LETTER XLVIII. CAPT. ARL--TON TO MR. IL--RAY.

Lexington, June.

Your express has this moment reached me: and to convince you, my dear Il--ray, that no man can be more alive to every sentiment of love and friendship, I shall not defer my return to Louisville a single hour; and I merely dispatch this by the return of your messenger, to let you know I shall be with you tomorrow in the evening; and that in my present distracted state of mind, I think it most advisable to make my _entre_ under the cover of the dark, to prevent my being perceived, as I wish to devote the whole evening in sequestered converse with you, my friend.

Caroline is ill! Ah! Il--ray I am wretched in the extreme. I am burnt up with a scorching fever--I am wrecked in the elements of every painful passion, and my every effort to reason is baffled by my reflections upon past occurrences.

But I am your indissoluble friend,

J. Arl--ton.

ADAM RANKIN

Rev. Adam Rankin, author of the first book ever printed in Kentucky, was born in Pennsylvania, March 24, 1755. He was graduated from Liberty Hall, now Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, when about twenty-five years of age; and two years later he was licensed to preach by the Virginia Presbytery. Rev. Rankin came to Lexington, Kentucky, in 1784, to accept the pastorate of the Presbyterian church. He also conducted a school for some time, but his one thought was Psalmody, which became "his monomania." He created a schism in his church by insisting that Dr. Watts's imitation of the Psalms of David be expelled from the church worship, and that the Psalms in their most literal dress be chanted. His brethren disapproved of his views, but they could not discourage him or cause him to discard his contention. Everywhere he went he preached and wrote upon his favorite subject. Rev. Rankin's Kentucky brethren made life unbearable for him, and he went to London, where he remained for two years. When he did return to Kentucky it was to face accusation after accusation, and church trial after church trial, until he was finally suspended. Rev. Rankin was a strange, eccentric man, a dreamer of dreams, a Kentucky Luther, and, perhaps, a bit crazed with the bitter opposition his views received. His latest, boldest dream was that Jerusalem was about to be rebuilt and that he must hurry there in order to assist in the rebuilding. He bade his Lexington flock farewell, and started to the Holy City, but, on November 25, 1827, death overtook him at Philadelphia. Rev. Rankin was the author of several theological works, but his _A Process in the Transylvania Presbytery, &c._ (Maxwell and Gooch, At the Sign of the Buffalo, Main Street, Lexington, 1793), is the first book ever printed in Kentucky, if the _Kentucky Acts_ which John Bradford published in the same year be excepted. Many days were required to print this little book of Rankin upon the hand-press of the publishers, though it contained but ninety-six pages, divided into five parts. Although it is not great literature, it is the first book that can, in any wise, come under that term published in this State. It is surely of more literary importance than Bradford's _Acts_. Rev. Rankin was, as were nearly all of the early Kentucky theologians, a prolific pamphleteer. His _Dialogues_ (Lexington, 1810), is really his most important publication, but it has been greatly overlooked in the recent rush among Kentucky historical writers to list _A Process_ as the first book published in Kentucky. His eccentric career as a man and preacher is, after all, of more interest than his work as an author.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky_, by R. H. Davidson (New York, 1847); _The Centenary of Kentucky_, by R. T. Durrett (Louisville, Kentucky, 1892).

ON THE EXTENT OF THE GOSPEL OFFER

[From _A Process in the Transylvania Presbytery_ (Lexington, Ky., 1793)]

We believe, that as it respects the outward means, the ambassadors are authorised to publish, proclaim, and declare the counsel of God, as it stands connected with our salvation; and that all, who hear the sound, have an equal and indefinite warrant, not only to embrace the means as offered to them indiscriminately, by which comes faith, but have a right to believe, that Christ, with all his benefits, is freely offered to them, as sinners, without ever enquiring, into the secret purposes of God, whether they are elect, or non-elect.

UPON MARRIAGE BY LICENSE

[From the same]

Seeing, under our government, it is not purchasing a liberty by pecuniary rewards, further, than compensating a prothonotary, for taking bond and security, that guardians are agreed, and keeping a just register, for the credit and safety of the rising family. And as the contract is partly civil in its nature, and civil government is bound to defend the civil rights--we believe it perfectly consonant to the analogy of faith, which might be evinced from the fourth chapter of Ruth. But as it is partly social, and the parties contracting come under the mutual obligations to fulfil their relative duties, it ought to be consummated before witnesses. And as it is partly religious, every family appertaining to the Church of Christ, commences a nursery, or infant society, to train up their family in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We believe it right, that whenever a church in full order exists, that the pastor, or church officer should consecrate them, to the business assigned them as a Church of Christ, taking their obligations for the due performance of their duty.

