A Virginian in New England Thirty-Five Years Ago

INTRODUCTORY.

THE author of the journal, the printing of which will begin in the next number of the Atlantic, was Mr. Lucian Minor, a gentleman of Virginia. I use the word gentleman rather than native, because his private papers, which have been confided to me, have left on my mind so strong an impression of sweetness, constancy, good sense, and that liberality of sentiment which comes of unselfish aims and generous culture. These papers came to me in a condition which touched my heart strangely in more ways than one. The records of a singularly peaceful life, and of a character gentle and affectionate beyond the common mark, they show here and there rude traces of the war in which Virginia bore so tragic a part. Leaves have been roughly torn out, and on a blank one there is scrawled in a coarse hand: “ To-day heard the Yankees were in three or four miles of the city.” Some of the papers show marks of exposure to the weather, and all are fragmentary, except the journal, which will mainly concern us. The loss most to be regretted is perhaps an autobiography, of which only the first eight pages remain. The documents intrusted to me consist mainly of diaries containing minute notes of journeys, extracts and abstracts of books read, anecdotes of remarkable people from original sources, statistics, and historical memoranda bearing mainly upon the science of government. Mr. Minor’s reading was of wholesome variety. I find him alternately beguiling the weariness of a voyage down the Ohio with a volume of Gil Blas and a History of Banking. He had a pleasant, old-fashioned liking for Virgil and Horace, some critical knowledge of Greek, could speak French, and probably read Italian. But what strikes one most is a certain humanity in him, — an unflagging interest in men and their doings, — which made acquaintanceship easy and intercourse instructive. He seems to me also to have been endowed in rare measure with that Boswellian genius for observation, which knows what to observe and record, — a gift second only in value to the creative faculty itself. He had, if not humor, at least a keen sense of the comic. He was kindly, simple, and natural, the latter quality all the more remarkable in one who seems to have been somewhat morbidly given to self-examination. He had a high and constant sense of duty, whether private or public. I find it hard to express, without seeming to exaggerate, the pervading sentiment of engagingness, of affectionate sympathy, awakened in me by this tattered record of a useful, honorable, and yet, in the ordinary sense, obscure life. Mr. Minor’s brother¹ writes of him : “ Of the character of my brother perhaps it is scarce fitting that I should speak. Indeed, I fear to trust myself, although I should only reiterate the expressions of esteem and veneration which accompany his name whenever it is mentioned in the wide circle by whom in his lifetime he was known and loved. During the larger part of his life he was not a believer in the religion of Christ, his faith having been early sapped by the insidious sophistries of Gibbon and Hume ; but to human observation his conduct towards his fellow-men was so pure and yet so unostentatious that even calumny itself was shamed into silence, if not approval. An active and prominent member of an active profession, and taking an earnest and leading part in most of the movements for the amelioration of society amongst us, I know not that his conduct or motives were in any single instance assailed or suspected. This stainless purity of outward morality was in his latter days crowned with a rejoicing faith in the Saviour whom once he neglected, and he died in the ‘comfort of a reasonable, holy, and religious hope’ of a glorious immortality.”

Mr. Minor was born on the 24th of April, 1802, in the county of Louisa, the fifth of nine children, four daughters, and five sons. His family was of Dutch origin. Of his boyhood he is himself the best historian in the fragment of autobiography before mentioned. It is, I think, like his journals, of real value as affording authentic glimpses of modes of life almost as deeply lost in the dark background of time as those of the Odyssey.

“ OUTLINE OF MY LIFE.

“ Our parents were severe disciplinarians, using the rod much too often, with all except their youngest child. Most of us, if not all, had learned to read at four years old, our father’s heart being set upon seeing us forward in books, and himself teaching us that far. Nay, he taught most of us also writing, geography, and arithmetic, though he was liberal in sending us to school. His own knowledge had been mainly self-acquired, and was not extensive or thorough. But he was diligent, regular, and most exact in his teachings. His usage was to assemble those who were of the learning age in his dining-room (which was also parlor), every morning immediately after rising from bed. They were to appear properly washed and combed, and to say two lessons before breakfast, under pain of eating no butter at that meal, but only bread and milk. This penalty was greatly dreaded, and doubtless contributed much to make us most inordinate lovers of butter. Besides this, any great shortcoming in a lesson, whether through indolence or stupidity, was visited with hard blows ; and then, if the delinquent cried, whimpered, or pouted, a whipping was inevitable. Great errors, I humbly think ; though, in spite of them, regularity and steadiness in the teachings made the system very successful. Our father was an excellent reader, and an excellent teacher both of reading and spelling. His little domestic school went on as unfailingly as the sun, no matter what company he had ; and his hospitality was on the freest Virginia scale, — only there was no dissipation.

“From four to nearly six I was an irregular pupil of one Carr M‘G, a brutal tyrant employed as a teacher in the neighborhood for three years. Nothing that I ever heard or read of in schools kept by Englishmen exceeded the barbarities of this wretch towards the boys and girls placed under his care. The terror he inspired often neutralized the effect of his instructions, and made children pass for dunces who afterwards proved themselves to have good minds. I was little subject to him, and suffered nothing from his cruelty ; indeed, used great license of tongue towards him. How his scholars once exulted at a feat of mine ! He condescended to a game of snow-balling with them ; and I, enclosing a thick piece of ice in a little snow, threw it with all my childish strength at his face. It struck him in a tender part of the neck, and gave him great pain.

“ In the years of M'G.’s school our father still kept up his own system at home, — those lessons before breakfast ; and some boarders there, as well as his own children, shared them. He continued this in after years, so long as any of his children were of a fit age to learn from him. The boys who were large enough to feed hogs, sheep, etc., had that to do in winter before beginning their two lessons.

“ Our grandmother (Mrs. Elizabeth Minor) lived with her maiden daughter Elizabeth, at her deceased husband’s old seat, Topping Castle, on the North Anna, in Caroline, — having a plantation of some hundreds of acres, cultivated by ten or fifteen slaves, thirty miles from us. She had no overseer but a faithful old mulatto named Jack Overton, who (by her husband’s will) was to be free at her death if he should behave well. Our father used to ride down regularly once a month to see her, and to see that things went right on her farm, commonly staying at least a day ; and this duty he steadily kept up till her death, in November, 1811, — a small sample of his energy and activity, though rheumatism had made him a cripple from boyhood in the left leg and hand, which were shrunk and bent so as to be nearly useless.

“ My first great grief was parting with my elder brother, William, whom, late in 1807, our father sent to Kentucky with the Rev. John Todd, an emigrating Presbyterian clergyman of much piety but little good sense, to remain five years for education. The boy was aged but ten or eleven. The step proved to be a grievous mistake. Immediately after, my father placed me behind him on horseback and carried me to Topping Castle, where I stayed near two months under care of his mother and sister, — Aunt Betsy, as we all called her. The latter was, I am nearly tempted to say, the wisest woman I ever knew. She came little short, in practical good sense, of Miss Edgeworth’s theoretical. Indeed, when Miss E. afterwards became known to me through her works, her chief merit was that she perpetually reminded me of my aunt. During that visit the latter told me stories of Miss E.’s, and from ‘Sandfordand Merton,’ impressing their morals upon me as could not else have been done. Many most valuable lessons are owing to those two months. She was at once kind, gentle, rational, and firm, in happier combination than any other person ever known to me. The visit and the lessons were shared by my cousin, Betty Goodwin (now wife of Dr. Joseph W. Pendleton), one or two years older than I. Our families long remembered many diverting quarrels between us.

