MR. KENNEDY was born in Baltimore on the twenty-fifth of October, 1795. His mother is of the Pendleton family, in Virginia, where she now resides. His father, at the time of his birth, was a prosperous merchant in Balti

more.

He is the eldest of four sons, who all, except himself, live in Virginia. He went through the usual course of instruction in the schools of his native town, and finally was graduated at the Baltimore College, in 1812. He was just old enough to bear arms when General Ross invaded Maryland, and was among the volunteers who fought at Bladensburg and North Point, where he had sufficient military experience to serve the purposes of authorship.

He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1816, and continued to practise with great success until he went into Congress, from which period he took an unreluctant farewell of a pursuit which he appears never to have liked, notwithstanding the eminence he attained in it. Swallow Barn shows that he had a greater affection for lawyers than for the law.

Mr. Kennedy's professional life was from first to last mixed with literature and politics. Through every stage of it he wrote a great deal of both grave and gay, the principal portion of which has been published either in the newspapers or in pamphlets, though he occasionally appeared in more ambitious volumes. At no time, however, has his application to letters been so earnest or exclusive as to give him a place in the class of literary men, a class which, until very recently, had no existence in this country, and which is still very small here.

His first work was a joint-stock affair, in two volumes, called The Red Book, in its character not unlike the Salmagundi of Irving and Paulding. With a very dear friend, and one of the most gifted scholars of our country, Mr. Peter Hoffman Cruse, it was thrown off in numbers, with an interval of about a fortnight between them, in Baltimore, in 1818 and 1819. It was of local and temporary in

terest, but it contained much neat and playful satire by Kennedy, and some exceedingly clever poetry by Cruse,* which will prevent its being forgotten.

Swallow Barn, or a Sojourn in the Old Dominion, was published in 1832. "I have had the greatest difficulty," he says in the preface,"to keep myself from writing a novel." It appears to have been commenced as a series of detached sketches of old or lower Virginia, exhibiting the habits, customs and opinions of the people of that region, and to have grown into something with the coherence of a story before it was finished. The plan of it very much resembles that of Bracebridge Hall, but it is purely American, and has more fidelity as an exhibition of rural life, while it is scarcely inferior in spirit and graceful humour. Miss Sedgwick has given us some delightful sketches of primitive customs and feelings in New England; Mrs. Kirkland has described with remarkable accuracy the

*P. H. Cruse fell a victim to the cholera in 1832. He died before he had achieved in letters that distinguished reputation which all who knew him predicted for him. He was born in Baltimore in 1793, was educated at Princeton College, New Jersey, and prepared himself for the practice of the law, to which, however, he never devoted himself, preferring rather to follow the bent of his inclination in a life of literary study. He thus became an accomplished scholar, and one of the purest writers of our language. What he published is confined chiefly to the Reviews, of the ten years previous to his death, and to the Baltimore American, the editorial department of which was for several years under his charge. He possessed the most graceful wit, combined, as it usually is, with a taste of the most classical purity, and was always greatly remarked for the extraordinary vivacity and brilliancy of his conversation. These traits appear, though in less degree, in his writings. An agreeable volume might be furnished from his published and unpublished works, and I hope Mr. Ke:nedy will ere long lay such a one before the public. 2F2 341

local manners surpass, in truthful minuteness or easy elegance of diction, these transcripts of life in Virginia.

In 1835 Mr. Kennedy published his next work, Horse Shoe Robinson, a Tale of the Tory Ascendancy. He had spent a part of the winter of 1818-19 in the Pendleton District of South Carolina, and there met his hero, from whom he heard some extraordinary details of his personal adventures. The novel was suggested by this meeting, and he has introduced into it almost a verbatim repetition of Horse Shoe's escape from Charleston after its surrender. No works could be more unlike each other than this and Swallow Barn. They have no resemblance in style, in construction, or in spirit; but Horse Shoe Robinson was even more successful than its prede

cessor.

