nected with the political history of Virginia, might be readily found in England; and there can be no doubt but that any one empowered by the State of Virginia to visit that country on a business of this nature, would be received with courtesy, and every avenue of information opened.

the American Revolution, presents itself to the student of Virginian history. From Mr. Hening's compilations, we see nothing but an endless struggle between the House of Burgesses and the Crown, on the subjects of tobacco, trade, and prerogative; and though many of the statutes allude to Indian wars, and the extension of territory, we are forced to grope in the dark for the victories of the one, and the boundaries of the other. The questionable fact of the cruelty, fraud and rapine of Sir John Harvey, the governor, who succeeded Yardly, is concealed in doubt and uncertainty; and the particulars of that noble rebellion, which prompted the colonists to seize and send him a prisoner to England in 1635, are enveloped in equal obscurity.

and full of detail, perished in the attack which was made on the City of Richmond. A few isolated portions of her colonial history, preserved in the archives of the Council of State, escaped the general destruction-and Virginia, which started in the race of empire, amid scholars, travellers, and the printing press, is content to catch a feeble gleam of her Until 1624, Smith and Stith might be considered as formearly glories, from the uncertain narratives of tradition, the ing an account so accurate, that there would be hardly any compilations of ignorance, and the probabilities of conjec- necessity of pushing our researches beyond that period. ture. Nearly one hundred years ago, the prolix Stith bit- Abundant materials are in existence descriptive of the terly complained, that there was no public spirit to cheer several unsuccessful settlements of the colony; and many his zeal, or sustain his labors. Dispirited and chagrined, a thrilling tale of heroism, devotion and suffering, may be he closed his history with the dissolution of the Virginian gathered from the annals of Purchas, Hakluyte and Smith,Company. His book contained only a few more years of but a lamentable chasm from the year 1624 to the period of the history of the colony than did that of Captain John Smith; and it can only be considered as the filling in of a painting, the outline of which had been sketched by another and a more vigorous and accurate hand. Beverley's history, which professed to bring the annals of Virginia down to the termination of the seventeenth century, is more of a geographical than a historical detail of the colony. It was written to correct the misrepresentations of Mr. Oldmixen, (of Dunciad notoriety;) and, though it be accurate in its topographical descriptions, it is alike brief and imperfect. Yet even these books are rare, and can only be found in the libraries of the curious and the antiquary; and the experiment, which was attempted at Richmond in 1819, of reprinting, in its antique dress, Captain John Smith's history, realized the truth of old Stith's sarcastic criticism. The only history of Virginia is Hening's Statutes at Large-volumes full of rich and unworked ore; and the materials from which pages of the most intense interest might be elaborated. Yet Mr. Hening's researches were confined to the jurisprudence of the country: and many of the laws which he has preserved present anomalies and absurdities, because we are ignorant of the circumstances and the peculiar temper of society which called them into existence. As for Dr. Robertson's brief account of Virginia until 1688, it is a mere abridgement of Smith and Stith; and to the period at which their narratives end, it is a faithful detail. But who is there now who places any faith in this accomplished writer's lofty declamation and false panegyric, about the loyalty of Virginia to the perjured Charles and his profligate son?

The ancient charters of Virginia-many ordinances-resolutions of the company-orders in council-and instructions to governors, have been preserved by Stith and Hening. The latter, animated by the passion of a true antiquary, with an industry which never flagged, and a love of truth which could not be corrupted, devoted years of labor to the painful drudgery of collecting and preserving the early laws enacted by the House of Burgesses: and it is deeply to be regretted, that the legislature, which employed him in the duty of preserving and collating the laws, had not also authorized him to collect the scattered fragments of Virginian history. Occasionally, leaving the path of his province, he gives us many able historical dissertations; and the future historian of Virginia, in collecting the materials of his work, must look to the Statutes at Large for the light which is to guide him through the imperfect and mutilated records of his country

Though Charles restored Harvey to his station, without condescending to hear the remonstrances of the colonists, it was done more for the purpose of asserting his prerogative, than to justify the acts of the governor-for, in a few years, he sent two other governors to Virginia, Sir Francis Wyatt and Sir William Berkeley; the latter of whom, with a few intervals of interruption, discharged the duties of this office from 1641 until after Bacon's rebellion-a period of nearly forty years.