“' Uncle Jack ’ (so the old head man was called by us young fry) used to come to the door of his old mistress’s apartment about daybreak every morning,— while her fire was making by another negro man, — to report what had been done the day before on the farm, and to get her directions and give his counsel about what should be done on that day. I usually slept in her room ; and I retain a distinct remembrance of the respectful tone and manner with which, standing in the doorway, he uncovered his gray locks and half-bald crown, and said, ' Mistis, here I am, madam ’ Sometimes it was ' Mistis, I’m come to insult you’ (consult you).

“ On returning home in March, 1808, I bad begun to write joining-hand. A practice then commenced made me ever after note and remember the current years, so that I know the year of any event at all momentous in my own life. At the foot of every page in my copy-book I was taught by my father and elder sisters to write the day of the month and the year. Methinks it has also much aided my study of historical chronology.

“ Two years were now spent at home, in learning further to read and write, with geography and light farm-work. My brothers and I were brought up to labor a good deal, though not very regularly, with our father’s negroes, who were fifteen or twenty in number, men, women, and children. My work was such as planting corn, thinning it, haymaking, picking up and shocking wheat in harvest, treading out wheat,² picking out cotton from the bolls, shucking corn, burning brush when new ground was cleared, etc., etc. I was also frequently sent on errands (riding or walking) about the neighborhood, and at seven or eight years old, often ‘went to mill,’ i. e. rode on a bag holding two and a half or three bushels of corn thrown across a horse, to a mill five miles off, and returned with the meal in like manner. The ‘ mill boys ’ assembled at the mill used to have rare and rich sports, while waiting for their ‘turns’ of corn to be ground. About the some time I was made feeder of my father’s sheep, numbering twentyone or twenty-two. My business was, every morning and evening to find and count them in the pasture, to pen them under shelter in bad weather, and to feed them with fodder or corn.

“It is said that shepherds of large flocks know every sheep by its features, though there be hundreds. This is credible to me, for I knew every one of my little flock. The ram gave me special cause to know him; he twice butted me over, when he was pleased to think me too slow in feeding.

“ Farmer Minor’s sons were thrown much into association with negroes in their various employments. It was so in a somewhat similar, though not often equal degree, with the sons of other farmers in that neighborhood who were equally wealthy. He was rather noted for the hardihood in which he brought up his sons. Running races, wrestling, and fighting with negro boys of our own size, were frequent practices. One Sunday I had a severe fight with Adam, a boy of my father’s rather older than I. My face received scratches, which striped it for several days. My father was absent. My dread of his knowing what had happened was extreme ; but he passed it over in silence. Adam and I had other encounters which left the mastery doubtful.

“ Such a life may well be supposed to have given bodily hardihood, and some forms of mental strength, especially when intermingled with reading books like Sandford and Merton. It gave adroitness in shifting for ourselves amid difficulties, — a low sort of savoir faire. And, by sending us much into the fields and woods, it made us observant of nature in some respects. Before eight years of age I knew all the trees common in our woods. A little instruction might have informed me of the names and connections of most plants. Many of the names I did know.

“ In January, 1810, an Englishman (Phillips) was employed to teach a school in our neighborhood ; but soon becoming dissatisfied, he absconded in a few weeks. The school-house was of pine logs, covered with riven slabs of pine, having a chimney made with billets of wood piled upon each other and daubed with clay, a dirt floor, and no glass window !

“ About March a worthy Scotchman, Martin Robertson, who had married and long lived in the neighborhood, was employed to teach in the same house. He was one of the best teachers I ever had,—improving me in geography, writing, some arithmetical tables, the use of the dictionary, and habits of thought, more than any schoolmaster ever did. His only instrument of correction was a leather strap an inch wide and two feet long, slit into several fingers at one end. With this he struck the extended palm of an offender once, twice, or more ; seldom above twice. Yet, efficient and liked as he was as a teacher, we once formed a conspiracy and turned him out; that is, taking advantage of his going to dinner half a mile off, we nailed boards across the door so as to bar it effectually. But his first decided summons made the hearts of our leaders quail, and they tore down the bars as manfully as they had put them up. What we designed to extort was holiday for a few days. He taught only six months.

“The next year (1811) my teacher was Mr. John B. Duke of Hanover. Father’s mistaken ambition set me to learn Latin, though not nine years old. He promised to give me a copy of Plutarch’s Lives, if I would get through Cæsar that year. The course was Ruddiman’s Grammar, Cordery’s Colloquies, Erasmus’s ditto, Cornelius Nepos, and Cæsar. I got through, and obtained Plutarch, of whom I had read a volume the previous year, in lessons at home, with vast pleasure. Mr. Duke made us parse every word in Cordery and Erasmus, and held us bound to parse any in the other books which he might call on us to parse. Though we called it going through the books, we did not read half of any. For example, we read but four books of Cæsar’s Gallic War. My classmate was Andrew Winston, several years older than I, and of a far better memory, in other faculties not superior. Never can I forget the utter mystification that overcame me when we began to parse. I had learned the grammar pretty well, and Cordery was put into my hands.”

Here, unhappily, the narrative abruptly ends, its remaining pages having been, perhaps, fired into space as cartridge-paper by some Virginia volunteer. There is enough, however, to give us the notion of a wholesome kind of training, in which study is oxygenated with a fair mixture of fresh air from wood and field. From the journal of a Western tour in 1836 I glean an allusion to another of Mr. Minor’s teachers, the more gladly as it illustrates the sweetness of the author’s character. The date is

“ LOUISVILLE, 8th December, 1836.

“ As we sat, a carriage was heard at the door, and then a knock. A gentleman entered who told Dr. C. that, in looking over the register of guests at the Galt House, he had seen the name of Mr. Minor of Virginia, and, learning that he was here, had taken a hack and come to see him. The gentleman said he was an early acquaintance of mine, and had often seen me at his grandfather’s, old Mr. Morton’s, when we were children, and he had come to see me for ‘auld lang syne,’ though his place was taken in the stage by which he was to proceed that night to his home near Frankfort. Name, William Robinson. I soon recollected him as the son of wellnigh my earliest instructor, Martin R., a good Scotchman whose teachings of twenty-six years ago I still remember with pleasure and gratitude. The twenty-five minutes which my old acquaintance could stay were spent in a crowd of inquiries after our common friends, and he then took his leave with a cordial invitation to me to visit him. Such an instance of kind remembrance in one whom I knew very slightly, and had not seen since my eleventh year, was of course very gratifying, and Dr. C. said it ‘ was extra-or-di-na-ry, such,’ added he, ' as only a Kentuckian would practise.’ ”

Mr. Minor never received any collegiate education, but “ completed his law studies in 1823 at the Law School of the College of William and Mary, then under the charge of the late Judge Semple.” He soon afterwards removed to Mooresville in Northern Alabama. From a journal kept on the road thither for his mother I select a few passages illustrative of manners. The journey was of course made on horseback.