Frank Meriwether the country gentleman, the shrewd and good-humoured old lawyer Philpot Wart, and other characters, in the first, are sketched with singular skill and felicity, but they are less essentially creations than the free-hearted, sagacious, and heroic partisan yeoman, who quits his anvil at the commencement of the civil war, and acts an important though humble part through its scenes of excitement and daring until the Whigs are triumphant. There are in the second work other original and admirably executed characters, whose individuality is distinct and perfectly sustained amid all varieties of circumstance; and skilful underplots, in which are imbodied beautifullywrought scenes of love and touching incidents of sorrow.

In 1838 appeared Rob of the Bowl, a Legend of St. Inigoe's. This novel was evidently written with much more care than the others, but it was less successful. Though dealing largely in invention, it is, like Horse Shoe Robinson, of an historical character, and may be regarded as an attempt to illustrate the annals of Maryland under the rule of the lord proprietary Cecilius Calvert, when the colony was distracted by feuds between the Protestants and Catholics. The characters are numerous, various, and strongly marked; but several of them are so prominent and so elaborately finished that the interest is much divided, and it has been remarked with some reason, that the story wants a hero. The historical impression which it conveys is as accurate as the most careful study of the

incidents and temper of the times enabled the author to render it; the costume throughout is exact and in keeping; and the descriptions of scenery are spirited and picturesque in an eminent degree.

Mr. Kennedy's next work, published in 1840, was the Annals of Quodlibet, suggested by the presidential canvass then just closed. It is full of wit, humour, and pungent irony, but is too exclusive in its reference to events of the day to possess much interest now when those events are nearly forgotten.

Each of the four works that have been mentioned is marked by distinct and happy peculiarities, and from internal evidence it probably would never have been surmised that they were by one author.

Mr. Kennedy was elected from Baltimore to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1820, 1821, and 1822. In 1824 he received from President Monroe the appointment of Secretary of Legation to Chili, which he resigned before the sailing of the mission. He was three times chosen a member of the House of Representatives of the United States, for the twenty-fifth, twenty-seventh, and twentyeighth congresses; and in 1846 was again elected to the House of Delegates of Maryland. In the national legislature he soon rose to a commanding position, and few members enjoyed a higher degree of respect, or exerted a more powerful influence, during the six years for which he was a member. In the course of his political career and connections he has written and published many tracts on the more engrossing questions of public economy and policy to which the agitations of the time have given rise, among which may be mentioned several speeches and official reports in Congress, and numerous dissertations on public affairs. One of his earliest performances was a pamphlet under the signature of Mephistophiles, in which he reviews with great ability Mr. Cambreling's somewhat celebrated Report on Commerce. This was published in 1830, and in the following year, as a member of the Convention of the friends of American Industry, held in New York, he wrote conjointly with Mr. Warren Dutton of Massachusetts, and Mr. Charles Jared Ingersoll of Pennsylvania, the address which that body issued to the people of the United States. Mr. Kennedy's last volume is A Defence of the Whigs, published in 1844. This work is purely po

litical, and is remarkable for clearness, vigour, | and amplitude of statement and illustration. It embraces an outline of the origin and growth of the Whig party, coupled with a history of the twenty-seventh Congress, and a vindication of the Whigs in that body in publishing their manifesto disavowing all connection with the administration of the acting president Tyler. The duty of this defence devolved on Mr. Kennedy more particularly than on any other member of that Congress, because he was not only an adviser but the author of the manifesto.

Among the other minor publications of Mr. Kennedy are an Address delivered before the Baltimore Horticultural Society in 1833, an eulogium on the life and character of his friend William Wirt in 1834, and a discourse at the dedication of the Green Mount Cemetery, in 1839.

Mr. Kennedy is altogether one of our most genial, lively, and agreeable writers. His style is airy, easy, and graceful, but various, and always in keeping with his subject. He

excels both as a describer and as a raconteur. His delineations of nature are picturesque and truthful, and his sketches of character are marked by unusual freedom and delicacy. He studies the periods which he attempts to illustrate with the greatest care, becomes thoroughly imbued with their spirit, and writes of them with the enthusiasm and the apparent sincerity and earnestness of a contemporary and an actor. He pays an exemplary regard to the details of costume, manners, and opinion, and is scarce ever detected in any kind of anachronism. There are some inequalities in his works, arising perhaps from the interruptions to which a man in active public life is liable; there is occasional diffuseness and redundance of incident as well as of expression; but his faults are upon the surface, and could be easily removed.