THOMAS JOHNSON, Jr.

Thomas Johnson, Junior, the first Kentucky poet, who, for many years, enjoyed the sobriquet of the "Drunken Poet of Danville," was born in Virginia about 1760, and he came to Kentucky when twenty-five years of age. He settled at Danville, then a village, and immediately entered into the role of poet, punster, and ne'er-do-weel. Documentary evidence is extant to prove that Danville was a gay little town when the young Virginian arrived there about 1785; and he was early drawn into excesses, or led others into them. Johnson was a rather prolific maker of coarse satirical rhymes, which he finally assembled into a small pamphlet, and published them as _The Kentucky Miscellany_ (Lexington, 1796). This was the first book of poems, if they may be so termed, printed in Kentucky. The original price of this pamphlet was nine pence the copy, but it is impossible to procure it today for any price, and there is not an extant copy of this first edition. _The Kentucky Miscellany_ went into a second edition in 1815, and a third edition was published a few years later, but no copies of either edition are extant. The fourth and final edition appeared from the _Advertiser_ office at Lexington, in 1821, and a dog-eared, much-mutilated copy of this is in the collection of the Filson Club in Louisville--perhaps the only copy in the world. _The Miscellany_ contained but thirty-six small pages, about the size of the medical almanacs of to-day. Many of the little verses are very vulgar and actually obscene, perhaps due to the fact that Johnson could never quite bury John Barleycorn alive. The most famous of them is the _Extempore Grace_, which the bard delivered one day in the tavern of old Erasmus Gill in Danville. In his cups he stumbled into the tavern dining-room, where he found the meal over, and the guests gone, nothing being left but the crumbs. He glanced at the tables, then at Gill, and offered _Extempore Grace_. His lines on Danville, on Kentucky, and on several other subjects reveal the satirist; and the verses to Polly, his sweetheart, and to his favorite physician the better elements in his nature. That these rather vulgar verses of Johnson did not escape the censorship of Western advocates of the pure food law in literature, is made certain by a letter from an Ohio critic which appeared in the _Lexington Intelligencer_ for January 28, 1834. After having made a strong plea for the preservation of early Western verse, the writer added: "I do not mean to embrace the low doggerel of _Tom Johnson_; this was published some years ago, and I never felt _decency_ more outraged than when it was handed me to read by _mine landlady_! My stars! Save us from the _blackguardism_, for the world is sufficiently demoralized." Had this early critic of Tom's verses presented a bundle of them to some library, how many Western writers would rise up and call him blessed! Johnson died and was buried at Danville, but the date of his death or the exact place of his burial is unknown. He had passed and was almost forgotten by 1830.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _History of the Presbyterian Church in Kentucky_, by R. H. Davidson (New York, 1847); _History of Kentucky_, by R. H. Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); _Centre College Cento_ (Danville, Kentucky, January, 1907); _Kentuckians in History and Literature_, by J. W. Townsend (New York, 1907).

EXTEMPORE GRACE

[From _The Kentucky Miscellany_ (Lexington, Kentucky, 1821)]

O! Thou who blest the loaves and fishes Look down upon these empty dishes; And that same power that did them fill, Bless each of us, but d---- old Gill!

DANVILLE

[From the same]

Accursed Danville, vile, detested spot, Where knaves inhabit, and where fools resort-- Thy roguish cunning, and thy deep design, Would shame a Bluebeard or an Algerine. O, may thy fatal day be ever curst, When by blind error led, I entered first.

KENTUCKY

[From the same]

I hate Kentucky, curse the place, And all her vile and miscreant race! Who make religion's sacred tie A mask thro' which they cheat and lie. Proteus could not change his shape, Nor Jupiter commit a rape With half the ease those villains can Send prayers to God and cheat their man! I hate all Judges here of late, And every Lawyer in the State. Each quack that is called Physician, And all blockheads in Commission-- Worse than the Baptist roaring rant, I hate the Presbyterian cant-- Their Parsons, Elders, nay, the whole, And wish them gone with all my soul.

