Bew VOL. VI.] ew-York NEW-YORK, JANUARY, 1848. [MONTHLY PART. MEMOIR OF THE LATE CHANCELLOR KENT. JAMES KENT was born on the 31st of July, 1763, in Fredericksburg, then part of Dutchess, but now of Putnam county, New-York, and was the eldest son of Moss Kent, a graduate of Yale College, Connecticut, who was admitted to the bar of Dutchess county in 1756. His grandfather, Rev. Elisha Kent, a native of Suffield, Conn., was for thirty-six years minister of the Presbyterian congregation of Kent's Parish in Dutchess county, and his brother, Moss, sat in the Senate of this State, and in Congress, and was for some time Register of the Court of Chancery. Mr. KENT was sent to school at Norwalk, when but five years old, and was placed under various instructors, until he entered Yale College, in September, 1777, more than seventy years since. From the precepts, and yet more the example, of those pious Puritans among whom his early years were passed, he acquired that simplicity of character and purity of morals which he preserved through life. In July, 1779, New-Haven was invaded by the British forces, the College broken up and the students dispersed. In his exile, young Kent met with Blackstone's Commentaries, read, admired, and at sixteen, determined to be a lawyer. He finally left college, with high reputation, studied law with Egbert Benson, Attorney-General of New-York, was studious, temperate, and a water-drinker, indulging in none of the fashionable pleasures or dissipation of the times. An enthusiastic admirer of Nature's charms, the love of reading was his ruling passion. He was cheerful, lively and communicative-young, ardent, active and persevering his mind was early stored with useful knowledge, and the morning of his life gave promise of the noonday brilliancy of his remarkable career. In April, 1787, he was admitted, at Albany, a counsellor of the Supreme Court-in 1790, and again in 1792, elected to the Legislature by the people of his native county. From the purest motives, and believ |