being thirty-seven years a member, at last became president of the council of this colony. To all this were added a great elegancy of taste and life, the well-bred gentleman and polite companion, the splendid economist and prudent father of a family, with the constant enemy of all exorbitant power, and hearty friend to the liberties of his country. Nat. Mar. 28, 1674. Mort. Aug. 26, 1744. An. ætat. 70." The gentleman thus described, a man of pleasure and literature, at the age of fifty-four, set out with a select party, composed of two fellow Virginian commissioners, Richard Fitz-William and William Dandridge; two surveyors, William Mayo, and the mathematical professor of William and Mary, Alexander Irvin; with the Reverend Peter Fountain* as chaplain, and a party of seventeen woodmen and hunters, for the purpose of meeting a similar body of commissioners of North Carolina to draw the boundary line between the two states. There were two expeditions for this purpose, one in the spring, the other in the fall of the year 1728. Col. Byrd conducted the Virginia party gallantly and safely through its perils on what was then a tour of discovery, and on his return to his seat at Westover caused his notes of the journey to be fairly copied, and revised them with his own hand. As now printed they form one of the most characteristic and entertaining productions of the kind ever written. They have that sharp outline in description and freshness of feeling in sentiment which marks the best Virginia tracts of Captain John Smith and his fellows a century earlier; with a humor of a more modern date derived from a good natural vein and the stores of experience of a man acquainted with books, and of society in intimacy with what was best in the old world and the new; and moreover of that privileged license of fortune which permits a man to please others by first pleasing himself. Col. Byrd is a little free in his language at times, but that belongs to the race of hearty livers of his century. There are touches in the Journal worthy of Fielding; indeed it is quite in the vein of his exquisite Journey from London to Lisbon. The business of the expedition is narrated in a clear, straightforward manner. It had its diffieulties in encounters with morasses, pocosons, and slashes, beginning with the Dismal Swamp; and there was occasionally a rainy day and sometimes a prospect of short commons. But it was free from any serious disasters, and, at the worst, seeins never to have overpowered the good humor of its leader; showing that however daintily he may have been brought up, there is nothing like the spirit of a gentleman and a scholar in encountering hardships. A good portion of this pleasant narrative is taken up with accounts of the scenery, the Indians, and the large stock of game and “varmint" which gave etnployment to the hunters of the party, and doubtless furnished the staple of the highly-flavored stories of the "Manuscripts" The son of the Rev. James Fontaine, e Inguenot refugee, on the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, who settled in Freland and prepared an Autobiography for the use of all his children, which is printed with valuable illustrative matter in the "Memoirs of a Huguenot Family," in a second edition, New York, 153, by Ann Maury, one of his numerous descon dauts. The volume Includes a serinon and several letters by the clergyman of Westover. over the camp kettle at night. In the early parts no little wit is expended upon the traditional traits of character of the North Carolinians, who fare no better in Byrd's hands than the Yankees or the Dutchmen in the annals of Diedrich Knickerbocker. The inhabitants of the vicinity of Coratuck inlet seem to have furnished some extraordinary specimens of humanity in those days-one in particular of a marooner whose sole dress was his beard, and whose subsistence was "chiefly upon oysters, which his handmaid made a shift to gather from the adjacent rocks." To which he adds, "thus did these wretches live in a state of nature, and were mere Adainites, innocence only excepted." The disputed ground of the boundary was then a refuge for runaway debtors, of whom we are told: "Nor were these worthy borderers content to shelter runaway slaves, but debtors and criminals have often met with the like indulgence. But if the government of North Carolina has encouraged this unneighbourly policy in order to increase their people, it is no more than what ancient Rome did before them, which was made a city of refuge for all debtors and fugitives, and from that wretched beginning grew up in time to be mistress of a great part of the world. And, considering how fortune delights in bringing great things out of small, who knows but Carolina may, one time or other, come to be the seat of some other great empire?" As for religion, these careless settlers seem to be quite without it, as recorded by Col. Byrd, on occasion of a Sunday service when part of his company were in the perils of the Dismal Swamp: "In these sad circumstances, the kindest thing we could do for our suffering friends was to give them a place in the Litany. Our chaplain, for his part, did his office, and rubbed us up with a seasonable sermon. This was quite a new thing to our brethren of North Carolina, who live in a climate where no clergyman can breathe, any more than spiders in Ireland." Arriving at Edenton we are told: "I believe this is the only metropolis in the Christian or Mahometan world, where there is neither church, chapel, mosque, synagogue, or any other place of public worship whatsoever. What little devotion there may happen