HUDSON, WIFE MURDERER

[From the same]

Strange things of Orpheus poets tell, How for a wife he went to Hell; Hudson, a wiser man no doubt, Would go to Hell to be without!

PARSON RICE

[From the same]

Ye fools! I told you once or twice, You'd hear no more from canting R----e; He cannot settle his affairs, Nor pay attention unto prayers, Unless you pay up your arrears. Oh, how in pulpit he would storm, And fill all Hell with dire alarm! Vengeance pronounced against each vice, And, more than all, curs'd avarice; Preach'd money was the root of ill; Consigned each rich man unto Hell; But since he finds you will not pay, Both rich and poor may go that way. 'Tis no more than I expected-- The meeting-house is now neglected: All trades are subject to this chance, No longer pipe, no longer dance.

THE POET'S EPITAPH

[From the same]

Underneath this marble tomb, In endless shades lies drunken Tom; Here safely moored, dead as a log, Who got his death by drinking grog. By whiskey grog he lost his breath-- Who would not die so sweet a death?

GEORGE BECK

George Beck, classicist, born in England in 1749, became instructor of mathematics at Woolwich Academy, near London, at the age of twenty-seven years; but he was later dismissed. Beck married an English woman of culture and emigrated to the United States in 1795, reaching these shores in time to serve "Mad Anthony" Wayne as a scout in his Indian campaign. The wanderlust was upon George Beck, and he became one of the first of that little band of nomadic painters that came early to the Blue Grass country, and having once come remained. He arrived at Lexington in 1800; and it was not long before he began to send short original poems and spirited translations of Anacreon, Homer, Horace, and Virgil to old John Bradford's _Gazette_. At about this time, too, Beck was doing many portraits and a group of landscapes in oils of the Kentucky river country, a few of which have come down to posterity. Eighteen hundred and six seems to have been Beck's best year in Kentucky from the literary viewpoint, as the _Gazette_ is full of his verses and translations. He was widely known as the "Lexington Horace." Besides painting and poetry, George Beck was a rather learned astronomer, as his _Observations on the Comet_ of 1811 prove. With his wife he conducted an "Academy for Young Ladies" for several years. His last years were much embittered by the lack of appreciation upon the part of the Western public. The Kentucky of 1800 was not a whirlpool of art or literature by any means, and this cultured man languished and finally died among a people who cared very little for his fine learning or his manners. George Beck, poet, translator, mathematician, astronomer, artist, died in Lexington, Kentucky, December 14, 1812. His wife survived him until the cholera year of 1833, which swept away nearly two thousand citizens of Lexington and the Blue Grass.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Kentucky Gazette_ (Lexington, December 22, 1812); Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1887, v. i).

FIFTEENTH ODE OF HORACE

A New Translation of the Fifteenth Ode of Horace, or Prophecy of Nerceus, from which (according to Count Algorotti and Dr. Johnson) Gray took his beautiful Ode, _The Bard_.

[From _The Kentucky Gazette_ (October 27, 1806)]

What time the fair perfidious shepherd bore The beauteous Helen back to Ilion's shore, To sleep the howling waves were won By Nerceus, Ocean's hoary son, While round the liquid realms he sung, From guilty love, what dire disasters sprung.

Thee, tainted Youth, what omens dire attend! Thy neck and Ilion's soon to Greece shall bend. To man and horse what sweat and blood, What carnage float down Xanthus' flood! What wrath on Troy shall Greece infuriate turn! What glittering domes, and spires, and temples burn!

In vain you boast the Queen of beauty's smiles, Her charms, her floating curls, her amourous wiles, These, these alas! will nought avail While Cretan arrows round you sail! And, tho' the fates awhile such guilt may spare, Vile dust at length shall smear that golden hair!

Trace back, vain Youth! sad Ilion's fate of old! Ulysses' sons and Nestor's yet behold, Teucer's and Diomede's more dread Horrific war shall round you shed; Then shall ye trembling fly like timid deer When hungry wolves are howling in their rear.

By promise Vain of Universal Sway Lur'd you from Greece the beauteous Queen away? In less than ten revolving years Achilles' dreadful fleet appears! His bloody trains of Myrmidonians dire Shall wrap proud Ilion's domes in Grecian fire!

