estate at Westover. There he lived the life of a landed proprietor, gave notable dinners to his many friends, extended his property until he owned over 180,000 acres, and founded the cities of Richmond and Petersburg. His private library was the largest and finest in Virginia, but it caused less favorable comment than his stable of thoroughbred horses.

In 1728 Colonel Byrd was appointed a member of the commission that established the boundary-line between Virginia and North Carolina. The surveyors had to traverse the Dismal Swamp in running the line over 200 miles westward from the sea. In the Westover Manuscripts (1841), which were not published until nearly a century after his death, Colonel Byrd recorded his unusual experiences in the surveying party, together with equally interesting accounts of later adventures in public service. The narrative not only gives an entertaining picture of life in old Virginia but is written in a style that reflects the graceful manner of Addison and other leading English writers of that age.

Just before reaching the border of the Dismal Swamp, Colonel Byrd's party spent a night in the open:

Our landlord had a tolerable good house and clean furniture, and yet we could not be tempted to lodge in it. We chose rather to lie in the open field, for fear of growing too tender. A clear sky, spangled with stars, was our canopy which, being the last thing we saw before we fell asleep, gave us magnificent dreams. The truth of it is, we took so much pleasure in that natural kind of lodging that I think at the foot of the account mankind are great losers by the luxury of feather-beds and warm apartments.

A North Carolina legislator who visited their camp that night was so favorably impressed that he announced his in

tention of setting his house on fire as soon as he reached home, so that he might teach his wife and children to enjoy the charm of life in the great world of out-of-doors.

Here and there the narrative abounds in curious details concerning the plant and animal life of the wilderness. In other passages Colonel Byrd gives us intimate pictures of social life among the more refined families of Virginia. The following incident that occurred during his visit to the home of Colonel Spotswood reflects domestic manners in the Old Dominion:

Here I arrived about three o'clock, and found only Mrs. Spotswood at home, who received her old acquaintance with many a gracious smile. I was carried into a room elegantly set off with pier glasses, the largest of which came soon after to an odd misfortune. Amongst other favorite animals that cheered this lady's solitude, a brace of tame deer ran familiarly about the house, and one of them came to stare at me as a stranger. But unluckily spying his own figure in the glass, he made a spring over the tea table that stood under it and shattered the glass to pieces and, falling back upon the tea table, made a terrible fracas among the china. This exploit was so sudden, and accompanied by such a noise, that it surprised me and perfectly frightened Mrs. Spotswood. But 'twas worth all the damage to show the moderation and good humor with which she bore this disaster.

The concluding remark reveals the genuine admiration with which this observant Virginia gentleman, schooled in Old World courtesy, notes the unperturbed manner of his Virginia hostess when her gentility is subjected to such a trying ordeal.

4. Conditions in Massachusetts.-A very different group of men and women were the Pilgrims who came in the Mayflower to Plymouth in 1620. For the most part they were

Puritans, with all the sombre virtues and all the prejudices of their sect. Some of the leaders of the later colonists were well-born graduates of Cambridge University, who had been expelled from the Church of England for their unorthodox views, but who, like those of humbler origin, were willing to endure hardship for freedom of conscience. Coming to a land that was bleak, rugged, and far from fertile, they had to cultivate small tracts by the most arduous labor or gain a precarious livelihood by fishing along the coast. Little towns soon sprang up with their groups of unpretentious homes clustered about an unadorned meeting-house that was used not only for preaching on Sunday but for the transaction of public business on week-days.

Every effort was made to advance learning. Schools were promptly established by legislative enactment in every community that numbered fifty families. As early as 1638 John Harvard, a devout young English clergyman, bequeathed about £700 and his private library to the college that bears his name. A year later (1639) the Puritans brought a printing-press to the colony and began to publish their own books. Such men as these were definitely committing themselves and their posterity to the New World.

Yet these earnest pioneers were not without most serious faults. They had sought freedom to worship as they pleased, but they soon denied the same privilege to Baptists, Quakers, and others in their midst. They had been persecuted in England, but they themselves became the most violent of persecutors. Although they upheld the strictest moral ideas and encouraged education, they showed little appreciation of the great literature that had recently been

produced in England. Even their own Puritan poet, Milton, was not much read in the colony. Toward the close of the seventeenth century their spiritual fanaticism found its darkest expression in the Salem witchcraft persecution. Girls, mewing like cats, declared they were pinched and bitten by persons in league with the devil. Hundreds of women were pointed out as witches and thrust into jail; about a score of them were hanged.

Much of the writing that sprang from such a source was necessarily gloomy and tainted with the spirit of superstition. Occasional animated passages may be found in the diaries and historical narratives of those early days, but most of the Puritan writers devoted their energies to the compilation of religious tracts or engaged in bitter theological disputes with each other.

5. The Puritan Pioneers.-Historians are most grateful to William Bradford (1590-1657), a Yorkshire man, who came over in the Mayflower and who served more than thirty years as Governor of Plymouth Colony, for his painstaking compilation called A History of Plymouth Plantation. It tells in laborious detail the story of the rise and persecution of the Pilgrims, their flight to Holland, the migration to America, and the progress of the colony until 1648. Apart from a few notable descriptions in the narrative, it is a simple book of annals, set down by an earnest-minded man intent on recording the New World adventure as he saw it. Similarly the History of New England, written by John Winthrop (1588-1649), the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, shows the pathos and the heroism of the colonists' early struggles for existence, but it also unconsciously reveals the

grim austerity, the incredible superstitions, and the morbid outlook on life that characterized the darker side of Puritanism. Neither of these important historical works makes any pretension to literary quality.

6. Taunts and Intolerance.-The Puritans were not able to impose their views unchallenged upon all who flocked to the new colonies. Thomas Morton (1575?-1646), a reckless Church of England cavalier in search of adventure, carried on fur-trading with the Indians at Merry Mount, near Boston, set up a May-pole there, and not only taught the savages English games and dances, but also sold them liquor and weapons. Although Morton was twice seized by the indignant Puritans and transported to England, he returned on both occasions to continue his iniquities. In 1637 he produced his New English Canaan, a caustic satire ridiculing the garb, the speech, and the religion of the Puritans. His mockery cost him a year's imprisonment in Boston. He did not live to see the curious book called The Simple Cobbler of Agawam (1647), written by a crabbed old Puritan pastor named Nathaniel Ward (1578?-1652), whose work was the best possible illustration of the narrow thought and bigoted intolerance that Morton was assailing in his satire. Both of these books were popular in their day, but possess no literary merit.

7. Nobler Men.-Among the writers of that period are two contemporaries whose lives revealed a broader vision and a finer sympathy for their fellow men. Roger Williams (1605?-1683) was from the first a fighter for toleration and freedom of thought. His independent views led to a conflict with his parishioners, and he was driven from the col