all rule is quietly placed in his hands. The history | for the necessary liberties to be taken with them. of his government deserves not only to be read for This is the case with our history from the first; for its romantic interest, but because in it we may see the man who was the chief builder up of the enterthe application of a great mind to circumscribed, prise, has left behind a most voluminous account of but difficult business. And he had not only to rule all the "Voyages to Virginia." the Colony and preserve it from starvation, but to This was Richard Hakluyt, Prebendary of Westmanage a man whose mind was as strong and as minster, "a man of great learning and indefatigawily as his own—a sort of savage Napoleon, who ble industry, to whom America owes a heavy debt had consolidated through his influence and skill, all of gratitude." He was the chief of the men to the tribes around Chesapeake Bay. Sunith's feat whom Raleigh assigned his patent. He published was a more difficult one than Czar Peter's civili-in 1582 and 1587 two small volumes of Voyages zation of the Russias. to America. These were afterwards included in He succeeded in preserving the settlement till the enormous work known as "Hakluyt's VoyaLord Delaware arrived with more effectual means ges." His own title is "The Principall Naungaof colonization. From that time the fate of Vir- tions, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoueries of the ginia was secure. After some years of tyranny and British Nation, made by Sea and ouer Land, to martial law, the first Assembly met in 1619; and the Remote and Farthest Distante Quarters of the that body becomes the good genius of the colony, Earthe, within the compasse of these 1500 years." and ultimately of the Anglo-American race. It The third volume is nearly all devoted to America; would please us to review the condition and career and it is valuable to the historian of the settlement, of Virginia under the Assembly; but we have al- not only for the narrative, but on account of the ready overstepped our limits, and must devote our numerous letters and original papers, such as patremaining space to pointing out the sources of her ents, instructions, &c., contained in it. In a piece history, and the use made of them by Mr. Howison. said to have been written by Locke, prefixed to There is this peculiarity about this country: we Churchill's Voyages, the collection is spoken of know all about ourselves. The early history of as "valuable for the good there to be picked out; other nations is shrouded in fable, legend and song. but it might be wished that the author had been Their founders appear gigantic and distorted fig-less voluminous, delivering what was really authenures, because seen through the mists of time. But tic and useful, and not stuffing his work with so we have no heroic age. We know the beginning and end of ourselves. The records are so full and numerous that there is no principal fact, much less series of facts, in doubt. This same peculiarity which renders America the more appropriate province of the historian, unfits her annals for the purposes of art. Its events are too sharply defined, too equally known, too little mellowed by distance and time, to be woven into story and song. It is that "little glooming light, much like a shade"

"Such as a lamp whose light doth fade away; Or as the moon clothed with cloudy night

many stories taken on trust; so many trading voyages, which have nothing new in them; so many warlike exploits, which have nothing pertinent to his undertaking, &c." Hakluyt published another work on Florida, and another on the History of the West Indies. A new edition of his large work came out in 1809, in four quarto volumes, but it is still very rare and costly.

Who has not heard of " Purchas his Pilgrims?" It is perhaps the most curious book in the world. The author having got possession of Hakluyt's papers and collections, and published first a folio called "Purchas his Pilgrimage; or, Relations of the Worlde, and Religions Obserued in all Ages

Doth show to him that walks in fear and sad affright"-and Places, from the Creation to this Present."

In 1625 he published a continuation in four volwhich the romancer, dramatist, or epic poet needs, umes, entitled "Purchas his Pilgrims," and the to do his work by. A light like that of the dim whole was republished in 1626. Beginning with morning dawn, when each bush by the path looms the Patriarchs, he tells the story of all journeyings out a giant, each stump seems a fierce, shapeless over this dusty ball down to his own day. It is a fiend. He wants just sufficient knowledge to set quaint mass of fable, truth, and learning. It conhis imagination in action. It is true, there are tains, along with many queer theological notions, some occurrences in our history, which, when they many strange stories, and many noble ones, four have passed into the obscurity of a distant age, hundred thousand puns, one million two hundred when their details are generally forgotten, and thousand conceits, two million alliterations, and when the books read concerning them come to be innumerable fine thoughts marred in the telling. duodecimos instead of folios, will furnish very fine Such is " Purchas his Pilgrimage." It is a huge subjects for art. Bacon's Rebellion, for instance, drag-net, cast into the sea of time, bringing up would make the plot of the most perfect tragedy some good timber with the rubbish and sea-weed, in the world. But these are now too near us, we some rich jewels with the loads of sand and comare too completely acquainted with their course,'mon pebbles. It contains all about Virginian his