ANACREON'S FIFTY-FIFTH ODE

[From _The Kentucky Gazette_ (November 3, 1806)]

What deathless Artist's mimic hand Shall paint me here the Ocean bland, Shall give the waves such kindling glows As when immortal Venus rose? Who, in phrenzy's flight of mind Such touch and tinctures bright may find To match her form and golden hair And naked paint the heavenly fair? While every amorous rival billow Strives her buoyant breast to pillow? 'Tis done! behold the wavelets green Softly press the Paphian Queen, Around her heavenly bosom play, Kiss its warm blush and melt away. Her graceful neck of pearl behold, Her wavy curls of floating gold: But none but lips divine may tell What Graces on that bosom dwell! Such bloom a bed of lilies shows Illumin'd by the crimson'd rose. Rounding off with grace divine Like hills of snow her shoulders shine. While streaming thro' the waves she swims The silvery maze half veils her limbs, Else where's the eye that durst behold Such beauty stream'd on heavenly mold? Th' enamour'd Triton's glittering train Sporting round the liquid main Waving their gold and silver pinions, Bear her o'er their deep dominions, While infant Loves and young desires Dancing 'mid the choral choirs Clasp the beauteous Queen around And sail in triumph o'er the bright profound.

ANACREON'S FIRST ODE

[From _The Western Review_ (Lexington, March, 1821)]

I would Atrides' glory tell, I would to Cadmus strike my shell; I try the vocal cords--in vain! Love, only love, breathes through the strain. I strip away the truant wire, And string with deeper chords the lyre, Then great Alcides' toils would sing: Soft love still sighs through every string. Hence, themes of Glory, hence! adieu! For what have I to do with you? My heart and lyre in union make Resounding Love and only Love.

HUMPHREY MARSHALL

Humphrey Marshall, author of the first _History of Kentucky_ that was in any wise comprehensive, was born near Warrenton, Virginia, in 1760. What little school instruction he received was from the young woman whom he afterwards married. Marshall removed to Kentucky in 1782, after having served as an officer in the Revolutionary War. He was a member of the Virginia convention of 1788, as a representative of the district of Kentucky, which adopted the Federal constitution. Marshall was in the Kentucky legislature for several terms and, from 1795 to 1801, he was United States Senator from Kentucky. Some years later he was again in the State legislature; and at about that time his famous duel with Henry Clay took place. The first edition of his _History of Kentucky_ (Frankfort, 1812), appeared in a single volume of 407 pages; but the second and final edition was greatly revised and augmented and published in two octavo volumes (Frankfort, 1824). Humphrey Marshall's pen was pointed with poison for his enemies (and he had more of them than any other Kentuckian of his time, perhaps), and in his book he lashed them ruthlessly. He was the first as well as the last of Kentucky's "personal" historians. He first endeavored to silence his foes with newspapers and pamphlets, but, not being satisfied with the results, he poured out his wrath in book form to the extent of a thousand pages and more. While prejudice is the most descriptive word possible to use in characterizing Marshall's work, it is not all prejudice. He wrote with wonderful keenness concerning the Spanish conspiracy in Kentucky, his views upon the men that were guilty of bartering Kentucky to Spain in order to obtain free navigation of the Mississippi river having been abundantly affirmed by the latest historical work upon that subject. He also wrote of the Burr conspiracy with great clearness of vision, all of which is very remarkable when one stops to consider that nearly every one of the men connected with these two conspiracies were his bitterest enemies. That Marshall was an able writer all of the Kentucky historians have freely admitted, notwithstanding the fact they have quarreled with his "copy" many times. He is, as his biographer writes, "the stormy petrel of Kentucky's earlier years," a most remarkable man from several points of view. His _History of Kentucky_, in either edition, is rather scarce at this time, and it is not to be found in many of the rare book shops of the country. Humphrey Marshall died at Lexington, Kentucky, July 3, 1841. He lies buried upon the banks of the Kentucky river, near the capitol of the Commonwealth, Frankfort.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _History of Kentucky_, by R. H. Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); _Life and Times of Hon. Humphrey Marshall_, by A. C. Quisenberry (Winchester, Kentucky, 1892).