“ BUCKINGHAM, 20th November, 1823.

“The house where I am resting tonight is twenty-nine miles from Cartersville, and forty-two from Dr. Kean’s, whence you know I came this morning. Buck N—(as he is styled by his familiars), the owner of this shabby and ill-furnished mansion, is gone to a wedding not far off. I am entertained by his wife and three ragged, boisterous, ill-taught boys. Much has been said of the wealth of Buckingham ; but my road (except a few miles along Willis’s River) has lain through a region of poverty that would scandalize Louisa, if not Fluvanna. Willis’s River (or creek, a stream much smaller than the South Anna) presents some traces of commercial enterprise ; a dismantled lock intended to aid navigation is to be seen. . . . . . I am very gracious with two drunken clowns here ; one of whom says he has a brother (a Major ——) in Nashville, a lawyer of high standing and quite a great man. He offers me a letter of introduction, but is too tipsy now to write it, even if the house afforded the means, which, I suspect, it does not. The other tippler is a genuine specimen of the tavern soaker and bully, looking so mean that I really have some scruples about sleeping in the same room with him, which, however, is to be the arrangement for the night. At Cartersville I bought an umbrella and a very cheap (though coarse) plaid cloak, giving for the former three dollars and for the latter eight dollars.”

“ 23d November.

“ The house where I have now stopped (to breakfast) is kept by a worthy Dutchman, whose wife has just been waiting on me at table. She is a tidy, sociable, communicative dame. A Dutch almanac is by me ; on asking her if any of the family can read it, she tells me her husband can, as fluently as English. He is, however, the sole member of the household that does understand that tongue. He teaches it to none of his children, nor to his wife. One instance this of the general fact that these industrious and thriving people are letting fall the peculiarities which distinguish them from the mass of our population, and merging fast in the characteristics of those among whose settlements they are embosomed. We may hope that, while they acquire the alert spirits and brisk intelligence of their British-sprung neighbors, they will impart to these latter a portion of the sturdy and thriftful virtues which make their own characters.”

“ DR. JOHNSON’S, NEAR SALEM, BOTETOURT Co., Same day, night.

“ Unlooked for, my dear mother ! I have a philosopher, a man of some sense and very considerable information, for my landlord. I have all the way been wishing for somebody in whom I might find a congenial spark of scholarship, and was attracted hither chiefly by the title prefixed to the name of my present host. But I expected little more than a dry, technical pedant, with whom I could discuss the Greek derivations of some of the terms in his own science, talk of the treatises and opinions of Dr. Rush upon education, politics, crimes, and punishments, or deliberate on the comparative merits of the Baltimore and Philadelphia universities. Now, instead of all this,— instead of a mind cramped within the nutshell limits of his single profession, — Dr. J. has shown a fund of general and practical knowledge, which he dispenses so as to convey both pleasure and advantage. He has travelled much ; seems to know a great deal of the world from experience ; and is perfect master of all the little rules and means, relating both to moral conduct and bodily shifting or management, by which a traveller should act in the various emergencies of his tour. The accommodations of his house are more completely comfortable than any I have ever seen ; and his supper is so good,³ that I am determined to adopt his advice (interested, perhaps), and stay to breakfast in the morning. Hitherto the sun has never risen without finding me on horseback : I must infringe the custom for once.

“ It is now half past ten at night; yet ‘sleep, gentle sleep, has not weighed my eyelids down,’ so pleasant has the colloquy with mine host been. . . . . He has shown me a book (and I have read almost half through it) called ' Inside out,’ written by a lawyer who was confined in the Penitentiary at Auburn, New York ! It is a strong and sensible production, pointing out with infinite justness and force the inefficacy of penitentiary discipline (as it is usually settled) for all the ends of punishment ; nay, its positive mischievousness, by answering no other end than to give raw and inexperienced culprits opportunities of improving themselves under the lessons of hardened veterans in crime. His remedy is solitary confinement; and a total prohibition of all intercourse between the convicts when labor or meals necessarily bring them together.”

“ 24th November.

“ Most of my ride, yesterday and today, was through the great valley. The Dutch inhabiting it are said to have crept down gradually from their settlement, in Pennsylvania; and the land, though generally rich, being too far from market to offer seducing attractions to any but the children of sober industry, these plain and steady people had few competitors for the spots that best suited their interests and their peculiar taste. It is curious to see how uniformly they choose for the site of their dwellings the very lowest part of the valley ; usually but a few feet above the creeping brook or the rushing torrent, to which their meadows serve as margin. Their habitations are surpassingly neat in outward appearance ; the greater part, even of the two-storied buildings, are of logs, chinked with stones, then crammed smoothly, and the mortar whitewashed. Such is the house where I now am. It is larger and more roomy than our house.

“ My landlord is a Mr. Havens (recommended to me by Dr. Johnson), a most ingenious, and even scientific mechanic. He has shown me an improved loom, for which he has a patent ; and a corn-shelling machine, which has circulated extensively in Virginia, able to shell one hundred ears in a minute. I am much taken with a very simple machine for paring apples, by which fifty may be pared in a minute. I could make one, methinks, with a little more skill in handling the needful tools.

“There are two uncommonly interesting lodgers with me here : a poor man who has lost both eyes, by an explosion of gunpowder in blasting rock ; and his niece, a girl about twelve or thirteen years old, who guides him wherever he goes. The eyeballs are either lost entirely from the sockets, or hidden by the closing of the lids, which are spread as smoothly over the seats of vision as if no balls had ever been there. The sufferer seems cheerful, and has manifested in several instances to me that increased acuteness of other senses (his feeling and hearing) generally consequent upon the loss of the principal one. There is a caravan of wild beasts exhibiting through this part of the country. The blind man heard me speak of them, and with great apparent solicitude inquired if I had seen the bear ? My host informed me that the bear had been once in the poor fellow’s custody, and that a very strong mutual attachment had subsisted between them. No absent brother could have been asked after with more earnest tokens of affection than Bruin by his quondam keeper. The poor fellow seems to have taken a sort of liking to me; from something, perhaps, in the tone of my voice, which may have betrayed to his nice ear what I certainly felt, — no small compassion for his misfortunes. He gave a singular and somewhat embarrassing token of this partiality at supper (which we partook of along with our host’s family, six or eight in number) by begging that I would put his food into his plate for him. As you may suppose, I sat by him, and was assiduous enough in my attentions ; flattered by such a confidence, which preferred me, a total stranger, even to the niece, whose fidelity and affection to him seemed great as any daughter could have shown.”

“ 25th November.

“ On reaching this (Mr. Trigg’s) tavern, two gentlemen were talking politics in the bar-room; their immediate topic, the Presidential election. One of them is a rather short, thickly set person, in a gray cloth coatee and corduroy inexpressibles, with a hat (which, traveller-like, he wears in the house) cased in a green silk oilcloth,— a Baltimore merchant going on some speculative tour to the Southwest. I cannot tell plainly who is his favorite candidate, but it seems to be General Jackson. The other was zealous for Crawford, whose pretensions he advocated with great fluency, if not force.