to be is much more private than their vices. The people seem easy without a minister, as long as they are exempted from paying him. Sometimes the Society for propagating the Gospel has had the charity to send over missionaries to this country; but unfortunately the priest has been too lewd for the people, or, which oftener happens, they are too lewd for the priest. For these reasons these reverend gentlemen have always left their flocks as arrant heathen as they found them. Thus much however may be said for the inhabitants of Edenton, that not a soul has the least taint of hypocrisy, or superstition, acting very frankly and above-board in all their excesses. There is also a hint for the Virginian clergy, which his friend Fountain could have stood in no need of: "We christened two of our landlord's children, which might have remained infidels all their lives, had not we curried Christianity home to his own door. The truth of it is, our neighbours of North Carolina are not so zealous as to go much out of their way to procure this benefit for their children: otherwise, being so near Virginia, they might, without exceeding much trouble, make a journey to the next clergyman, upon so good an errand. And indeed should the neighbouring ministers, once in two or three years, vouchsafe to take a turn among these gentiles, to baptize them and their children, it would look a little apostolical, and they might hope to be requited for it hereafter, if that be not thought too long to tarry for their reward." The terms of expression in these sentences show the ready wit, and there is here and there a moderate allowance for poetry in sight of the natural beauties of the country; when he speaks apologetically for marrying the vines to the trees, and pitches the tent "on the western banks of the Mayo for the pleasure of being lulled to sleep by the cascade," when a churl would have taken the other side. But he does not affect that kind of writing, though the material for it is there. He is more inclined to such illustrations as this: "In this fine land, however, we met with no water, till at the end of three miles we luckily came upon a crystal stream, which, like some lovers of conversation, discovered every thing committed to its faithless bosom." His naming of places is by their fanciful characteristics, as a "noisy impetuous stream" he calls Matrimony Creek; one hill a Pimple and a larger elevation a Wart. He is a vivid describer of a wild beast or an Indian. Ilis description of the savage scalping makes the flesh creep:-" Those that are killed of the enemy, or disabled, they scalp, that is, they cut the skin all around the head just below the hair, and then clapping their feet to the poor mortal's shoulders, pull the scalp off clean and carry it off in triumph." Of the frequent Natural History stories we may take that on Bruin, how he eats and is eaten. Our Indian killed a bear, two years old, that was feasting on these grapes. He was very fat, as they generally are in that season of the year. In the fall, the flesh of this animal has a high relish, different from that of other creatures, though inclining nearest to that of pork, or rather of wild boar. A true woodsman prefers this sort of meat to that of the fattest venison, not only for the haut gout, but also because the fat of it is well tasted, and never rises in the stomach. Another proof of the goodness of this meat is, that it is less apt to corrupt than any other with which we are acquainted. As agreeable as such rich diet was to the men, yet we who were not accustomed to it, tasted it at first with some sort of squeamishness, that animal being of the dog kind; though a little use soon reconciled us to this American venison. And that its being of the dog kind might give us the less disgust, we had the example of that ancient and polite people, the Chinese, who reckon dog's flesh too good for any under the quality of a mandarin. This beast is in truth a very clean feeder, living, while the season lasts, upon acorns, chestnuts and chinquapins, wild honey and wild grapes. They are naturally not carnivo rous, unless hunger constrain them to it, after the mast is all gone, and the product of the woods quite exhausted. They are not provident enough to lay up any hoard, like the squirrels, nor can they, after all, live very long upon licking their paws, as Sir John Mandevil and some other travellers tell us, but are forced in the winter months to quit the mountains, and visit the inhabitants. Their errand is then to surprise a poor hog at a pinch to keep them from starving. And to show that they are not flesh-eaters by trade, they devour their prey very awkwardly. They do not kill it right out, and feast upon its blood and entrails, like other ravenous beasts, but having, after a fair pursuit, seized it with their paws, they begin first upon the rump, and so devour one collop after another, till they come to the vitals, the poor animal crying all the while, for several minutes together. However, in so doing, Bruin acts a little imprudently, because the dismal outery of the hog alarms the neighbourhood, and it is odds but he pays the forfeit with his life, before he can secure his retreat. But bears soon grow weary of this unnatural diet, and about January, when there is nothing to be gotten in the woods, they retire into some cave or hollow tree, where they sleep away two or three months very comfortably. But then they quit their holes in March, when the fish begin to run up the rivers, on which they are forced to keep Lent, till some fruit or berry comes in season. But bears are fondest of