PRIMEVAL KENTUCKY

[From _The History of Kentucky_ (Frankfort, Kentucky, 1824, v. i)]

The country, once seen, held out abundant inducements to be re-visited, and better known. Among the circumstances best adapted to engage the attention, and impress the feelings of the adventurous hunters of North Carolina, may be selected the uncommon fertility of the soil, and the great abundance of wild game, so conspicuous at that time. And we are assured that the effect lost nothing of the cause. Forests those hunters had seen--mountains they had ascended--valleys they had traversed--deer they had killed--and bears they had successfully hunted. They had heard the howl of the wolf; the whine of the panther; and the heart-rending yell of the savage man; with correspondent sensations of delight, or horror. But these were all lost to memory, in the contemplation of Kentucky; animated with all the enchanting variety, and adorned with all the majestic grace and boldness of nature's creative energy. To nature's children, she herself is eloquent, and affecting. Never before had the feelings of these rude hunters experienced so much of the pathetic, the sublime, or the marvellous. Their arrival on the plains of Elkhorn was in the dawn of summer; when the forests, composed of oaks of various kinds, of ash, of walnut, cherry, buck-eye, hackberry, sugar trees, locust, sycamore, coffee tree, and an indefinite number of other trees, towering aloft to the clouds, overspread the luxuriant undergrowth, with their daily shade; while beneath, the class of trees--the shrubs, the cane, the herbage, and the different kinds of grass, and clover, interspersed with flowers, filled the eye, and overlaid the soil, with the forest's richest carpet. The soil itself, more unctuous and fertile than Egypt's boasted Delta, from her maternal bosom, gave copious nutriment; and in rich exuberance sustained the whole, in matchless verdure.

Here it was, if Pan ever existed, that without the aid of fiction, he held his sole dominion, and Sylvan empire, unmolested by Ceres, or Lucina, for centuries.

The proud face of creation here presented itself, without the disguise of art. No wood had been felled; no field cleared; no human habitation raised: even the red man of the forest had not put up his wigwam of poles and bark for habitation. But that mysterious Being, whose productive power we call Nature, ever bountiful, and ever great--had not spread out this replete and luxurious pasture without stocking it with numerous flocks and herds: nor were their ferocious attendants, who prey upon them, wanting, to fill up the circle of created beings. Here was seen the timid deer; the towering elk; the fleet stag; the surly bear; the crafty fox; the ravenous wolf; the devouring panther; the insidious wild-cat; and the haughty buffaloe: besides innumerable other creatures, winged, fourfooted, or creeping. And here, at some time unknown, had been, for his bones are yet here, the leviathan of the forest, the monstrous mammoth; whose trunk, like that of the famous Trojan horse, would have held an host of men; and whose teeth, nine feet in length, inflicted death and destruction, on both animals and vegetable substances--until exhausting all within its range, itself became extinct. Nor is it known, although the race must have abounded in the country, from the great number of bones belonging to the species, found in different places, that there is one of the kind living on the American continent, if in the universe.

STEPHEN T. BADIN

Stephen Theodore Badin, Kentucky's earliest Catholic bard, was born at Orleans, France, in 1768. Though very poor he received a classical and theological training in Paris and Tours; and in 1792 he emigrated to America. In the following year Badin was ordained by Bishop John Carroll at Baltimore, he being the first Roman Catholic priest ordained in the United States. He was subsequently appointed to do missionary work in Kentucky, which was then in the old Baltimore diocese, and he made his home at Georgetown, Kentucky. During the next few years Badin rode more than one hundred thousand miles on horseback in order to meet all of his appointments. He was then the only Catholic priest in Kentucky, though he did have assistants from time to time. In 1797 Badin was made vicar-general, and the large Catholic emigrations from Maryland to Kentucky about this time greatly increased his labors. His _Principles of Catholics_ (1805) was the first Catholic book published in the West, and it gave him a larger audience than his voice could well reach. Badin later organized missions and built churches in Louisville and Lexington, St. Peter's in Lexington being made possible by the generosity of his Protestant friends, of whom he had many. Badin and Bishop Benedict Joseph Flaget, of the Bardstown diocese, had a misunderstanding as to the settlement of titles to certain church properties which Badin had acquired before Flaget came to Kentucky, and, rather than to have an acrimonious argument with the Bishop, he quit Kentucky, in 1819, and spent the next nine years in European travel. From 1830 to 1836 he worked among the Pottawatomie Indians in Indiana with marked success. Father Badin died at Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1853. He was the author of several Latin poems in hexameters, among them being _Carmen Sacrum_, a translation of which was published at Frankfort; _Epicedium_, an elegy upon the death of Col. Joseph Hamilton Daviess at the battle of Tippecanoe; and _Sanctissimae Trinitatis Laudes et Invocatis_ (Louisville, 1843). His brief in memoriam for Colonel Daviess is his best known work and, perhaps, his masterpiece.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Sketches of Early Catholic Missions in Kentucky_, by M. J. Spalding (Louisville, 1846); _The Centenary of Catholicity in Kentucky_, by B. J. Webb (Louisville, 1884).