“ General Jackson went from here to-day ; and I met him, but without knowing him. He has gone on to Washington to take his seat as Senator from Tennessee, — a post assigned him by his devoted countrymen, with a view, as is supposed, of forwarding his chance for the Presidency, by putting him in a prominent and central point before the nation’s eyes. He is accompanied by several gentlemen ; among them, Major Eaton, who, from what I hear, is a sort of toad-eater — humble companion — to Old Hickory.

“ Hitherto I have travelled alone, and at first I preferred doing so. The ' feast of feeling ’ which one enjoys sometimes in rich exuberance among the wild scenes of nature is liable to be marred by having to share it, to talk of it, to analyze it, to a companion. He may not sympathize, he may not taste the banquet so relishingly as you do ; and then he is sure to think you an enthusiastic raver, while you are just as sure to despise him as a senseless dolt. And these are unkind feelings which at once take largely from the purity of your enjoyment. But I am now sated with a solitary admiration of sylvan and montane beauties, and for a day or two have longed for converse with some one on subjects not directly before my eyes. I have a prospect of being gratified. The Baltimorean is bound for Nashville ; our routes lie for three hundred miles together ; and Mr. Crawford (who has ascertained these particulars) has negotiated between us a treaty of amity and companionship. By the by, he knows not, any more than I do, the name of my new comrade ; but he has got it settled between us that we shall set out together early in the morning, and go fourteen miles to breakfast.”

“ SEVEN MILE FORD, WASHINGTON CO., (SCOTT’S TAVERN,) November 26th.

“ I like my new acquaintance right smartly. The main objection to him is that his horse has been slightly foundered, so that he cannot quite keep pace with my ‘bay mare, Meg,—a better never lifted leg.’ However, we have come thirty-four miles to-day. He stayed at Dr. Johnson’s a night or two before I did. We have been comparing notes on the doctor’s character, conversation, and fare. The last we agree is unrivalled ; but as to his conversation, it turns out that he travelled over exactly the same ground with both of us, — led us along the same paths, — and studiously visited every border, from which with premeditated cleverness he plucked only the flowers that he had by habit familiarized to his hand. To drop metaphor, the honest doctor, it appears, has a fixed set of themes of discourse, which he introduces to two (and therefore, by a natural inference, to many) different guests, entertaining them with the same routine of confabulation, as with the same succession of dishes. If our surmise be right, he much resembles Ephraim Jenkinson, who had but one scrap of learning for all comers ; and when he had done with Manetho and Berosus and cosmogony, his stock was exhausted. I wish yet it may be otherwise with my friend the doctor.

“ This morning was a very cold, frosty one, suitable to the season. A mile or two from our starting-place we came to a large creek, its banks edged with ice. Just at the same time there came to the opposite side an old woman (of sixty, at least, to appearance), leading a mean tackey, on which was strapped a large bundle of wearing-apparel and other luggage, too large to leave any room for her to ride. She halted at the water’s edge and was going, though with some hesitation, to wade through the ford where it was more than knee-deep. I called to her to wait; and whipping over to her, proffered to lead her horse over, and pointed up the stream to a hammock, where I thought she could cross dry-shod. She gave me her horse, which I led over and secured upon the other side : then, looking for her, I beheld her, with clothes raised up to her knees, wading the creek just above the ford. The water reached more than half-way to her knees, was rapid and cold ; yet she strode through it as unflinchingly as I would have done in midsummer. Her brawny legs looked red as a Bermuda potato : they were seemingly of the hardest muscle and sinews, and fully as large in the calf as mine ; which (if you know it not) are no spindles, madam, I assure you. My travelling companion waited till my service to the old lady was rendered ; and then complimented me upon my gallantry, with a very diverting mixture of banter and gravity in his countenance.”

“ GAINES’S, SULLIVAN CO., TENN., November 28th, Night.

“ We are now within five miles of the Boatyard (called also Kingsport and Rossville, from David Ross, its founder), at the head of navigation on Holston River. Even that high, the passage of boats is very precarious, limited almost entirely to the downward course, and for this they are obliged to wait for a flood in the river. It has been now six months or more since there was a sufficient tide to carry them over the numerous shoals, rocks, and obstacles of various kinds, that present themselves between the BoatYard and the Muscle Shoals, — a distance of five hundred miles. These boats are an important, almost the staple, production of this fertile but rugged and sequestered region. They are flat-bottomed, of huge dimensions, capable of carrying 300 or 400 bales of cotton (which weigh 300 pounds each), and covered over for at least half their length with plank. This top is shaped, not like the roof of a house, but rather like that of a carriage. This ark is of very rude structure ; and when finished, is loaded with flour, apples, onions, bacon, corn, plank, and scantling, and started down the river under the conduct of but three boatmen (a steersman and two rowers). At Ditto’s Landing (opposite Huntsville), Triana (where S. Ragland lives), Mooresville, Cottonport, and other settlements along the river, the cargo is sold off on the best terms practicable, and then the boat itself is disposed of to a planter for $60 or $70, to be freighted with cotton for New Orleans ; or else the same hands hire it and themselves to run down to that city by the February or March flood, — the load varying from 300 to 400 bales. At New Orleans, when emptied of its last cargo, the boat is sold as firewood and lumber, being never intended or able to go up the stream again ; for its clumsiness makes it little better than a log in the water.

“ Here, to-night, is a man whose trade it is to build these boats ; from him I have gathered my chief knowledge of them. He has been down the river sundry times ; even to Mooresville, where he has seen my brother William. He interests me, too, by another circumstance. A few weeks ago my two cousins, R. Tompkins and George Temple, stopped at the BoatYard where he was working, their money out, and they a good deal jaded, you may suppose, with their long walk. R. could find no employment in his line, — teaching school, — but G. at once obtained work from my informant; and well did he work, till he made money enough to enable them both to prosecute their journey. R. rendered himself so acceptable by his good sense and modesty, that his board cost him nothing hereabouts. The man hits off G.’s character to a t, by saying that “ as for George, he was neither ashamed nor afeard to say anything to anybody,” — a character the most fascinating of all to the rowdy population of this country. And he was accordingly, as I could plainly see, a prodigious favorite.

“ We have encountered immense droves of hogs, going into your part of Virginia. At Squire or Captain Goodson’s, where we breakfasted this morning (by the by, it was our last stoppingplace in my native State), were two droves of 700 or 800 each ; and yesterday we met two others as numerous. For a week past I have met two or perhaps three of these hordes daily. We have a band of hog-drivers from Kentucky for our messmates to - night, bound eastwardly with I don’t know how many hundreds. Yet these apparently overflowing supplies are, as the people on the road say, much smaller than usual ! You certainly cannot suffer by a scarcity of bacon. One of the drivers here is a hulking, bullylike fellow, but merrily disposed, with whom I am all of a sudden very intimate. He swears I am a d— d—, but it will look like vanity if I repeat his compliments.

