abilities, it is improbable that the memory of John Andre, had he died upon the battle-field or in his bed, would have survived the generation of those who knew and who loved him.  The future, indeed, was opening brilliantly before him; but it was still nothing more than the future.  So far in his career he had hardly accomplished anything better than the attainment of the mountain-top that commanded a view of the Promised Land.  It is solely and entirely to the occasion and the circumstances of his death that we are to ascribe the peculiar and universal interest in his character that has ever since continued to hold its seat in the bosom of friend and of foe.  To this day, the most distinguished American and English historians are at issue respecting the justice of his doom; and to this day, the grave inquirer into the rise and fall of empires pauses by the way to glean some scanty memorial of his personal adventures.  As often happens, the labors of the lesser author who pursues but a single object may encounter more success on that score than the writer whose view embraces a prodigious range; and many trifling details, too inconsiderable to find place in the pages of the annals of a state, reward the inquiry that confines itself to the elucidation of the conduct of an individual.

John Andre was born in England, probably at London,—­possibly at Southampton,—­in the year 1751.  His father was an honest, industrious Switzer, who, following the example of his countrymen and his kindred, had abandoned the rugged land of his birth, and come over to England to see what could be made out of John Bull.  The family-name appears to have originally been St. Andre; and this was the style of the famous dancing-master who gave to the courtiers of Charles II. their graceful motions.

     “St. Andre’s feet ne’er kept more equal time,”

wrote Dryden, in his “MacFlecknoe”; and the same writer again brings him forward in the third act of “Limberham.”  It must be remembered that in those days the teacher of fencing and dancing occupied a very respectable position; and St. Andre’s career was sufficiently prosperous to tempt a young kinsman, who felt the elements of success strong within him, to cross the seas in his own turn, and find wealth and reputation in those pleasant pastures which England above all other countries then laid open to the skilful adventurer.

Nicholas St. Andre, who came to London about the close of the seventeenth century, and who was undoubtedly nearly related to the future Major Andre, seems to have passed through a career hardly paralleled by that of Gil Blas himself.  From the humblest beginnings, his ready wit, his multifarious accomplishments, and his indomitable assurance speedily carried him to the topmost wave of social prosperity.  A brief instruction in surgery gave him such a plausible appearance of proficiency in the art as to permit his public lectures to be favorably received, and to lead to