Mr. Kennedy is still in the heyday of life and feeling, and though a leading politician, is not so engrossed with the affairs of state but that we may expect from him still many new contributions to our literature.

A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN.

FROM SWALLOW BARN.

FRANK MERIWETHER is now in the meridian of life;-somewhere close upon forty-five. Good cheer and a good temper both tell well upon him. The first has given him a comfortable full figure, and the latter certain easy, contemplative habits, that incline him to be lazy and philosophical. He has the substantial planter look that belongs to a gentleman who lives on his estate, and is not much vexed with the crosses of life.

I think he prides himself on his personal appearance, for he has a handsome face, with a dark blue eye, and a high forehead that is scantily embellished with some silver-tipped locks that, I observe, he cherishes for their rarity: besides, he is growing manifestly attentive to his dress, and carries himself erect, with some secret consciousness that his person is not bad. It is pleasant to see him when he has ordered his horse for a ride into the neighbourhood, or across to the court-house. On such occasions, he is apt to make his appearance in a coat of blue broadcloth, astonishingly new and glossy, and with a redundant supply of plaited ruffle strutting through the folds of a Marseilles waistcoat: a worshipful finish is given to this costume by a large straw hat, lined with green silk. There is a magisterial fulness in his garments that betokens condition in the world, and a heavy bunch of seals, suspended by a chain of gold, jingles as he moves, pronouncing him a man of superfluities.

It is considered rather extraordinary that he has

never set up for Congress; but the truth is, he is an unambitious man, and has a great dislike to currying favour-as he calls it. And, besides, he is thoroughly convinced that there will always be men enough in Virginia willing to serve the people, and therefore does not see why he should trouble his head about it. Some years ago, however, there was really an impression that he meant to come out. By some sudden whim, he took it into his head to visit Washington during the session of Congress, and returned, after a fortnight, very seriously distempered with politics. He told curious anecdotes of certain secret intrigues which had been discovered in the affairs of the capital, gave a pretty clear insight into the views of some deep-laid combinations, and became all at once painfully florid in his discourse, and dogmatical to a degree that made his wife stare. Fortunately, this orgasm soon subsided, and Frank relapsed into an indolent gentleman of the opposition; but it had the effect to give a much more decided cast to his studies, for he forthwith discarded the Whig and took to the Enquirer, like a man who was not to be disturbed by doubts; and as it was morally impossible to believe what was written on both sides, to prevent his mind from being abused, he, from this time forward, gave an implicit assent to all the facts that set against Mr. Adams. The consequence of this straightforward and confiding deportment was an unsolicited and complimentary notice of him by the executive of the state. He was put into the commission of the peace, and having thus become a public man against his will,

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his opinions were observed to undergo some essential changes. He now thinks that a good citizen ought neither to solicit nor decline office; that the magistracy of Virginia is the sturdiest pillar that supports the fabric of the constitution; and that the people, though in their opinions they may be mistaken, in their sentiments they are never wrong," with some other such dogmas, that, a few years ago, he did not hold in very good repute. In this temper, he has of late embarked upon the mill-pond of county affairs, and, notwithstanding his amiable and respectful republicanism, I am told he keeps the peace as if he commanded a garrison, and administers justice like a cadi.

He has some claim to supremacy in this last department; for during three years of his life he smoked segars in a lawyer's office at Richmond; sometimes looked into Blackstone and the Revised Code; was a member of a debating society that ate oysters once a week during the winter; and wore six cravats and a pair of yellow-topped boots as a blood of the metropolis. Having in this way qualified himself for the pursuits of agriculture, he came to his estate a very model of landed gentlemen. Since that time, his avocations have had a certain literary tincture; for having settled himself down as a married man, and got rid of his superfluous foppery, he rambled with wonderful assiduity through a wilderness of romances, poeins, and dissertations, which are now collected in his library, and, with their battered blue covers, present a lively type of an army of continentals at the close of the war, or an hospital of veteran invalids. These have all, at last, given way to the newspapers-a miscellaneous study very enticing to gentlemen in the country-that have rendered Meriwether a most discomfiting antagonist in the way of dates and names.