“ Our entertainer to-night is Captain Gaines, a cousin of General Edmund P. Gaines. He is a favorable specimen of the Tennessee men, tall and commanding in his mien, frank, manly, and dignified in his sentiments. I hardly know how to treat him as an innkeeper. That calling, however, has no manner of discredit in the estimation of these Western people, whether Virginians or Tennesseeans. The Congressman from the Campbell (Virginia) district is, at home, a simple Boniface; and (God willing) we shall to-morrow break our fast at the house of Joseph McMinn, late Governor of Tennessee, now keeper of a plain but reputable ' hostelry ’ ten miles hence. Our regular breakfasting distance is fifteen miles ; but as a man who, after filling with credit and popularity the supreme magistracy of a sovereign State, has retired into one of the humblest walks of private life, is really worth contemplating, we have determined to anticipate our usual haltingtime, in order to gratify our curiosity.”

“ ROGEKSVILLE, TENN., November 29th.

“ We stopped at the worthy Ex-Governor’s, and found him altogether pleasing. He is a little old man, with large, yet sunken eyes that seem to have undergone a good deal of service,— though his Excellency’s brain is not very much stored with bookish treasures. He is affable, kind, and communicative. He entered very freely into political discussion ; indeed, with more freedom and promptitude than intelligence. . . . .Besides filling the chief

magistracy of this State, Governor McM. has served it also in other capacities. He was a member of the convention which passed the State Constitution, and has been a representative in Congress. He is now agent or resident envoy with the Cherokee Indians south of Holston and French Broad Rivers. It is a singular spectacle to see a man, who has occupied such high and varied stations, bustling about a tavern at once as landlord, barkeeper, and head waiter, administering entertainment to guests of every degree. My companion desired the ‘ Governor ’ to give him a basin of water and a towel, asking me slyly, while the honest gentleman was obeying the order, if that wasnot sublime ? . . . . . This is indeed a country where the democratic spirit of liberty and equality prevails to the utmost extent. I already see, or think I see, a bolder, loftier carriage in ordinary men. Every one seems to feel himself an efficient member of the body politic. No free male citizen being excluded from a vote in the choice of lawgivers and governors, every one takes an interest in the acts of those public servants ; and you hear proceedings of the Legislature and other political matters canvassed by men whose appearance would, amongst us, bespeak them both unknowing and careless of the most important public concerns. It would surprise you to see the warm and active feelings of these people in regard to the Presidential election. Of the Louisa people, I believe not a tenth part, even of the freeholders, have yet bestowed a thought or experienced a wish upon the subject. In Tennessee, every heart is roused, every tongue is busy; old and young, male and female, — all look anxiously forward to the result ; all wish, and would fight for (if need be) the success of Jackson. Never, surely, were a people so nearly unanimous. The citizens of Sevier County met the other day to express sentiments and adopt resolutions in favor of their hero. The votes were taken, when there were for Clay 3, for Crawford 2, for Adams I, for Calhoun none, for Jackson between 600 and 700 ! So hot are they on this point that to deny J.’s superior claims to the post in dispute seems to be considered a sort of treason ; and even to say he will not succeed is looked on as a high misdemeanor; either offence, however, luckily being deemed more worthy of pity than of punishment, by reason of the absurdity it is supposed to involve.

“The further westward I go, the more indubitable appears J.’s election. The people are daily receiving accounts of his increasing popularity to the North and East, — accounts furnished by newspapers favorable to him in those quarters. They possibly speak as much from what they wish as from what they know to be the case.”

“ November 30th.

“To-day we passed Bean’s Station, or Oresville, a noted point where the great leading road to Kentucky, over Cumberland and Clinch Mountains, turns off to the right. The name Oresville is derived from one Ore, a countyman of ours, who used to live there (keeping a petty tavern) thirty or forty years ago, when houses of any kind were scarce as hen’s teeth on the road, and when the almost unbroken forest swarmed with Indians. Ore had a bad name in Louisa; he was prosecuted, or threatened with prosecution, for some theft or robbery, and fled. Here he did not greatly amend his life. His house was in very ill repute. There is a story (it was told me by Mr. John Garth, when we came out to Kentucky in 1815) of two travellers putting up at his house to stay all night. They placed their baggage, including loaded pistols, in the bar, as is now usual. Next morning, on mounting, they found their horses lame, and stopped at a blacksmith’s shop a little way along the road to have the shoes and hoofs examined and put to rights. The smith (who was an honest man) found a horse-hair so fixed in a hoof of each horse as to produce the lameness, and evidently with design. He warned the travellers that danger awaited them, and advised them to examine their pistols, Putting in the ramrods, they found, as they thought, the charges in ; so was the priming. ‘ Draw the loads,’ said the blacksmith, ‘and make sure.’ They screwed out the supposed loads, and found them to be wads of cotton which had been rammed down to fill the place of powder and ball. They now saw that some mischief was intended ; they carefully reloaded the pistols, and, their horses being relieved, wended on their way. In a deep, shady bottom one or two miles from Ore’s house, two black men, armed with rifles, suddenly sprung out before their horses and commanded them to deliver their money. The travellers drew out their pistols, and admonished the robbers to desist. They swore they valued not the pistols a curse ; the travellers might shoot and be d—d. The latter took them at their word, fired, killed one dead, and wounded the other, who retreated into the thicket, and then rode back to Ore’s house to make known what had happened. The old lady (Mrs. Ore) instantly lifted up her hands, and exclaimed that her son was killed ! And sure enough, on examining the corpse closely, it was found to be their late landlord’s son, who had blackened his face, intending to pass for a negro. What became of Ore or the travellers afterwards tradition does not say. Now, there are one or two handsome houses (one of them a respectable inn) at the place; and the whole vicinage wears the aspect of peace, abundance, and civilization.

“ KNOXVILLE, December 1st.

“ We have adopted a new plan of travelling; taking breakfast before we set out in the morning, and riding all day without another halt. The mode answers well enough for the short winter days. From Myers’s hither is but thirty-three miles. All the way from the Boat-Yard our route has been along the north side of the Holston, or Tennessee River, sometimes within eight, sometimes a mile or several miles from it. Here we shall leave it, striking more directly west, while its course is rather southwest. This is an awkward, ill-built town, the largest in East Tennessee, though containing, I believe, not over two thousand inhabitants. Mr. Jackson, our landlord, is just removing himself and his effects into a new house, entertaining us in the old, which is, consequently, in bad order for the comfortable reception of guests.

“ There is a good deal of very fertile land between the Boat-Yard and Knoxville, but the want of a ready vent for its produce (it can be no other radical cause) has generated a system of miserable husbandry, more wasteful and injudicious even than that prevalent in old Virginia, and ‘ that’s a bold word.’ For example, the tops are not cut from the corn. The blade fodder only is pulled, and that not always. A great deal of corn is yet ungathered in the fields, and as to cutting down the stalks it is never thought of. Nor is manuring for any field-crop ever, or more than by one farmer in a hundred, practised. . . . . The road abounds with

houses of entertainment, that look neat and even genteel ; most of them are said to be as comfortable as need be. The cheapness of their bills is wonderful. For supper, lodging, breakfast, and just as much corn or oats and hay and fodder as our horses can destroy (usually half a bushel of grain and a rackful of long food), we are charged 5/3 apiece ! To me, indeed, who am travelling on Tennessee money bought at twenty per cent discount, it is about sixty-nine cents ! And this is my whole daily expense, except gratuities to hostlers. In the latter part of October twelvemonth, when I was going on foot (as you remember) from Old Point Comfort to Williamsburg, I paid 7/8 (specie) at the Half-way House, between Hampton and York, for supper, lodging, and breakfast.