During this administration a large portion of the colony was settled-trade increased-new counties formed-and, at its termination, the population had increased from a mere handful to more than sixty thousand inhabitants; while in 1671, according to Sir William Berkeley's reply to the lords commissioners of the foreign plantations, there were of the militia eight thousand horsemen.

Mr. Hening occasionally quotes from the Bland MSS., which were purchased by Mr. Jefferson of the executor of R. Bland,-and which it is presumed are now in existence. From these papers it appears that Sir William Berkeley entered into all the feelings and sympathies of the colonists, on the subject of their grievances and sufferings, and joined the House of Burgesses in its complaints and remonstrances to England. From these manifestoes of popular feeling, we occasionally catch a ray of political history; and from them the Virginian may deduce that firmness of purpose, that love of liberty, and that political independence of character, which, in a few years afterwards, dictated the capitulation to the commissioners of the commonwealth of England, "declaring that this should be considered a voluntary act--not forced or constrained by a conquest upon the country; and that the colonists should have and enjoy such freedom and privileges as belong to the free born people of England; and that Virginia should be free from all taxes, customs and impositions, and none should be imposed upon them, without the consent of the Grand Assembly; and no forts or castles be erected, or garrisons maintained, without their consent."

It is to be fairly presumed, that many records connected with the first settlement of Virginia—her morals, population, religion, wars, trade, industry, enterprise, and the rise and establishment of her political institutions, are preserved in the public offices of England, or may be found, in distinct No governor ever enjoyed in a deeper degree the affecportions, among the descendants of some of those families, tion of a community than did Sir William Berkeley, until whose ancestors either resided in or visited Virginia. The he forfeited it by the stern and cruel retribution which he learned and elegant history of the church of Virginia, by extended to the followers of Bacon. During his long adDr. Hawkes, owes much of its interest to his literary pil-ministration, the colony was engaged in various Indian grimage to England, and to the information which he could wars; and in 1644 an act was passed, which, from the only have obtained in that country. Similar materials con- large public levy it was intended to create, proved that the

war with the Pamunkeys and Chickahomineys, was well! It is not our purpose to make even a brief sketch of Bacalculated to call forth all the energy and heroism of the con's Rebellion. Fortunately, this period of history is illucolonists. So serious was the alarm that a monthly fast minated by some records and memorials; yet the whole was ordered--and, in the language of the act of the House character, tendency and design of this revolt, has, by every of Bergesses, it was declared that, "whereas, the earnest historian, except the learned Bancroft, been strangely misprosecution of the present wars hath subjected this colony understood. Bacon led the rebellion against the existing to an excessive expense," every inhabitant ought equally to authorities, not from personal motives or selfish ambition, be engaged: and the exemption, which was allowed to the but from the laudable desire to emancipate his country from servants of each councillor, was accordingly withdrawn. those oppressions, rapines and insults, which a century afThe treaty which was ratified hy the House of Burgesses terwards created the American Revolution. A very miin 1646, with Necotowanee, King of the Indians, shows nute and circumstantial account of Bacon's negotiations that the savages had lost but little by the contests; for, by with Governor Berkeley, written by one T. M., the delegate the third article, the colonists only gained the land between from Stafford County at the time of the revolt, and addressed the falls of York and James Rivers, downwards to Kenotan. to Harley, Earl of Oxford, is preserved in the library of Of these wars, and of the actors in them, we are grossly ig-Congress-the copy being in the hand-writing of Mr. Jeffernorant. Tradition itself has lost the memory of the spirit- son. The code of laws, adopted while Bacon controlled stirring legends of our fatherland. The darkness of the the colony, evince every principle of free and enlightened darkest age of literature broods over the antiquities of Vir- legislation: but of the personal history of this basely slangaia; and there is not pride enough among her sons to dered man we are shamefully ignorant. His victories, his stretch forth their hands to save one jewel from the moul-military career, and even the manner of his death, are matdering touch of Time. ters more of conjecture than certainty-of tradition than of Of that most important period in English history, the Re- truth. A cloud of doubt equally dark hangs over the plantbellion, and its operation on the colony of Virginia, we are cutting revolt; and the contest with Robert Beverley, the not only ignorant, but we have imbibed the most corrupt Clerk of the House of Burgesses, who refused to deliver to and pernicious errors, from the misrepresentations of histo- the royal commissioners the journals and papers of the rans. The year after the capitulation of the colony to House without its order;-while we possess very imperfect Cromwell's forces, which seems to have been rather the information of that long controversy, which was carried on formation of a republican government than a surrender to between the colony and the mother government, on the an enemy, the House of Burgesses, as the representatives subject of the grant made by Charles II. to Lords Arlington of the people, assumed the provisional government of Vir- and Culpeper, and of the illegality of much of the taxation ginia; and, during the existence of the commonwealth of which was extended to Virginia in common with the other England, this body exercised every prerogative of sovereign-plantations. ty-declaring, "that they had, in themselves, the full power of the election and appointment of all officers in the country." Religion was left to its proper support--the opinions and discretion of the people. Laws, protecting the individual from executive oppression, were passed; and the bold principle of legislative freedom was secured in the resolution of the House of Burgesses, which ordained "that they were not dissolvable by any power yet extant in Virginia but their own."