He has great suavity of manners, and a genuine benevolence of disposition that makes him fond of having his friends about him; and it is particularly gratifying to him to pick up any genteel stranger within the purlieus of Swallow Barn and put him to the proof of a week's hospitality, if it he only for the pleasure of exercising his rhetoric upon him. He is a kind master, and considerate toward his dependants, for which reason, although he owns many slaves, they hold him in profound reverence, and are very happy under his dominion. All these circumstances make Swallow Barn a very agreeable place, and it is accordingly frequented by an extensive range of his acquaintances.

There is one quality in Frank that stands above the rest. He is a thoroughbred Virginian, and consequently does not travel much from home, except to make an excursion to Richmond, which he considers emphatically as the centre of civilization. Now and then he has gone beyond the mountain, but the upper country is not much to his taste, and in his estimation only to be resorted to when the fever makes it imprudent to remain upon the tide. He thinks lightly of the mercantile interest, and in fact undervalues the manners of the cities generally-he believes that their inhabitants are all hollow-hearted and insincere, and

altogether wanting in that substantial intelligence and honesty that he affirms to be characteristic of the country. He is a great admirer of the genius of Virginia, and is frequent in his commendation of a toast in which the state is compared to the mother of the Gracchi:-indeed, it is a familiar thing with him to speak of the aristocracy of talent as only inferior to that of the landed interest,-the idea of a freeholder inferring to his mind a certain constitutional pre-eminence in all the virtues of citizenship, as a matter of course.

The solitary elevation of a country gentleman, well to do in the world, begets some magnificent notions. He becomes as infallible as the pope; gradually acquires a habit of making long speeches; is apt to be impatient of contradiction, and is always very touchy on the point of honour. There is nothing more conclusive than a rich man's logic anywhere, but in the country, amongst his dependants, it flows with the smooth and unresisted course of a gentle stream irrigating a verdant meadow, and depositing its mud in fertilizing luxuriance. Meriwether's sayings, about Swallow Barn, import absolute verity-but I have discovered that they are not so current out of his jurisdiction. Indeed, every now and then, we have some obstinate discussions when any of the neighbouring potentates, who stand in the same sphere with Frank, come to the house; for these worthies have opinions of their own, and nothing can be more dogged than the conflict between them. They sometimes fire away at each other with a most amiable and unconvincible hardihood for a whole evening, bandying interjections, and making bows, and saying shrewd things with all the courtesy imaginable: but for unextinguishable pertinacity in argument, and utter impregnability of belief, there is no disputant like your country gentleman who reads the newspapers. When one of these discussions fairly gets under weigh, it never comes to an anchor again of its own accord—it is either blown out so far to sea as to be given up for lost, or puts into port in distress for want of documents,-or is upset by a call for the boot-jack and slippers-which is something like the previous question in Congress.

If my worthy cousin be somewhat over-argumentative as a politician, he restores the equilibrium of his character by a considerate coolness in religious matters. He piques himself upon being a high-churchman, but he is only a rare frequenter of places of worship, and very seldom permits himself to get into a dispute upon points of faith. If Mr. Chub, the Presbyterian tutor in the family, ever succeeds in drawing him into this field, as he occasionally has the address to do, Meriwether is sure to fly the course:-he gets puzzled with scripture names, and makes some odd mistakes between Peter and Paul, and then generally turns the parson over to his wife, who, he says, has an astonishing memory.

Meriwether is a great breeder of blooded horses; and, ever since the celebrated race between Eclipse and Henry, he has taken to this occupation with a renewed zeal, as a matter affecting the reputation of the state. It is delightful to hear him ex

