lity and often their lively imagination are equally apparent, and the style and comments of Purchas sometimes add to the incongruous result. An eminent writer has justly defined these collections of Hakluyt and Purchas as "very curious monuments of the nature of human enterprises, human testimony, and of human affairs. Much more is, indeed, offered to a refined and philosophic observer, though buried amid the unwieldy and unsightly mass, than was ever supposed by its original readers or by its first compilers."*

A very curious relic of these primitive annals of discovery has been renewed to modern readers by Conway Robinson, who so ably prepared for the Virginia Historical Society an "Account of Voyages along the Atlantic Coast of North America, 1520-1573;" and a not less curious antiquarian memorial of old times, in that State, was printed for the Hakluyt Society, "The Historie of Travaile in Virginia Brittanica." Of late years every authentic document emanating from or relating to Columbus, Vespucius, Cabot, Drake, Hudson, La Haye, Champlain, and other discoverers and explorers, has been, by the judicious liberality of historical and antiquarian societies, or by private enterprise, reproduced, collated, and sometimes printed in fac-simile, so that the means of tracing the original ideas and experience of the old navigators have been made accessible to studious comparison and inquiry; and, in addition to such facilities, the jealousy of European Governments in regard to their archives has, with the growth of intelligence and the love of science, become essentially modified, so that charts, journals, commissions, original data of all kinds, relating to early explorations, have been and are freely and sagaciously consulted by geographical and historical scholars.t

"Lectures on Modern History," by Prof. Smythe.

Among other important collections-besides those of De Bry, Hakluyt, Purchas, and De Vries-may be mentioned that by Murray (Lond. 1839), and Ternaux-Compan's "Voyages, Relations et Memoirs Originaux pour servir a histoire de la découverte de l'Amerique," in ten vols.; and "America, being the latest and most accurate description of the New World, &c.,

There is an absence of details in most of these early chronicles, which indicates but a superficial and limited exploration, such as the dangers and difficulties adequately explain. Yet sufficient is recorded to afford materials for the historian and the naturalist, who aim at fixing the time and indicating the original aspect of those portions of the conti nent that were first visited by Europeans, and have since become, through the early appreciation of their natural advantages, the centre of prosperous civilization. Thus, in Van der Dock's account of New Netherlands in 1659, he describes the rigors of winter on the coast, the numerous whales that frequented the then lonely waters where is now congregated the shipping of the world, and mentions the fact that two of these leviathans in 1647 grounded forty miles up the river, and infected the air for miles with the effluvia of their decomposition. The abundance and superior quality of the oysters, the wild strawberries, the maize, grapes, hazelnuts, sheephead and sturgeons, are noted with the appreciative emphasis of a Dutch epicure; and that is a memorable picture to the visitor at Albany to-day, which presents to his mind's eye Hendrik Hudson receiving tobacco, beans, and otter and beaver skins from the natives, environed by a dense forest.

Of the primitive reports of colonial explorers and settlers, none has so vivid a personal interest as that of Captain John Smith: the romantic story of Pocahontas alone embalms his name. Sent out by the London Company in 1606, his party landed at Jamestown on the 13th of May of that year; he returned to England in 1609, and five years afterward explored the coast of America from the Penobscot to Cape Cod. In 1615, having commenced another voyage, he was made prisoner by the French, and did not succeed, on regaining his liberty, in securing occupation again in American exploration, although he sought it with earnestness. Captain Smith died in London in 1631. His "True Travels, Adventures, and Observations" was published in 1629. His map, tract on Virginia, collected from the most authentic authors, and adorned with maps and sculpture, by John Ogilby," folio, London, 1675.

and "Description of New England," attest his claims to a better recompense than he received: "In neither of these two countries," he writes, "have I one foot of land, nor the very house I builded, nor the ground I digged with my own hands, nor any content or satisfaction at all." The original editions of Smith's several works relating to America are very rare: some of them have been reprinted in historical collections. His most extensive work is "The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles," prepared at the request of the London Company, and illustrated with portraits and maps. The period described is from 1584 to 1626. These writings are curious rather than satisfactory; valuable as records of pioneer experience and memorials of the early settlements they were written to inform, and in their day were of great practical value; but, except for aboriginal details and geographical facts, their authority and interest have long been superseded. Yet no American can look upon the old church of St. Sepulchre in London, where Captain John Smith was buried, without recalling that intrepid character, and associating it with the early fortunes of his native land. It is characteristic of this remarkable man that his favorite authors, when a youth, were Macchiavelli's "Art of War," and the Maxims of Antoninus-two books, says the last and best translator of the latter, admirably fitted to form the character of a soldier and a man.* He describes the animals, vegetables, soil, and rivers with quaint and brief eulogium -declaring Virginia "the poor man's best countrie in the world." t

Among these primitive travels is a small quarto in antiquated type, entitled "America Painted to the Life, by Fer

* George Long.