In the year 1712, an alarming and dangerous conspiracy was formed in Carolina, by the Ceree and Tuscarora tribes of Indians, which, for a short period, spread terror and dismay through all the Southern colonies. Many volunteers from Virginia offered themselves to subdue those tribes; and of the army commanded by Col. Barnwell, which almost extirpated the enemy, it is fair to presume, in the absence of all historical detail, that the chivalry of Virginia constituted an efficient portion. About this period, the masOn the death of Cromwell, the House generally and unani- sacre at Germanna, in Spottsylvania county, was perpemously acknowledged Richard Cromwell as Lord Protector; trated by the Indians, and sternly revenged by the whites-and the Governor was requested to unite with the country an event now learned only from the weakest and most feein making an address to his Highness for confirmation of ble of all traditions. We know nothing of the many wars their present privileges: and on the resignation of Richard at the foot of the South-West Mountains,--and even the Cromwell, the House "declare that the supreme power of names of many of the tribes of Indians, who inhabited the the government shall be resident in the Assembly." The valley and mountains of Virginia, are now unknown. Who restoration of Charles II., (May 29, 1660,) destroyed the is there now in Virginia, who dwells with pride on that spibalwarks erected by freedom against the encroachments of rit of heroism which prompted the colony to raise troops monarchy, and more firmly fettered on the English people for the service of the mother country, and who distinguished the yoke of tyranny. Flattery, servility and corruption, themselves in the attack under Vernon on Porto Bello, in al conspired to hide the tale of resistance; and the misera-1739; and who cares to gather the perishing memorials of ble cant, which made the perjured Charles a martyr, was ill that gallant corps of volunteers, who, led by a Washington, prepared to look with pride on the patriotism of a Hamp- rotted on the pestilential shores of Carthagena ? den, the heroism of a Lilburne, or the firmness of a Brad- It cannot be doubted but that in England every memorial shaw. Virginia did not escape the impure sympathy-and connected with the early history of Virginia might be found. even at this hour there are many of her sons who boast that Two copies of each colonial law were always sent to that they are the descendants of a race of cavaliers, who were country-one to the Lord Chancellor, and the other to the the last to surrender, and the first to return to their alle- Lord Commissioners for Trade and Foreign Plantations; giance. We are anxious to believe that Virginia was re- and it may be justly presumed, that all the declarations, creant to the holy cause of civil freedom and that while remonstrances, and reports of the House of Burgesses, England had gained, by the Major Charta of her rights, the warrant for the execution of a tyrant, one of the first principles of liberty, her degenerate sons, in another quarter of the world, were hugging the chains of inglorious slavery!

were transmitted to the same personages. Deprived of access to England, the laborious and accurate Hening was forced to print many laws affecting the rights of real property by their titles alone: and he admits that he could not find that most important of documents, the declaration of the House of Burgesses, which assigned at length the reasons for assuming all the powers of government, in the year

Of the alarining and extensive conspiracy of the convicts in 1663, which threatened the existence of the colony, we have no records; and of those Indian irruptions, which kept the country in a state of constant warfare, there is no 1659. other information than the preambles of statutes.

Shortly after the settlement of the colony, Capt. N. But

And strong in virtue, and befitting pride,
O'ercame all prejudice, and ranged it on his side.
III.