patiate upon the value, importance, and patriotic bearing of this employment, and to listen to all his technical lore touching the mystery of horse-craft. He has some fine colts in training, that are committed to the care of a pragmatical old negro, named Carey, who, in his reverence for the occupation, is the perfect shadow of his master. He and Frank hold grave and momentous consultations upon the affairs of the stable, and in such a sagacious strain of equal debate, that it would puzzle a spectator to tell which was the leading member in the council. Carey thinks he knows a great deal more upon the subject than his master, and their frequent intercourse has begot a familiarity in the old negro that is almost fatal to Meriwether's supremacy. The old man feels himself authorized to maintain his positions according to the freest parliamentary form, and sometimes with a violence of asseveration that compels his master to abandon his ground, purely out of faintheartedness. Meriwether gets a little nettled by Carey's doggedness, but generally turns it off in a laugh. I was in the stable with him, a few mornings after my arrival, when he ventured to expostulate with the venerable groom upon a professional point, but the controversy terminated in its customary way. "Who sot you up, Master Frank, to tell me how to fodder that 'ere cretur, when I as good as nursed you on my knee?" Well, tie up your tongue, you old mastiff," replied Frank, as he walked out of the stable, "and cease growling, since you will have it your own way;"-and then, as we left the old man's presence, he added, with an affectionate chuckle- -"a faithful old cur, too, that licks my hand out of pure honesty; he has not many years left, and it does no harm to humour him!"

OLD LAWYERS.

FROM THE SAME.

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I HAVE a great reverence for the profession of the law and its votaries; but especially for that part of the tribe which comprehends the old and thorough-paced stagers of the bar. The feelings, habits, and associations of the bar in general, have a very happy influence upon the character. It abounds with good fellows: And, take it altogether, there may be collected from it a greater mass of shrewd, observant, droll, playful and generous spirits, than from any other equal numbers of society. They live in each other's presence like a set of players; congregate in the courts like the former in the green room; and break their unpremeditated jests, in the interval of business, with that sort of undress freedom that contrasts amusingly with the solemn and even tragic seriousness with which they appear, in turn, upon the boards. They have one face for the public, rife with the saws and learned gravity of the profession, and another for themselves, replete with broad mirth, sprightly wit, and gay thoughtlessness. The intense mental toil and fatigue of business give them a peculiar relish for the enjoyment of their hours

of relaxation, and, in the same degree, incapacitate them for that frugal attention to their private concerns which their limited means usually require. They have, in consequence, a prevailing air of unthriftiness in personal matters, which, however it may operate to the prejudice of the pocket of the individual, has a mellow and kindly effect upon his disposition.

In an old member of the profession,-one who has grown gray in the service, there is a rich unction of originality, that brings him out from the ranks of his fellow-men in strong relief. His habitual conversancy with the world in its strangest varieties, and with the secret history of character, gives him a shrewd estimate of the human heart. He is quiet and unapt to be struck with wonder at any of the actions of men. There is a deep current of observation running calmly through his thoughts, and seldom gushing out in words: the confidence which has been placed in him, in the thousand relations of his profession, renders him constitutionally cautious. His acquaintance with the vicissitudes of fortune, as they have been exemplified in the lives of individuals, and with the severe afflictions that have "tried the reins" of many, known only to himself, makes him an indulgent and charitable apologist of the aberrations of others. He has an impregnable good humour, that never falls below the level of thoughtfulness into melancholy. He is a creature of habits; rising early for exercise; temperate from necessity, and studious against his will. His face is accustomed to take the ply of his pursuits with great facility, grave and even severe in business, and readily rising into smiles at a pleasant conceit. He works hard when at his task; and goes at it with the reluctance of an old horse in a bark-mill. His common-places are quaint and professional: they are made up of law maxims, and first occur to him in Latin. He measures all the sciences out of his proper line of study, (and with these he is but scantily acquainted,) by the rules of law. He thinks a steam-engine should be worked with due diligence, and without laches: a thing little likely to happen, he considers as potentia remotissima; and what is not yet in existence, or in esse, as he would say, is in nubibus. He apprehends that wit best that is connected with the affairs of the term; is particularly curious in his anecdotes of old lawyers, and inclined to be talkative concerning the amusing passages of his own professional life. He is, sometimes, not altogether free of outward foppery; is apt to be an especial good liver, and he keeps the best company. His literature is not much diversified; and he prefers books that are bound in plain calf, to those that are much lettered and gilded. He garners up his papers with a wonderful appearance of care; ties them in bundles with red tape; and usually has great difficulty to find them when he wants them. Too much particu. larity has perplexed him; and just so it is with his cases: they are well assorted, packed and laid away in his mind, but are not easily to be brought forth again without labour. This makes him something of a procrastinator, and rather to