tory up to his day, and brings the narrative several count of the prior history of the Colony, he is the years farther than Hakluyt. uniform apologist of bad governors. In some of After these writers come the "Generall Histo- his remarks on the affair of N. Bacon, he appears rie" and the "Trve Travels, Adventures and Ob- to be very narrow-minded and contemptible; and servations of Captaine Iohn Smith in Europe, he wholly passes over the subsequent bloody scenes Asia, Africke and America, Beginning about the enacted by that vindictive, black-hearted old tyyeere 1593 and continued to this Present, 1629." rant, William Berkley. But after the narrative, Although our redoubtable “Captaine" complaineth the remainder of Beverly's work, being an account that his "rude militarie hand could not cut out of the productions, inhabitants, and Indians of Paper Ornaments," and although it was "able to Virginia, makes it one of the most interesting wield a sword among the Barbarous, it might well volumes we ever read. In this portion of the tremble in handling a Pen among the Iudicious," book, he shows taste, learning, and good observing that portion of these two books which is written powers, together with a marked regard for truth. by himself, is as interesting as it is valuable. His modest remark is more than borne out by them, that "the Stile of a Soldier is not eloquent, but honest and justifiable." He tells the story of his own life in such direct, simple, energetic words, as to make it a master piece of autobiography. land and wrote a History of Virginia. Part I. As for the other work-the "Generall Historie" only a moderate portion of it is written by Smith. The rest is made up of papers and relations by other eye witnesses, retouched by his own hand; and as they are not very well arranged, it is rather heavy reading. This work must be regarded, however, as the most important authority on the subjects of which it treats.

The next writer is Oldmixon, of Dunciad memory. Among many other works, this writer wrote a book, giving an account of all the Colonies, under the title of the "British Empire in North America." The first edition of this book was full of the most glaring historical and topographical errors, which were very severely and effectually pointed out by Beverly in his preface. But although this renowned "Prince of Dunces" has certainly fallen into most gross mistakes, he shows a much more enlarged and liberal mind, and a much clearer judgment in his remarks on Berkley and the like governors than his antagonist. His book is useful to the compiler, to show the state of relations among

the Colonies at the time he wrote.

Sir Wm. Keith was an intriguing adventurer; supple, plausible; with no good quality save that of a shrewd mind. He was governor of Pennsylvania, 1717; and after tormenting the people of that province some years, he went back to Eng

was published in a singularly beautiful and rare quarto, and this was all that ever appeared. The narrative is very well written; but it contains very few facts which were not gathered from Smith and Beverly. Throughout the book there is displayed a most odious spirit. It is plain that but one idea about the Colonies possessed the mind of Sir William Keith; viz, that they were hacks for the riding of royal governors, machines to fill the king's coffers. Consequently, he looks with great distaste on every measure calculated to create the sense and spirit in the people to hold their own; and he winds up his book with this delectable sentence:

"As to the college erected in Virginia, and other designs of a like nature, which have been proposed for the encouragement of Learning, it is only to be observed in general, that although great advantages may accrue to the Mother State, both from the Labor and Luxury of its Plantations, yet they will probably be mistaken who imagine, that ment of the Arts and Sciences in our American the advancement of Learning and the ImproveColonies, can ever be of any service to the British State."

This writer never mentions Berkely, save as "the good Sir William Berkely," calleth Bacon a "giddy-headed youth," the Navigation Act, 66 a very just and reasonable law," and says Charles II. grants in the Northern Neck "unfortunately happened to include several Improved Plantations," which plantations were private property held by "right of unquestionable patents!"

R. Beverly is the first native Virginian writer. His "History of Virginia, by a Native and Inhabitant of the Place," consists of two parts, of very unequal execution. The first hundred pages are devoted to a narrative of the events of the Colony from the earliest settlement down to his own day, and is, without any exception, the most detestable trash, under the name of history, which we ever read. There is no such perfect specimen of what is vulgarly called "small potatoes." He is equally destitute of historical perspective and of After this author, comes the learned and accuhistorical accuracy; for he often falls into most rate Stith, a celebrated President of William and notorious historical errors; that too, in the face of Mary College. It is common to talk of this wrihis tremendous flagellation of Oldmixon for the ter's prolixity and tiresomeness; but we cannot same fault. And although he appears to have but agree to this general opinion. The narrative of small reverence for the powers that were in his the larger portion of the work is admirable. When own day, and makes no scruple about severely he gets to the struggle of the London Company, it scoring Nicholson, Colepepper, &c., in his ac- is true that he becomes tedious; but not more so

VOL. XIII-2

learning of the author, and to the liberality and good sense of the Virginia Legislature.