And obstacles o'erthrew-th' impediments
They find, who soar without the aid of friends:
The cunning artifice that circumvents,-
The
open threat the bold oppressor sends :
Throughout that land there stood no fairer name,

ler, and many others, wrote and published accounts of Vir- | ginia; and it is highly probable that, in conjunction with these books, there are many MSS. now in existence, which would throw some light on the morals, wars and political condition of the colony. In 1686, James II. complained, in a letter to the Governor, Lord Howard, of Eflingham, that the members of the Assembly "spend their time in frivolous debates." That was a pamphlet-loving age, and many of these debates may have been printed in England. But it is impossible for us to conceive the amount or cha- Of all her favored youths, no one more known to fame. racter of the materials of history which a close and diligent investigation might produce; nor can we form any accurate knowledge of the legends of the glorious land of Virginia, from the shadowy outlines which conjecture, misrepresen tation and ignorance have thrown around it.

IV.

He knelt before the sire, and claimed his bride,
Sued tremblingly for that fair creature's hand.
They answered him, she bore a name of pride;
And wealth and rank alone might that command.
Their jibes and scoffs, and sneers he meekly bore,
Gave one long night to grief, then left his native shore.

V.

Yet ere he went, he saw her once again.

Speechless she sate, from joy and hope apart; No tear had she to cool her burning brain;

No sigh to ease her over-laboring heart: Sometimes her words grew wild, and her dark eye Would wear at times a light that mock'd an August sky.

VI.

She seldom broke into the frenzied shout

It should be the duty of every Virginian to awaken public attention to this subject. No public interest attaches itself to the matter; and even now, in the ancestral homes of Virginia, many a priceless MS. is destroyed through ignorance, or suffered to moulder away from carelessness. Every day adds more and more to the oblivion which is thickening around the antiquities of the state. The same fate awaits such of the documents of her history as are preserved in the public offices of England; and if speedy measures are not adopted to gain them from that country in a short time, they must be irretrievably lost. New-York, Georgia, and several of the states of the Union, have, with a commendable liberality, availed themselves of these fountains of information. Shall Virginia, the mother of heroes, statesmen and patriots, linger in the race? And must her youth be taught to look for examples of heroism and patriotism in the annals of fickle Greece or unprincipled Rome-Was a small lock of hair, hid in a ring of gold. forgetful that the history of their own land is full of every virtue which can dignify or elevate the human race? No! let us hope that there is a spirit among her people which fondly cherishes every memorial of her greatness; and that the same feeling which prompted her legislature in 1819 to preserve her laws, will stimulate her to collect the fading materials of her thrilling and glorious history!

I hardly deem it necessary to make an apology for this letter. Although a citizen of another state, I am still a Virginian. The chord which bound me to the land of my birth, has been merely extended, not severed,-and in common with all her sons, whom the untoward currents of life have drifted away from her bosom, I am still, and ever shall be, sensibly alive to every thing connected with the prosperity or glory of Virginia.

Very respectfully,

I have the honor to be,

Your obedient servant,

W. G. MINOR.

THE HEART-BROKEN:

A WARNING TO PARENTS, BY ARCHEÆUS OCCIDENTALIS.

I.

I knew a beautiful and gentle maid,
Whom stern and cruel parents cross'd in love;

I saw her in her cradle, saw her laid

In the cold earth, and many mourn above;
I saw her parents rue the stern command,
Which broke the gentlest heart in all our Eastern land.

II.

She loved, from girlhood's dawn, a poor young man,
Born of low lineage, and the heir of want;
Whose life in struggling with fierce ills began,

Who fell, but never cower'd beneath men. Staunt

Of maniac laughter, nor bemoaned her fate;
But sat, all patiently, the long day out,

Her head leant on her hand, her look sedate;
And all beneath the sunlight that consoled,

VII.

Then rued her sire his stern and barbarous part;
He tried to soothe her with the tenderest care;
He bade her take her Harry to her heart,

And till her dying hour enfold him there.
With that loved name, a burst of long-pent grief
Past o'er her feeble frame, and gave her heart relief.

VIII.

Her reason came again; and tenderly

She hung, all weeping, on her mother's neck,-
Who gently kiss'd the pearly drops away,

And strove to reassure the drooping wreck;
And told her, were she chosen to the throne
Of Ind, she still should call young Harry Brett her own.

IX.

"Twas all too late-each day, upon her cheek
The hectic flush gained on the native rose;

At constant strife with thought, and grown too weak
To cope with pain, she sunk in death's repose.
And I, her father's friend, held the sad trust,
To see this lovely girl laid in her parent dust.
X.