"The Generall Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, with the names of the Adventurers, Planters, and Governours, from their first beginning, anno 1584, to this present 1626. With the proceedings of those severall Colonies and the accidents that befell them in all their journeys and discoveries. Also the Maps and descriptions of all those countryes, their commodities, people, government, customes, and religion yet knowne. Divided into sixe bookes." Folio, pp. 148, engraved title and one map, London, 1632.

nando Gorges, Esq.," published in London in 1649.* The author says, "all that part of the continent of New England which was allotted by patent to my grandfather, Sir Ferdinand Gorges and his heires, he thought fit to call by the name of the province of Maine," which, we are told, then extended from the Penobscot to the Hudson; and was rented for two shillings per annum the hundred acres. Sir Fernando expended twenty thousand pounds in his American enterprises. The work by his grandson, descriptive thereof, contains the usual details as to products, politics, sects, and Indians: an allusion to a feast of the latter would seem to indicate an early origin for the famous pudding called huckleberry. The occasion was a council, to which the Boston magistrates were invited. "The Indian king, hearing of their coming, gath ered together his counsellors and a great number of his subjects to give them entertainment; "-the materials of which are described thus: "boiled chestnuts in their white bread, which is very sweet, as if they were mixed with sugar—and, because they would be extraordinary in the feasting, they strove for variety after the English manner, boyling puddings made of beaten corne, putting therein great store of black berries somewhat like currants." A quaint and compendious account is given of the first settlement of Springfield, in Massachusetts the few facts related giving a vivid idea of the economical and social condition of that now flourishing town, in 1645. "About this time, one Mr. Pinchin, sometime a magistrate, having, by desire to better his estate, settled him

* "At the same time, Sir Ferdinand Gorges was gathering information of the native Americans, whom he had received at Weymouth, and whose descriptions of the country, joined to the favorable views which he had already imbibed, filled him with the strongest desire of becoming a proprietary of domains beyond the Atlantic."-BANCROFT's History of the United States, vol. i.

When, in 1643, the commissioners from Plymouth, New Haven, Say brook, &c., assembled at Boston, "being all desirous of union and studious of peace," none of "Sir Ferdinand Gorges, his province beyond Piscataqua, were received nor called into the confederation, because they ran a different course from us, both in their ministry and civil government."-WINTHROP'S Journal.

self very remote from all the churches of Christ in the Massachusetts Government, upon the river of Conectico, yet under their government, he having some godly persons resorting unto him, they erected a town and church of Christ, calling it Springfield; it lying on this large navigable river, hath the benefit of transporting their goods by water, and also fitly seated for a bever trade with the Indians, till the merchants increased so many, that it became little worth by reason of their outbuying one another, which caused them to live upon husbandry. This town is mostly built along the river side and upon some little rivulets of the same. There hath of late been more than one or two in this town greatly suspected of witchery." Here we have the pious and shrewd motives of the early settlers, the initiation of free trade and their primitive political economy, and superstition quaintly hinted. How curious to compare the picture of that little town and church SO very remote " from others in the colony, the "bever trade with the Indians," and the destructive rivalry thereinthe lonely river in the midst of the wilderness, and the godly pioneer who came there "to better his estate," and the suspicions of witchery "-with the populous, bustling scene of railway travel, manufactures, horse fairs, churches, schools, trade, and rural prosperity, now daily familiar to hundreds of travellers.

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It is remarkable how some of these obsolete records link themselves with the interests and the questions of the passing hour. What more appropriate commentary, for instance, upon the provincial egotism of Virginia, can be imagined than the statement of Childs, a man of authority in his day, in England, that while some cavaliers found refuge there, many of the colonists were outcasts, and their emigration the alternative for imprisonment or penal exile?

One of the most suggestive and authentic records whence we derive a true idea of the social tendencies and the natural phenomena amid which the American character was bred in the Eastern States is the journal of John Winthrop. Its very monotony reflects the severe routine of life then and there;