chestnuts, which grow plentifully towards the mountains, upon very large trees, where the soil happens to be rich. We were curious to know how it happened that many of the outward branches of those trees came to be broken off in that solitary place, and were informed that the bears are so discreet as not to trust their unwieldy bodies on the smaller limbs of the tree, that would not bear their weight; but after venturing as far as is safe, which they can judge to an inch, they bite off the end of the branch, which falling down, they are content to finish their repast upon the ground. In the same cautious manner they secure the acorns that grow on the weaker limbs of the oak. And it must be allowed that, in these instances, a bear carries instinct a great way, and acts more reasonably than many of his betters, who indiscreetly venture upon frail projects that will not bear them. The practical suggestions for the investigation of the country are acute and valuable-nor should his simple expressions of thankfulness to God be forgotten. On the twenty-second day of November he closes the Diary with this satisfactory review of the affair: Thus ended our second expedition, in which we extended the line within the shadow of the Chariky mountains, where we were obliged to set up our pillars, like Hercules, and return home. We had now, upon the whole, been out about sixteen weeks, including going and returning, and had travelled at least six hundred miles, and no small part of that distance on foot. Below, towards the seaside, our course lay through marshes, swamps, and great waters; and above, over steep hills, craggy rocks and thickets, hardly penetrable. Notwithstanding this variety of hardships, we may say, without vanity, that we faithfully obeyed the king's orders, and performed the business effectually, in which we had the honour to be employed. Nor can we by any means reproach ourselves of having put the crown to any exorbitant expense in this difficult affair, the whole charge, from beginning to end, amounting to no more than one thousand pounds But let no one concerned in this painful expedition complain of the scantiness of his pay, so long as his majesty has been graciously pleased to add to our reward the honour of his royal approbation, and to declare, notwithstanding the desertion of the Carolina commissioners, that the line by us run shall hereafter stand as the true boundary betwixt the governments of Virginia and North Carolina. There are two other sketches of Old Virginia travel in the volume of the Westover Manuscripts; -one of a Progress to the Mines in the year 1732, and another in the following year of A Journey to the Land of Eden, which possess the same pleasant characteristics of adventure, personal humor, and local traits. JAMES LOGAN. JAMES LOGAN, the founder of the Loganian Library of Philadelphia, was a man of note in his literary and scientific accomplishments and writings. He was born in Ireland in 1674; was a good scholar in the classics and mathematics in his youth, was for a while a teacher, then engaged in business, when he fell in with Penn, and came over with him to America as his secretary in 1699. He rose to the dignities of Chief Justice and President of the Council. He continued the administration of Penn to the satisfaction of the colony. As a testimony of the respect in which he was held by the Indians, the chief, Logan, celebrated for his speech presented in Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, was named after him. James Logan. In 1735, he communicated to Peter Collinson, of London, an account of his experiments on maize, with a view of investigating the sexual doctrine, which was printed in the Philosophical Transactions. This was afterwards enlarged, and printed in a Latin essay at Leyden, in 1739, with the title Experimenta et Meletemata de Plantarum Generatione, and republished in London, with an English translation, by Dr. Fothergill, in 1747. He also published at Amsterdam, in 1740, Epistola ad Virum Clarissimum Joannem Albertum Fabricium, and at Leyden, in 1741, Demonstrationes de Radiorum Lucis in Superficies sphericas ab Axe incidentium a primario Foco Aberrationibus. He passed his old age in retirement, at his country scat named Stenton, near Germantown, penning the translation of Cicero's De Senectute, to which he added extensive familiar notes. The first edition, a very neat specimen of printing,t was published by his friend Franklin in 1744, with this preface: THE PRINTER TO THE READER. This version of Cicero's tract De Senectute was made ten years since, by the honorable and learned Mr. Logan, of this city; undertaken partly for his own amusement (being then in his 60th year, which is said to be nearly the age of the author when he wrote it), but principally for the entertainment of a neighbor, then in his grand climacteric; and the notes were drawn up solely on that neighbor's account, who was not so well acquainted as himself with the Roman history and language; some other friends, however (among whom I had the honor to be ranked), obtained copies of it in MS. And, as I believed it to be in itself equal at least, if not far preferable to any other translation of the same piece extant in our language, besides the advantage it has of so many valuable notes, which at the same time they clear up the text, are highly instructive and entertaining, I resolved to give it an impression, being confident that the public would not unfavorably receive it. A certain freed-man of Cicero's is reported to have said of a medicinal well, discovered in his time, wonderful for the virtue of its waters