“ December 2d.

“ Stopped for the night at Eskridge’s, — Squire Eskridge our host is called ; and far and wide is that name known; and loudly do all extol, who have ever tasted the goodness of his cheer. He has a jovial fulness of visage (with most rubicund cheeks variegated by very white teeth and sparkling black eyes) and a portly rotundity of person, that plainly betoken all the excellence of entertainment for which he is so celebrated. His stables, grain, forage, hostlers, and all, so far, are of the first order. Yet the house is a plain wooden house, not painted, nor furnished with anything like splendor. But its charm is the neatness that reigns everywhere ; the goodness of the bread, butter, tea, milk, and meats ; and the alertness of the host, wholly free all the while from the smallest tinge of servility. In all my journeys here along, though I have to ride five miles over, or stop ten miles short of my regular distance, it shall go hard but I ’ll spend a night at Squire Eskridge’s.

“ The Squire is a justice of the peace. (They and lawyers are called Squires in this free and equal land.) He is an especial admirer of General Jackson, whom he knew almost immediately after his migration hither from South Carolina, and his commencement of the law practice. He tells us two stories of J.’s concern in civil broils. One was of a notorious bully’s offering him some gross insult, presuming upon his raw, youthful look, and slender make. But Jackson soon got hold of a pistol, and, stepping up to the bully, threatened him with instant death unless he recalled the insult and apologized for it. His manner was so fiery and determined, that there was no mistaking his purpose to be death or atonement; and the fellow (whose courage was altogether of the fisticuff and gouging sort) humbly begged the young lawyer’s pardon. . . . . The other anecdote related to a quarrel between Jackson, after he became a militia general, and Governor Sevier. They once met, armed with pistols, on horseback, and attended each by several friends, with the avowed design of adjusting the dispute amicably ; but high words arose; both parties seem to have been shy (especially the Governor, as Squire Eskridge thinks, though reputed a man of courage); and they parted without either fighting or making friends.

“ Most of our road to-day has lain through a savage and barren-looking country ; and more hilly than for the three preceding days.

“ KIMMER’S TAVERN, December 4th.

“After paying our bill⁴ at Mr. Clarke’s, — a bill so low (considering what its consideration was) that, added to other inducements, it will almost infallibly draw me to Mr. C.’s on my return, —we ferried over Clinch River ; and, twelve miles afterwards, began the ascent of Cumberland Mountain.

“ About midway over the mountain is our present resting-place. The accommodations are none of the best, and, by contrast with those of Clarke, Eskridge, and Myers, seem execrable. The hostler is a white man, — a gawky, tall, long-legged gilly, whom we cannot get to rub our horses in half the style they are accustomed to. My comrade scolded at him so freely when we were in the stable on that business, that I really felt afraid the fellow would resent it with his huge fists that swing upon such long arms ; but he took it all in a sort of sullen patience, not getting angry, yet not doing a whit the better for it. He can’t be a thorough Tennesseean, or Virginian either, or he would have given my friend hard words if nothing more.

“ We have fallen in here with a member of the Tennessee Legislature (which has recently adjourned), on his way home to Sullivan County, — the one next to Virginia. He gives us several incidents of the late session. One most curious one is that the Governor of the State (General Carroll) was imprisoned for debt in Nashville, whence the Legislature had him brought, by writ of habeas corpus, to Murfreesborough, the seat of government, in order that he might take his constitutional share in legislation. A novel and singular instance this of the way we Americans have of making the highest bend with the lowest to the laws. The same thing might happen in Virginia. Governor McMinn told us of this same circumstance ; but I waited for confirmation of it before I would enter it here.

“ SPARTA, December 5th.

“ Descended from the mountain some twelve or fifteen miles back. We have stopped for the night in this village, a small one, but of tolerably flourishing appearance. It has a newspaper as, indeed, almost every town in the West has that contains five hundred people, — a good sign, certainly, of intelligence, and a harbinger of far more rapid advancement in mind and morals than our old Virginia population can hope for, of whom not one in thirty (of the freeholders even) ever reads a newspaper.

“ December 6th.

“ I have come on four miles farther, to General Smart’s. My host is a dry, uninteresting personage. He served with Jackson in some of his campaigns, and they say was a brave soldier. Indeed, it cannot easily happen that any one who is not brave can get high military position here, when there has been an opportunity of trying what stuff he is made of.

“ PURDOM’S, December 7th.

“ Setting out late, i. e. not till sunrise or a little after, from General Smart’s (owing to the laziness of his servants, who could not be got to feed and dress my horse in time), I nevertheless came to Purdom’s (thirteen miles) to breakfast. The condition of my beast requiring rest, I have concluded to stay all night here, the more willingly as the day is rainy. Purdom is a round, merry fellow, greatly like Dr. Morris in face and shape, though intellectually as unlike him as possible. The day has passed off heavily, notwithstanding mine host’s perfect freedom from the foible of silence. He has given me his whole history as minutely as if he were furnishing me with materials to write his life. However, amidst the multitude of nothings he has uttered, I have gleaned some things that I would rather not have missed, as one may always do, from even the most ignoraut.

“ 8th December.

“The landlord has made me acquainted, too, with one Mr. Rutledge, a young gentleman not yet fully licensed to practise law. His conversation is forcible and almost sparkling ; his knowledge not scanty ; his mind altogether much above mediocrity. He has, withal, a very respectful opinion of his own powers ; not such as amounts to egregious vanity, but enough to stimulate exertion and embolden him always to make the most of his mental resources. I consider just this much of self-esteem as a fortunate possession. Indeed, without it, genius wants half its due energy, and fails of more than half its proper achievements. I augur success and distinction also to this Mr. Rutledge, if no unlooked-for gust drive his bark from her course, and no unseen rock shatter or insidious whirlpool engulf him.

“ MILLER’S, MADISON CO., ALABAMA, December 9th.

“A ride of but twenty miles to-day has brought me within twenty-five miles of Huntsville. The land has been growing richer and richer as I have proceeded for the last two days, and here it is exceedingly fertile ; yet still, as they tell me, less so than in the central and more southerly parts of this county and in Limestone County. Since I left Purdom’s the cotton crops have been assuming quite a different character. Theretofore they existed only in patches, such as we cultivate in old Virginia, where each family does well to make enough for its own clothing. But as I journeyed since yesterday morning, those patches have been gradually increasing into fields ; and I have now seen some cotton-fields of fifty, sixty, or seventy acres, perhaps even of one hundred or more. What seems odd to me ; these fields are still white with cotton, which frequently remains unpicked till March or even April, when the ground is wanted to plant the next crop. I have passed some timber today of gigantic growth, mostly chestnut and poplar. A tree of the latter kind was so large that I am persuaded I could have rode into its hollow, if my mare had not pointedly refused to enter.