EPICEDIUM

In Gloriosam Mortem Magnanimi Equitum Ducis Joseph Hamilton Daviess, Patrii Amoris Victimæ In Tippecanoe Pugna ad Amnem Wabaschum, 7. Die Nov. 1811. Epicedium; Honorabili Viro Joanni Rowan Meo Ipsiusque Amico Dicatum.

[From _The Kentucky Gazette_ (February 18, 1812)]

Autumnus felix aderat granaria complens Frugibus; umbrosas patulis jam frondibus ulmos Exuerat brumoe proprior, cum Fama per orbem Non rumore vago fatalia nuncia defert: "Sub specie pacis Slyvæcola perfidus atra "Nocte viros inopino plumbo occidit et hasta; "Dux equitum triplici confossus vulnere, fortis "Occubuit; turmoe hostiles periere fugatoe, "Hostilesque casas merito ultrix flamma voravit." Mensibus Æstivis portenderat ista Cometes Funera; Terra quatit repetitis motibus; ægre Volvit sanguineas Wabaschus tardior undas Ingeminant Dryades suspiria longa; Hymenoeus Deficit audita clade, et solatia spernit Omnia; triste silet Musarum turba; fidelis Luget Amicities, lugubri tegmine vestit Et caput et lævam, desiderioque dalentis Non pudor aut modus est. Lacrymas at fundere inanes Quid juvat? Heu lacrymis nil Fata moventur acerba! Ergo piæ Themidis meliora oracula poscunt Unanimes; diram causam Themis aure benigna Excipit, et mox decretum pronunciat oequum: "Davidis effigies nostra appendatur in aula; "Tempora sacra viri quercus civilis adornet, "Ac non immeritam jungat Victoria laurum. "Signa sui Legislator det publica luctus; Historioe chartis referat memorabile Clio. "Prælium, et alta locum cyparissus contegat umbra. "Tristis Hymen pretiosa urna cor nobile servet; "Marmoreo reliquos cineres sincera sepulcro "Condat Amicities; præsens venturaque laudet "Ætas magnanimum David, virtute potentem "Eloquii, belli et pacis decus immortale." Vita habet angustos fines, et gloria nullos: Qui patrioe reddunt vitam, illi morte nec ipsa Vincuntur; virtutum exempla nepotibus extant. Pro Patria vitam profundere maxima laus est.

Stephanus Theodorus Badin, Cathol. Mission.

Moerens canebat 15. Dec. 1811.

A TRANSLATION BY "WOODFORDENSIS"

[From the same]

On the glorious death of Joseph Hamilton Daviess, Commander of the Horse, who fell a victim to his love of country, in the late battle on the Wabash, the 7th. Nov., 1811. Dedicated to John Rowan, Esq.

'Twas late in autumn, and the thrifty swain In spacious barns secur'd the golden grain; November's chilly mornings breath'd full keen; No leafy honors crown'd the sylvan scene. When Fame with those sad tidings quickly flew Throughout our land; (her tale, alas! too true): "The savage Indian, our perfidious foe, Pretending peace with hypocritic show, Surpris'd our legions in the dead of night And urg'd with lead and steel the mortal fight; Our valiant warriors strew th' ensanguin'd plain, Ev'n our great Captain of the Horse is slain With triple wound!!! At length the foe retires, With loss; and leaves his town to our avenging fires."