These are the principal original writers on the history of Virginia; and if a man wishes to study

than every political historian must be. His book work is executed in true antiquarian style, and will contains a digest of Smith, and the Records of the remain an everlasting monument to the taste and London Company; and as he had access to the papers and collections of Sir John Randolph, Wm. Byrd, and to many ancient records, destroyed in the Revolution, Stith is to be regarded as in a great measure an original authority. His style is unpol-it with interest and thoroughly, he must go to ished; but it is evident that he was a man acquainted with books and with the world. It is also evident, that he was a man of strong, clear understanding, manly spirit, and of genuine love for rational liberty. He never finished the work. Dispirited and chagrined with the want of interest in the subject manifested in Virginia, he threw down his pen at the downfall of the London Company, died,

"And left the world no copy"

them-not to the compilers. It is a great mistake to suppose that we can acquire a knowledge of history more easily and quickly from compilers than from the original writers. It is inevitable, that he who relates what he saw, and gathered from the mouths of his cotemporaries, will narrate it with a larger number of attendant circumstances, with greater specialty, and consequently, with greater vividness than he who has to tell it second-hand; for when a man has to relate events which he never saw, and a knowledge of which he has gathered from various second sources, he first revolves them in for a second volume. It still remains the best writ- his own mind, strips them of that circumstantial ten portion of the history of this State, and we minuteness, and gives a general, lengthy outline. greatly regret that it comes no farther than 1624. He who comes after him, and compiles from comBesides these books, there are numerous minor pilers, of course has still less specialty of fact. works, some invaluable histories of particular Thus history resembles a piece of figured tapestry, events and periods, and others illustrative of the and compilers the moths. One moth eats up half people, the country and early condition-which the limbs of a man-another goes to work on what have been lately republished by Mr. Force. There the first has left; and the next generation of moths is also Chalmers' Revolt of the American Colo- leaves nothing but a nose and a body. Froissart nies, who must in some respects be considered as tells the story of those times in a book which reads an original writer. The author was Chief Clerk like a romance, and leaves an indelible impression of the Committee of Privy Council and had ac- on the mind, because of the circumstantial manner cess to all the original papers and memorials rela- in which every thing is related. Hume delivers tive to the subject, and his lately published work after him the same events in an inimitable style, was compiled from these manuscripts. He is a but deprived of the individuality which renders the high tory; but seems to be also an accurate, truth-old chronicler's narrative so striking and so easily telling man, and his book is very useful. There remembered. And then Goldsmith abridges from are also Jefferson's notes, Howe's Historical Col- Hume. The one gets over all the space occupied lections, and the celebrated manuscript records of by Froissart in half a volume, and the other in a the London Company, which are now, we believe, in the possession of Mr. Conway Robinson.

few pages. But he who reads them receives no distinct impression of the age, and forgets what he learns from them in a few months. More knowledge would have been derived from fifty pages of Froissart, because they would have been read with more interest, and recollected longer. As it is with these books, so it is with the historians of Virginia. He that would study the subject with pleasure, must use the compilers of it only as an index of the original writers. Indeed, this is their cheif use on all historical subjects-to fix in the mind an outline, to be filled up with cotemporary works. There are some authors, it is true, who have made compilations of historical facts, who are valuable because of the great insight they have thus been able to give into human character; and the greatest of these is Shakspeare.

But Hening's Statutes at Large is the master-key to Virginia history, the thread of its labyrinth, the "open sesame" of its closed doors, the flying bridge of its impassable gaps. This work is a record of all the acts of the Colonial Assembly, so far as they can be collected, with explanatory notes and connecting remarks; and forms an inexhaustible mine, from which the reader may dig up the richest ore of instruction and entertainment. As this is a guide which can neither err nor deceive, it is invaluable to the historian. It furnishes a clue to the other materials. And it is only from the laws of a nation that we can have a right idea of their civil relations or state of society. For as "every new law," remarks Preistly, "is made to remove some inconvenience the state was subject to be- At the head of those who have compiled the hisfore the making of it, and for which no other mode tory of Virginia stands John Burk-a writer, who, of redress was effectual, the law itself is a stand- with all his imperfections, has displayed real geing, and the most authentic evidence we can re- nius on this subject. He was an Irishman, who quire of the state of things previous to it." The practised law in Petersburg, and wrote three vol

fore, be read until a more perfect work is executed. Then it will sink into obscurity; for we can find nothing about it which is calculated to give it lasting popularity, or a long life.