in restoring sight to the aged, That it was a gift of the bountiful Gods to men, to the end that all might now have the pleasure of reading his Master's works. As that well, if still in being, is at too great a distance for our use, I have, gentle reader, as thou seest, printed this piece of Cicero's in a large and fair character, that those who begin to think on the subject of OLD AGE (which seldom happens till their sight is somewhat impaired by its approach), may not, in reading, by the pain small letters give to the eyes, feel the pleasure of the mind in the least allayed I shall add to these few lines my hearty wish, that this first translation of a classic in this Western World, may be followed with many others, performed with equal judgment and success; and be a happy omen, that Philadelphia shall become the seat of the American muses. This was reprinted in London in 1750, at Glasgow in 1751, and in 1778, with Franklin's name falsely inscribed on the title-page. Buckminster Anthology,t with his accustomed scholarship, and reviewed this translation at length in the Monthly has given it the praise of being the best translabiographical and narrative, are entertaining, and tion previous to that of Melmoth. The notes, are taken from the original classics, of which Logan had a great store in his library. Buckminster suggests that "from their general complexion, it would not be surprising if it should prove that Dr. Franklin himself had occasionally inserted some remarks. There is sometimes much ions, which, perhaps, betray more of Pagan than quaintness and always great freedom in the reflexof Christian philosophy." Besides these writings, Logan made A Translation of Cato's Distichs into English verse, which was printed at Philadelphia. He left behind him in MS. part of an ethical treatise entitled, The Duties of Man as they may be deduced from Nature; fraginents of A Dissertation on the Writings of Moses; A Defence of Aristotle and the Ancient Philosophers; Essays on Languages and the Antiquities of the British Isles; a trans It had been preceded by Bandy's, in his translation of Ovid, ante, 1. V. 281, 840, 801. Memoirs by Mrs. Lee, 281 Monthly Anthology, v. 895. lation of Maurocordatus περί καθηκοντων, and of Philo Judæus's Allegory of the Esseans.* Like Franklin, Logan was a diligent correspondent with the learned scientific men of Europe. Among his correspondents, says Mr. Fisher, who speaks from acquaintance with his papers, were, "in this country, Cadwallader Colden, Governor Burnet, and Colonel Hunter, the accomplished friend of Swift; and in Europe, Collinson, Fothergill, Mead, Sir Hans Sloane, Flamsteed, Jones the mathematician, father of the celebrated Sir William Jones, Fabricius, Gronovius, and Linnæus; the last of whom gave the name of Logan to a class in botany." Logan was a man of general reading in the ancient and modern languages, and had formed for himself a valuable library. He was making provision, at the time of his death, which occurred October 31, 1751, to establish this collection of books as a permanent institution, and confer it upon the city, and had erected a building for the purpose. His heirs liberally carried out his intentions, and founded the Loganian Library at Philadelphia. It consisted at first of more than two thousand volumes which Logan had collected, chiefly Greek and Latin classics, and books in the modern languages of the European continent. A large collection of books was afterwards bequeathed by Doctor William Logan, a younger brother of the founder, who was for some time librarian. The library remained unopened for some time after the Revolution, when the legis lature of Pennsylvania, in 1792, annexed it to the library company established by Franklin and his associates. It then contained nearly four thousand volumes. The collection has been kept separate. It received a handsome accession of five thousand volumes, by the bequest of William Mackenzie, a Philadelphian, in 1828. John Davis, in his Travels in America, speaks of his visit to the Loganian Library in 1798, in terms which remind us of the corresponding compliment to Roscoe and the Liverpool Athenæum in the Sketch Book. "I contemplated with reverence the portrait of James Logan, which graces the room-Magnum et venerabile nomen. I could not repress my exclamations. As I am only a stranger, said I, in this country, I affect no enthusiasm on beholding the statues of her Generals and Statesmen. I have left a church filled with them on the shore of Albion that have a prior claim to such feeling. But I here behold the portrait of a man whom I consider so great a A Sketch of Logan's Career, by J. Francis Fisher, in Sparks's Life of Franklin, vii. 24-27. A volume of Memoirs of Logan, by W. Armistead, was published in London in 1852, 12mo. pp. 192. When Swift was in London in 1708 and 9, "there was," Rays Sir Walter Scott in his memoirs of that personage, "a plan suggested, perhaps by Col. Hunter, governor of Virginia, to send out Dr. Swift as bishop of that province, to exercise a sort of metropolitan authority over the colonial clergy." Vol. 1. of works, 98. He was appointed Governor of Virginia in 1708, and was taken by the French on his voyage thither. There is an amusing letter of Swift's to Hunter, in Paris, dated January 12, 1708-9. Colonel Hunter arrived in America as Governor of New York in 1710. In 1719 he returned to England, and on the accession of George 11. was continued Gover nor of New York and the Jerseys He obtained, on account of his health, the government of Jamaica, where he died in 1784. He was the author of a celebrated Letter on Enthusiasm," ascribed to Swift; and a farce, entitled Androboros, has been attributed to him. Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes of 16th Cen tury, vi. 69.90. Reed's Blog. Dram. 1. 250, Bancroft, ill. 64 ་་ And For how solid, how sincere, think you, must that pleasure be to the mind, when, after it has happily worked through the ruffling tides of those uneasy passions, lust, ambition, emulation, contention, and every strong impetuous desire, it finds itself arrived at its harbor, and like a veteran discharged from the fatigues of war, got home, and retired within itself into a state of tranquillity! But if it has the further advantage of literature and science, and can by that means feed on, or divert itself with some useful or amusing study, no condition can be imagined more happy than such calm enjoyments, in the leisure and quiet of old age. How warm did we see Gallus, your father's intimate friend, Scipio, in pursuit of his astronomical studies to the last! How often did the rising sun surprise him, fixed on a calculation he began over night? And how often the evening, on what he had begun in the morning? What a vast pleasure did it give him, when he could foretell to us, when we should see the sun or moon in an eclipse? And how many others have we known in their old age delighting themselves in other studies which, though of less depth than those of Gallus, yet must be allowed to be in themselves ingenious and commendable! How pleased was Nævius with his poem of the Punic war how Plautus, with his Truculentus and Pseudolus! I remember even old Livius, who had his first dramatic piece acted six years before I was born, in the consulship of Cento and Tuditanus, and continued his compositions till I was grown up towards the state of manhood. What need I mention Licinius Crassus's studies in the pontifical and civil law? Or those of Publius Scipio, now lately made supreme pontiff And all these I have seen, not only diverting themselves in old age, but eagerly pursuing the several studies they affected. With what unwearied diligence did we behold Marcus Cethegus, whom Ennius justly enough called the soul of persuasion, applying himself at a great age to oratory, and the practice of pleading? Upon all which let me ask you, what gratifications of sense, what voluptuous enjoyments in feasting, wine, women, or play, and the like, are to be compared with those noble entertainments Those pure and serene pleasures of the mind, the rational fruits of knowledge and learning, that grafted on a good natural disposition, cultivated by a liberal educa tion, and trained up in prudence and virtue, are so far from being palled in old age, that they rather continually improve, and grow on the possessor. Excellent, therefore, was that expression of Solon, which I mentioned before, when he said, that daily learning something, he grew old: for the pleasures arising from such a course, namely, those of the mind, must be allowed incomparably to exceed all others, • Travels, 40, ROGER WOLCOTT. ROGER WOLCOTT was born at Windsor, Conn., Jan. 4, 1679. Owing to the unsettled state of the country, and the constant incursions of Indians, it was impossible to maintain a school or clergyman at that time in the little town, and Wolcott was consequently deprived of the advantages of early education. At the age of twelve he was apprenticed to a mechanic. On becoming his own master, at twenty-one, he was enabled to & Wolcom establish himself on the banks of the Connecticut, where, by diligence and frugality, he succeeded in acquiring a competence. In 1711 he was appointed a commissary of the forces of the colony in the attack on Canada, and he bore the commission of major-general at the capture of Louisbourg, in 1745. He was also prominent in the civil service of the colony, and after passing through various judicial and political grades of office, was chosen governor from 1751 to 1754. He died May 17, 1767, at the advanced age of 88. He wrote A Brief Account of the Agency of the Honorable John Winthrop, Esq., in the Court of King Charles the Second, Anno Dom. 1662, when he obtained a Charter for the Colony of Connecticut, a narrative and descriptive poem of 1500 lines, which has been printed in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and a small volume of verse, in 1725, entitled, Poetical Meditations, being the improvement of some Vacant Hours. It is prefaced by a rambling dissertation, chiefly on titles to land, by the Reverend Mr. Bulkley, of Colchester, in which he expresses the opinion, that "the darling principle of many, viz. that native rightt is the only valuable title to any lands in the country, is absurd and foolish, and may with reason be look't upon as one of our vulgar errors." This dissertation fills fifty-six pages, the poems which it preludes occupying but seventy-eight, and these are flanked at the close by the advertisement of Joseph Dewey, clothier, who, "having been something at charge in promoting the publishing the foregoing meditations," takes the liberty to advertise his country people touching certain rules which ought to be observed in the making and working of cloth. Wolcott's verses are rude, but possess some force. The lines we give are one of the briefest of his "Meditations:" Nor the softest bed of down, The strong arm of the Most High, The most extreme and vexing sense View those torments most extreme, When a thousand years are gone, Thus those pains that are to come, Every moment that doth come, Such torments brings; as if the sum For God Himself, He is but one, Just what He was, is, is to come, |