When summer gilded our nocturnal sky With astral gems; a comet blazed on high, Portentous of these fates!--the earth, in throes Repeated labors; rueful Wabash flows With slower current, stain'd with mingling blood! The _Dryads_ fill with plaints the echoing wood! Hymen, the slaughter heard, dissolves in grief! Naught can console him, naught can yield relief. In woeful silence sits the muses' train And Friendship mourns her fav'rite hero slain. The funeral crape, vain badge of grief! she wears Upon her head, her arms the emblem bears, Her sorrowing mind no moderation knows, Admits no measure to her boundless woes.

Ah, what avails the vain expense of tears? Fate still unmov'd this fruitless anguish bears! Therefore to Themis' shrine, with one accord, They come to crave a more benign award. The direful cause the attentive Goddess hears, And soon this just decree her record bears: "Let Daviess still in semblance grace my halls, Let his bright portraiture adorn my walls; The civic oak his sacred brows entwine, And vict'ry to the wreath his laurel join. Let Legislative acts of mourning show The voted ensigns of the public woe; In the historic page be ever read The fierce encounter, when great Daviess bled, And be the fatal spot with cypress shade o'erspread; His noble heart let Hymen's care enclose In the rich urn, and friendship's hand compose His other relics in the marble tomb. Then let the ages present and to come Just praises render to his glorious name; Let honor'd Daviess gild the page of fame, A hero, fit a nation's pow'r to wield, In council wise, and mighty in the field."

His mortal life a narrow space confines, But glory with unbounded lustre shines. Those virtuous souls, who shed their noble blood A willing off'ring to the public good, Who to their country's welfare freely give The sacrifice of life, forever live As bright examples to the unborn brave, To shew how virtue rescues from the grave. The noblest act the patriot's fame can tell, Is, that he bravely for his country fell.

Thus sung the missionary bard, and paid This mournful tribute to the mighty dead.

DR. CHARLES CALDWELL

Dr. Charles Caldwell, versatile and voluminous writer of prose, was born at Caswell, North Carolina, May 14, 1772. He entered the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania, in 1792; and he won the city's gratitude in the following year by his medical services during the yellow fever epidemic. In 1810 Dr. Caldwell became professor of natural history in the University of Pennsylvania; and four years later he succeeded Nicholas Biddle (1786-1844) as editor of _The Port-Folio_, a Philadelphia magazine of high character. In 1819 Dr. Caldwell came to Lexington, Kentucky, to accept the chair of materia medica in Transylvania University. Some months later he was sent to Europe to purchase books and apparatus for his department. He returned to Transylvania and continued there until 1837, when he removed to Louisville and established a medical institute. Some years later he and the trustees disagreed and he left. After leaving the institute, Dr. Caldwell continued to reside at Louisville, in which city he died, July 9, 1853. Dr. Caldwell was the first distinguished American practitioner of phrenology, if he did not actually discover this alleged science. From 1794 until his death, Dr. Caldwell was an indefatigable literary worker. He was the author of more than two hundred pamphlets, essays, and books. He translated Blumenbach's _Elements of Physiology_ (1795); _Bachtiar Nameh_ (1813), a Persian tale which he translated from the Arabic; edited Cullen's _Practice of Physic_ (1816); _Memoirs of the Life and Campaigns of the Hon._ [General] _Greene_ (Philadelphia, 1819); _Elements of Phrenology_ (1824); _A Discourse on the Genius and Character of the Rev. Horace Holley, LL.D., late President of Transylvania University_ (Boston, 1828); and _Thoughts and Experiments on Mesmerism_ (1842).

BIBLIOGRAPHY. His _Autobiography_ (Philadelphia, 1855), published posthumously, has been regarded by many as an unfortunate work, as in it he made some rather severe pictures of his contemporaries. That the work contains much excellent writing, and is often very happy in the descriptions of the country through which the author passed, no one has arisen to gainsay; _Autobiography of Samuel D. Gross, M. D._ (Philadelphia, 1887, v. ii).

GENERAL GREENE'S EARLY LIFE

[From _Memoirs of the Life and Campaigns of the Hon. Nathaniel Greene_ (Philadelphia, 1819)]

Nathaniel Greene, although descended from ancestors of elevated standing, was not indebted to the condition of his family for any part of the real lustre and reputation he possessed. As truly as is the case with any individual, he was the founder of his own fortune, and the author of his own fame. He was the second son of Nathaniel Greene, an anchor-smith, of considerable note, who is believed to have had the earliest establishment of the kind erected in America, and, by persevering industry in the line of his profession, an extensive and lucrative concern in iron-works, and some success in commercial transactions, had acquired a sufficiency to render him comfortable, if not wealthy.