umes on the history of this State. He intended to that it will bring any lasting reputation to its author. have finished it in five volumes; but at this stage It is, at present, by far the best narrative of the of proceedings he was shot in a duel by a French-whole history which we possess, and it will, there. man, and that put a stop to his work. He deserves great credit in some respects, and has not more errors than were inevitable in making a first attempt to weave the facts into a general narrative. Although he had access to some ancient records, It brings no accession to the known facts of Virwhich are now destroyed or lost, he wanted some ginian History. We would not be understood as very important sources of information with regard objecting to Mr. Howison, that he tells the same to the settlement of Virginia. Not only does he story and adduces the same facts which his predeseem to have no knowledge of Hakluyt and Pur-cessors have done. Of course, if he treats of the chas, but he does not appear to have possessed same history, he must do this. But from the imSmith's books: however, he studied the materials which he had, with great ability. But although this writer has evidently considerable power, his narrative is not an interesting one, and portions of it are disfigured with the most monstrous fustian that an Irishman was ever guilty of. After writing some twenty pages in a very sensible manner, he astonishes the reader by suddenly turning into an absolute tom-fool. Without any notice he capers as high as the heavens-rises up like a sky-rocket. But this is a valuable book, and deserves the careful attention of every student of the subject.

mense mass of unworked materials, he has brought to view nothing save what we have seen before. And although this does not interfere with the pressent utility of his book, it deprives him of all claim to praise as one who has filled the gaps and chasms in the known chain of events, to the lasting reputation which belongs to Burk and Bancroft, of having thrown light on what was dark before. He is more accurate in the facts which he does detail than either of these authors. But he corrects Burk out of Bancroft, and Bancroft out of an able review of that writer in this periodical, and out of It would please us to notice the works of those Howe's Outline History. To these remarks it may compilers of American History who have treated be replied, that all important portions of the subject Virginian History in connection with that of the have been already explored by these writers,-all other Colonies, but must pass them by for the double the new lands discovered. If this be so, we do not reason of want of space, and because we are tired charge it as any defect of the book that it contains of the task. We would remark, however, that it nothing new; we merely assert that Mr. Howison seems to us Grahame's Colonies should hold a much can lay no claim to fame on this ground. But such higher place in public estimation than Mr. Ban- is by no means our opinion. We do not think the croft's learned, but crude work on the same sub-facts have been as thoroughly examined as they ject. The materials are better digested, and the might be. There is much about Virginian History style more perfectly wrought. To a large class of which we should like to know and which we could readers, however, they stand in the same relation know. And Mr. Howison shows sufficient ability to each other that the two actors did who played in this work to make us believe that if he had the King and Hamlet before Partridge in Tom Jones. They will undervalue Grahame for something of the same reason which caused Partridge to undervalue Garrick-because he seems to tell the story just as any other man would; and they will overrate Bancroft for the same reason which made him overrate the actor who played the King-"the King for my money; he speaks all his words half as loud again as the other. Any body may see he is an actor."-Book XVI, ch. 5th. Mr. Bancroft is, however, a man of very great learning, and his book is a great accession to our stock of historic lore.

studied the subject longer than he seems to have done, he had ample opportunity to have given us a much more valuable book than the one before us.

No historian has yet attempted an account of the domestic as well as the political progress of this country. If Mr. Howison had brought forward a History of the People as well as the Colony of Virginia, we would have hailed him as the first of Virginia historians. This is the most important portion of history-the flesh, blood, and muscles of the political skeleton; and it is that portion of it which every body is most interested in. Our author had a fair field on which to distinguish himself; but he From the time of Burk's mishap, no citizen of has done nothing in it. He is merely a lively, florid Virginia attempted a History of the State, except chronicler of events and dates, and his work is as Mr. Campbell's little work, till, in this blessed year innocent of any attempt to illustrate the lives and of our Lord, 1846, Mr. R. R. Howison did pub- manners of our early forefathers as the palm of a lish the volume now before us. This is, as we man's hand is of hair. This fault he shares with have already said, a very pleasing and interesting the great majority of historians who have written book, and we believe a singularly accurate one. It previous to the present age. They seem to have is therefore likely to be much read for a short time; thought that telling the story of the times consisted but we cannot believe that its days will be many, or in relating the lives of a few individuals who lived

out altogether.