“ This place is called the ‘ Hickory Flat,’ a name somewhat descriptive of its posture and prevailing wood-growth. It is a shabby travellers’ rest. The landlord has been a representative in the State Legislature, but his absence now deprives me of the opportunity of seeing how worthy he is of that distinction. His ‘ woman-kind ’ (as Jonathan Oldbuck would call them) are my only entertainers ; and they savor but little of intelligent male society.

“ December 10th.

“I am now at the house of H. M., or, to give him the title here his due, Judge Minor.

“Setting off about sunrise from Miller’s, I came to the Greenbottom Inn, kept by one Connelly or Codley, — twenty miles, — to breakfast, with such an appetite as a ride of twenty miles and the hour of noon were calculated to give. There, too, some ladies were my entertainers, who seemed to have a highly respectable degree of refinement in their appearance, manners, and Smalltalk. Their dresses I should call elegant.

“ Some two hours before sunset I entered Huntsville. It is a pretty village of sixteen hundred inhabitants, with some handsome houses in and around it, though very many are merely of hewn logs, chinked with stone, and pointed with lime mortar, after the fashion of the Cohees.⁵ In the centre of the town is the public square, measuring in each direction about one hundred and fifty yards, and having the Court House in its centre. On three of its sides this square is faced by tolerably compact rows or blocks of brick houses, occupied by merchants, mechanics, lawyers, doctors, and tavern-keepers. Without alighting, I rode nearly around it before I could find any one to tell me precisely the road to ‘Judge M.’s ’ house ; at last a gentleman gave me a very minute direction, telling me at the same time that Mrs. M. and her sister (Mrs. T.) were then in town on a visit to a Mr. Cruise. I nevertheless proceeded to my place of destination, about two miles west of the town, where I found only some of the children at home. Henry (who was my pupil a year or two since) knew me ; and he was the first person I had seen since leaving Wythe Court House, that I had ever seen before. In half an hour the ladies came home and gave me a greeting so cordially polite as to refresh in no small degree my spirits, wearied by sympathy with a wearied body, and perturbed by the embarrassment anticipated from entering upon a scene so new to me. The Judge’s house is built of logs in the manner above described. But the furniture is much more elegant than is commonly seen in two-story framed houses with us. Nothing is more usual here than to see a log-cabin dwelling with a splendid carriage standing under the shed of an out-house near it; and on going in, you behold a mahogany sideboard, tables, and beaufets, with superb services of china and plate, imported carpeting, etc., etc.”

“ FINIS.

“ My travelling expenses from

Cartersville to Huntsville . $26.92

Deduct fees to hostlers . . . 2.25

----

$ 24.67

“ Distance from our house to Huntsville, according to the reputed distances between the different stands, about six hundred and thirty miles.”

A passage in a letter from Mooresville, written a year later, shows him still waiting for his books. “ I will get you, if you can spare them, to have Tom Paine’s works put up in the box. His Rights of Man, Civis, and Common Sense stand high in this democratic country, as indeed they must do all over the Union, and I may have a use for them if ever I scribble for the newspapers, or am elected to the Legislature, or have to make a Fourth of July speech.” To his grandmother he regrets that “ no opportunity has occurred of sending her some reed pipe-stems,” —from which it would appear that she was a smoker. He also mentions (what seems oddly incongruous with the region as he describes it) that “to-night the students of Green Academy perform Julius Cæsar.”

Mr. Minor remained only a year in Alabama and then returned to Virginia. He established himself as a lawyer in his native county. His evenings were given to literature, and I find him a constant contributor to the “ Southern Literary Messenger,” sending now a careful review of some new book, now a translation from Anacreon, and now a tale or an essay. The latter turn chiefly on some point of the minor or conventional ethics, and in their grandfatherly style, their fondness for the allegorical form, and the stately movement of their rhetoric, revive not unpleasantly confused memories of the British classics, ere literature had condescended from the grave decorums of the minuet to the whirl of the polka. They are excellent examples of what may be called domestic authorship; useful, edifying, agreeable even, only not brilliant; fit to beguile long winter evenings in the country, and to win the safe and sweet applauses of a fireside audience. Many of them seem to have been written for such household ends, and all are pleasing by their lowness of tone and the entire absence of all exaggeration or undue emphasis. Indeed, a constant reasonableness and good taste, the fine breeding of letters, characterize whatever Mr. Minor wrote, whether for his own or the general eye.

Mr. Minor, though his tastes were those of seclusion and scholarship, was led by a genial humanity of temperament to take an active share in all movements for public benefit. He took an earnest interest in education, the reform of prison discipline, of the law, of politics. He led the forlorn hope of temperance in his native county, riding often thirty miles in summer heat or winter storm to make addresses in behalf of an unpopular good. In May, 1835, I find him teaching Elisha, a slave of his father, to read and write, though thereby incurring public blame. “Told of animadversion which is excited by my undertaking to teach E. One wiseacre roundly says, Mr. Q. and I are guilty of a penitentiary offence. And the still more sapient wiseacre for whom E. has been working says he does not wish to have anything to do with a negro who is so taught.” He mentions a fact or two that may be of interest to the student of language. “ Sh still puzzles him somewhat. Sheaf he called leaf. The hard sound of c in cloak did not occur to him, he called it sloak. Frisk he could spell and pronounce very well, but the addition of an s made it tangle his tongue, and it was only after eight or ten efforts, following as many repetitions of the word by me, that he could say frisks. It was frixt, fricks, frisk.”

In the same manuscript book which contains his “journal of Elisha’s learning,” and the record of his temperance labors, are some anecdotes of Jackson which seem worth preserving. One leaf has unhappily been torn out.

“ During Burr’s trial, General Jackson was in Richmond, staying at the Globe Tavern, which stood where the — —now does. He then attracted universal notice by his loud blustering, cursing, and swearing. The great object of his maledictions was General Wilkinson, who was shortly expected there as a witness from Louisiana. Him General J. denounced as a traitor, a coward, and a perjured villain ; prefixing to every epithet the most energetic d . . . d’s, and G . d d . . . d’s. Nothing could equal the vigor and variety of his oaths and imprecations. ‘ May I be eternally and hellfiredly G . d d . . . . d,’ was one frequent formula with him, which tradition has preserved. I know several most respectable men who saw and heard him upon that occasion, and who declare that he was regarded by everybody as the very prince of bullies and blackguards. It is said that when Wilkinson came, J. was entirely quiet, and very soon took occasion to quit Richmond : but I suspect the truth of the insinuation implied in this statement, for his courage never could be justly called in question.

“Since he became President, General J. has not hesitated on various occasions, and in the presence of persons whose presence might have been expected somewhat to restrain his ebullitions, to vent his feelings in the freest and most undignified manner. His war upon the Senate, which has resulted in the almost entire prostration of that body (seconded, as his assaults were, by its own most unscrupling factiousness), is well known. ‘ Damn them !’ said he, lately, to a gentleman from Virginia, speaking of some offensive act of the Senate, — ‘damn them! They need not think to fool with me ! ’ at the same time clenching his teeth, and striking with his cane upon the ground.