That day I breathed to heaven a well-kept vow-
Never to cross young hearts in love, for toys
Like gold, but let them quietly endow

Themselves with treasures of domestic joys.
Oh! 'tis an awful thing, when parents break
A match approved by Heaven, for filthy lucre's sake.

MARRIAGE.

The holiest institution given

To man is marriage, and our bliss
From following the laws of Heaven,
Is all derived from this.

Only seven have come down to us-productions of the following poets-arranged in chronological order Amriolkaiffs, Taraffa, Antar, Zohair, Amru, Hareth and Lebeid.

"A mingled air:

'Twas sad by fits; by starts 'twas wild."

In general, these poems may be regarded as a blending of the Idyl and the Ballad. The pecuThese ancient inmates of the temple were very liarities of the people insure to such productions a beautiful in the original; but, owing to the unwor- more dignified character than can be given, with thiness of the translator, will, I fear, suffer the fate fidelity to nature, to the pastoral scenes of other of the quadrangular stone of the Kaaba, which was countries-where the duties of tending flocks dechanged from white to black by the sins of the volve upon those distinguished rather for their faithful who kissed it. But when it is considered rudeness and stupidity than for any other qualities. how different the genius of the Arabic language is As in Arabia the princes and rulers of the people from that of the English, and how difficult it is to bear alike the sceptre and the crook, we may exrender the fine shades of meaning, of the copious pect more elevated sentiment and generous feeling; primitives, and their graceful compounds, it is to and as they furthermore dwell in places distinbe hoped that some indulgence will be shown to guished alike for their beauty and grandeur, we the want of genius which the translator may ap- find, in their pastoral poetry, the fidelity of Theopear to exhibit. critus, without his rusticity-the tenderness of In order to form an estimate of the merits of the Bion, with a proper mixture of fire-the fine scenic Moallakat, we must, in the first place, consider the portraitures and embellishments of Virgil, with subjects of the poems, and determine to what spe- none of the philosophic jargon of the French pas cies of writing they properly belong; for unless toral, or fanciful conceits of the Italian. The this be done we will have no standard by which to poem by Lebeid, in particular, is of the nature of measure their beauties or defects. Action, senti- the Idyl; the others, perhaps, have more of the pecument, imagery, and graceful or forcible expres-liarities of the Ballad, without that wildness of susion, are only so many component parts of a good pernatural agency which is generally introduced. poem. It is only when they are all present in The Ballad is of Arabic derivation. In the extentheir due proportions, so blended as to form an har- sion of their empire, the sons of the desert impressed monious whole, that real excellence is exhibited. upon Europe not only their institutions, but their In a word, the perfection of the composition con-mental characteristics. sists in its unity:

and this unity, furthermore, depends upon cies of the composition:

the

spe

"Versibus exponi tragicis res comica non vult;
Indignitur item privatis ac prope socco
Dignis carminibus narrari coena Thyesta:
Singula quæque locum teneant sortita decentem."

AMRIOLKAIS.

Before we extract any portions of the poem of this author, we will present a short outline of the subject. Travelling with some of his companions, Amriolkais comes to a place where the tent of his mistress had lately been pitched, and stops to indulge in weeping over the remains of her deserted mansion. His friends console him by reminding It will be a difficult matter to assign to the poems him that he had been once equally unhappy, but of the Moallakat a definite rank, as they are of a had soon forgotten his desertion in the charms of a mixed character, and do not come within the pre-second mistress-and that he had no occasion to cise lines of demarcation, established for Pastoral, complain of the share of happiness which had fallen Lyric or Elegiac poetry. But while they do not conform in all respects to the set rules of any one of these species of composition, they possess many things in common with the whole of them. The reason of this is obvious, for the poet either described actions exclusively of his own history, or actions respecting which he could say with the Trojan prince:

to his lot.

His grief at length assuaged, and his cheerfulness returning, he relates some of his love adventures; and among them, one at the pool of Daratjuljul.

He had long been enamored of the beautiful Onaiza, but had never found a fitting opportunity to declare his passion until the tents of her tribe were struck, and she was removed from him. But as Onaiza was in the rear with the women in carriages, fixed on the backs of camels, and stopped, with other maidens, to bathe in the pool of Daratjuljul, Amriolkais came suddenly upon them and seated himself by the stream. Favored like Damon, when chance brought him to Musidora, he beheld her charms in their naked beauty, heightened by the mellow light of the crystal wave. But Amriolkais