Dr. Hawks has written a volume on this subject, which is executed in a manner which causes us to regret that the author did not write a complete History of Virginia instead of her religious sects alone.

in them. The people who compose the nation are our gratitude and esteem, and would have laid the kept entirely out of view, although they are pro-ground work on which future men might erect a fessedly the subject matter of history. We neither complete edifice. But he has not only omitted this, know how they lived, what they did, nor what but he has as yet given scarcely any account of manner of people they were. But it is this his- the ecclesiastical History of Virginia. We suptory of social life in which every man feels most pose he will give a separate chapter in the next interested, for it is this part of history which most volume, and bring it down to the Act of Religious comes home to "our business and our bosoms." Freedom; for he surely cannot intend to leave it This defect in nearly all compilers has been clearly and ably pointed out by many writers of the present day; and several attempts have been made to supply it. The History of England, now in course of publication, by the Harpers, is an essay of this sort; and a very valuable one it is. But Mr. Howison This is not the only thing in which Mr. Howiis behind the age. He is a chronicler. He tells son is behind the age. He seems to have no acus who the new governor is, what he said to the quaintance with English history, save from the Assembly, and what the Assembly said to him, and pages of David Hume. We say this, because he what was done in consequence; and that is all that quotes no other authority on this subject-except either he or Burk tells us. They write of the Co- Miss Aiken-and because of the very peculiar and lonial Government, not of Virginia. Incidentally we original views, for an educated man of the 19th hear of Accomac county, Northumberland county, century, which he holds forth now and then. After of a town here, and another there, of twenty thou- the discussion, which has been going on for the sand, thirty thousand, sixty thousand people in the last thirty years about the affairs of the English Colony, without knowing who they were, or what Commonwealth, and the present state of opinion they were, their way of life, the arts among them, with regard to them, it is certainly surprising to hear their character, their state of civilization, or any- a man calling the resistance of the English people thing else about them. It cannot be said that the to the lawless tyranny of Charles I. a "rash use of materials for any such account of Virginian popu- the sacred right of revolution," in a tone which lation are wanting; for, in truth, they are very would lead us to believe that he expects the public abundant. Beverly has left us a volume of them; to agree with him. He says of this deceitful, bad besides which, there are the New Life in Vir- man, who perpetrated tyranny and perfidy in every ginia," Clayton's "Virginia," "Noua Brittania," form, that he fell a victim to the expansive power the "Perfect Description of Virginea," R. G.'s in the minds of the people, rather than to tyran"Virginea's Cure," "Leah and Rachael, or the two nous dispositions in his own heart. He fell, not fruitfull sisters," &c., by John Hammond, Nathan- because he wished to oppress, but because he knew iel Shrigley's "Trve Relation," and the Trve not how to yield." This of a monarch, who, after Declaration of the estate of the Colonie," &c., swearing to support the Constitution of England, together with the Bland Papers and various other trampled on almost every fundamental law of the treatises, besides scattered mentionings and anec- country! This of a monarch, who, after assenting dotes in all the original writers, furnish very am- to and promising his people to uphold the Petition ple sources of information on this subject. The of Right, turned around and broke every principle "Lawes Diuine Morall and Martiall," and Hening's laid down in it. If Mr. Howison had left us Statutes at Large furnish the clue to the whole. roon to suppose that he held these views on any We sincerely wish Mr. Howison had made an ad- argument which had not been answered, any facts dition of sixty or seventy pages to his volume of which had not been examined, we certainly should such matter. It is true, those sixty pages would not treat his opinion with contempt. But he goes on have cost him more labor and time than all the rest to state his reasons, and they show his opinion to of the book; for at present it is nothing more be derived from nothing but sheer ignorance of than what any educated man might have done in what are now the established facts of history. his leisure hours. He has merely followed a beaten brings up the old story, that Charles claimed rights road,-let Burk show him the way, and Mr. Ban- not more tyrannical than those of his predecessors; croft refer him to authorities, and then written as if he did not, by passing the Petition of Rights, down the chief events in pretty words. If he had surrender up and renounce all those claimed rights, attempted a continuous view of the state of society (if they ever belonged to him,) and then, breaking in Virginia, he would have engaged in a much more his engagement, continue his course of despotism. difficult undertaking. It would have required a He brings forward the old tale of his commongreat deal of research, trouble, and ingenuity to place virtues and private decencies to justify a life of collect the disjecta membra, and to weave the scat- fraud, oppression and perjury; that he was kind to tered facts into a clear and pleasing whole. But his wife and children, and neither drank nor whored if he had done so, he would have gained a title to like his son! He talks of this royal martyr in a

He