“ He has, on numberless occasions, indeed almost whenever it was mentioned in conversation for the last two or three years, damned the Senate as a pack of scoundrels.

“ I forget what distinguished foreigner it was — a French nobleman, I think — who said to the President that an army of his (the nobleman’s) country would soon take Washington, if war should occur between the two nations. ‘ Take Hell!' replied Old Hickory, with a tone of the deepest scorn. And that was all the reply he deigned.

“It belongs to history, that when some of his Secretaries (Messrs. Ingham, Branch, and Berrien) communicated to him their determination. not to let Mrs. Eaton associate with their families (her reputation being rather the worse for wear), the hero ‘roared like a lion.’ These were the words of Colonel Richard M. Johnson, who had undertaken to mediate between him and the contumacious heads of departments.

“ Most people yet remember the mingled surprise and contempt with which General J.’s first nomination for the Presidency was received, except in Tennessee and Pennsylvania. He himself regarded it as absurd, and his election as a chimera. He said to Judge Breckenridge (who was then his intimate friend, aide-de-camp, and member of his household), “ Do you think I am such a d . . . . d fool as to expect to be elected ? ’

“ These anecdotes are all or most of them undoubtedly true ; and a thousand similar ones might be added, all tending to confirm and illustrate the character which these fix upon this ‘greatest and best of men.’ But still, there is no comparison between him and Poindexter. The latter has all of J.’s vulgar turbulence, without a spark of his generous feeling or his integrity or his courage. The true equals —the real par nobile fratrum — are Poindexter and Benton.

“ But let us see — us, or the generations who shall come after us — whether the blasphemous comparison of Jackson to WASHINGTON will have acceptance among future ages. For my part, I never will believe it, until my already somewhat staggered faith in human virtue and in the self-sustaining purity and vigor of popular institutions shall have crumbled into hopelessness ; and until Washington’s countrymen, demonstrated to be unworthy of that name, shall have crouched beneath the merited chain and sceptre of some iron despot, who will scourge them, if not into wisdom, at least into shame, remorse, and anguish for their folly and wickedness.”

In the journal of a tour to the West in 1836 he describes picturesquely enough one of the border ruffians of what may be called the first period: “ Among the new-comers was General Felix Houston, now of Texas, —a dull, heavy, pugnacious-looking man, with broad shoulders and arms that seem able to wield a bowie-knife with tremendous effect. One visible under his waistcoat.” And here is a capital story which will justify what I have said of Mr. Minor’s eye for character and sense of the comic : —

“ A fine, stout old gentleman of eighty-two walked so steadily across the heaving deck, that I congratulated him on his good sea-legs. He said he had once served in a privateer, in 1781 witnessed a severe battle between the English and French fleets in the Chesapeake, and been chased by a British frigate. Presently he manifested a pious turn, and inquired if I thought there were many on board who ' loved our Lord.’ I did not know. ‘ Have you got a hope, — are you a servant of his ? ’ I was not a member of any church, not a professor of religion. ‘ Ah, well,’ he said, ‘ there are many that have it who are not in any church.’ He then pulled out some tracts, which he asked me to take. I took only ‘The Swearer’s Prayer.’....

“This morning (it was Tuesday, October 1st) the old man of yestreen and I had much more conversation. He told me further that he was at the storming of Stony Point, and told some particulars of Wayne’s orders and conduct on that occasion that were new to me. Wayne not only made his men take the flints out of their guns, that they might rely exclusively on the bayonet, but ordered the officers to run any man through the body who should fire ; and, moreover, ordered them to treat in like manner any who should retreat, or show a wish to do so, and strictly enjoined upon the soldiers to run their bayonets through any officer who should behave in a cowardly manner. For the expedition he had picked his men, and some or all of them were volunteers for it. But about four miles from the fort, when they did not yet know what service of peril they were upon, he halted them, and in a brief address warned all who felt at all fearful to go back. A few went back. My old new friend was but sixteen, and felt afraid, very much afraid, but could not get his own consent to back out. Then it was that Wayne gave the orders above mentioned. Upon getting nearer the fort, he made each put a sheet of white paper in his cap, as a mark for recognition, and gave the watchword, or rather battle-cry, to be uttered when they should be fairly within the fort, ' The fort’s our own ! ’ They advanced in two columns, leaped or ran through an abatis in front of the fort, captured or bayoneted the picket guards, who stood also in front, and then rushed on up the steep hill on which stood the fort. The pickets had fired and alarmed the garrison, who immediately came out on the ramparts, and fired volley after volley towards the assailants, but over their heads, not knowing how near they were. Our men were mostly right under the garrison, whose fire was directed several hundred yards off, only striking a few of the rearmost in the advancing columns. My old friend’s captain showed manifest cowardice. He advanced, stooping very low, before his men, scared at the whistling balls of the British. My old friend’s right-hand man, a dare-devil sort of a fellow, kicked the acting captain behind, oversetting him on his head forwards, with many curses as a damned coward, a good-for-nothing scoundrel, etc. The captain durst not resent it. Their orders were, when they reached the wall, that the man on the extreme right of the front rank should be thrown or pushed upon it by his left-hand man, he by his left, and so on. But by the time the main body arrived there, the gate had been opened for them by the forlorn hope, almost every man of whom was cut to pieces. In they rushed, and shouted the warcry prescribed, ‘ The fort’s our own ! ’

‘ Not by a damned sight !' replied the British. And at it they went with the bayonet! The strife was soon over. My old friend says he scarcely aimed at all, at thrusting his bayonet into any one. It was a little bloody ; but he chiefly employed himself in parrying the enemy’s thrusts at him. His name is Hill. He had not told me all these particulars, when an elderly, gray - haired man came to the table where we sat, and, hearing the name of Stony Point, said : ‘ That was considerable of a battle, was it not ?' I pointed to the old man and said he was at it. ‘ Was he, indeed ? ’ said the gray - haired gentleman, ‘ My father was also there ; he was a captain there.’ 'Was he?’ said Hill; ‘what captain was he ? ’ ' Captain C.,’ said the grayhaired gentleman. ‘ Captain C., why he was my captain ! And you are a son of Captain C., my captain at Stony Point ! ’ A warm hand-shake, and they were sworn friends in a moment. Mr. C. said he felt as if he had found a brother ; and the old man’s delight through the day and for the rest of our voyage was extreme.”

There is much else in these books which tempts me, but I have already given enough to enable my readers to divine for themselves something of the character of the author. It is seldom that I have grown so intimate with a man I have never seen, seldom that I have had experience of so sweet, so equitable, or so well-balanced a nature as this. In reading these fading memorials ; I have found myself sadly thinking : “ And this was one of the class whom we have heard called barbarians by men who are proud to owe their culture to slaveholding Athens and Rome ! This is one of the very persons whom our short-sighted statesmanship would exclude from all share in politics ! ”

Of Mr. Minor’s life nothing remains to be told, but that it was useful, honorable, and, if any ever was, a happy illustration of the Ovidian theory, bene qui latuit bene vixit. He died in 1858, having been for several years Professor of Law in the College of William and Mary,

James Russell Lowell.