He was born in the year 1741, in the town of Warwick, and county of Kent, in the province of Rhode Island. As far as is known, his childhood passed without any peculiar or unequivocal indications of future greatness. But this is a point of little moment. The size of the oak it is destined to produce, can rarely be foretold from an examination of the acorn. Nor is it often that any well defined marks of genius in the child afford a premonition of the eminence of the man.

Several of his contemporaries, however, who are still living, have a perfect recollection that young Greene had neither the appearance nor manners of a common boy; nor was he so considered by his elder, and more discerning acquaintance.

* * * * *

Being intended by his father for the business which he had himself pursued, young Greene received at school nothing but the elements of a common English education. But, to himself, an acquisition so humble and limited, was unsatisfactory and mortifying. Even now, his aim was lofty; and he had a noble ambition, not only to embark in high pursuits, but to qualify himself for a manly and honourable acquittance in them. Seeming, at this early period of life, to realize the important truth that, knowledge is power, a desire to obtain it became, in a short time, his ruling passion.

He accordingly procured, in part by his own economy, the necessary books, and, at intervals of leisure, acquired, chiefly without the aid of an instructor, a competent acquaintance with the Latin tongue.

This attainment, respectable in itself, was only preliminary to higher efforts. With such funds as he was able to raise, he purchased a small, but well selected library, and spent his evenings, and all the time he could redeem from business, in regular study. He read with a view to general improvement; but geography, travels, and military history--the latter, more especially--constituted his delight. Having, also, a predilection for mathematics and mechanical philosophy, and pursuing, in most cases, the bent of his inclination, as far as prudence and opportunity would admit, his knowledge, in the more practical departments of these sciences, became highly respectable.

ALLAN B. MAGRUDER

Allan Bowie Magruder, poet and historian, was born in Kentucky, about 1775. He received an academic education, studied law, and was admitted to the Lexington bar in 1797. He contributed very fair verse to the _Kentucky Gazette_ in 1802 and 1803, which attracted considerable comment in the West. That his fame as a poet was wide-spread, is indicated by a letter from an Ohio writer published in the _Lexington Intelligencer_, January 28, 1834, in which Magruder's verse is highly praised and further information concerning his career is sought. After stabbing poor Tom Johnson's little pamphlet of rhymes to the heart, Magruder is placed upon his pedestal as the first real Kentucky poet; and that his work was superior to either Johnson's or George Beck's is obvious, continues the caustic correspondent. The truth is, of course, that the verses of neither of the three men merit mention for anything save their priority; and the young Lexington lawyer's muse was not as productive as Tom's or Beck's, no more than three or four of his poems having come down to us. His first prose work was entitled _Reflections on the late Cession of Louisiana to the United States_ (Lexington, 1803). This little volume of 150 pages was issued by Daniel Bradford, for whose periodical, _The Medley_, Magruder wrote _The Character of Thomas Jefferson_ (June; July, 1803). This essay attracted the attention of the President, and he appointed Magruder commissioner of lands in Louisiana, to which territory he shortly afterwards removed. He was later a member of the State legislature; and from November 18, 1812, to March 3, 1813, Magruder was United States Senator from his adopted State. The next few years he devoted to collecting materials for a history of the North American Indians; and he also made notes for many years for a history of Kentucky, which he finally abandoned, and which he turned over to his old friend, John Bradford, who made use of them in his _Notes on Kentucky_. Allan B. Magruder died at Opelousas, Louisiana, April 16, 1822, when but forty-seven years of age. He was a man of culture and of high promise, but once in the politics of the country his early literary triumphs were not repeated, and he appears to have never done any writing worth while after his removal from Kentucky.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Lexington Intelligencer_ (Lexington, Kentucky, January 28, 1834); Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1888, v. iv).

CITIZEN GENET AND JEFFERSON

[From _The Medley_ (Lexington, Ky., July, 1803)]

When Citizen Genet, the ex-minister of the Robesperian fanaticism, appeared in America, he attempted to impose his new philosophy of light and liberty upon the government. He had nothing to boast of, on the score of superior diplomatic skill. His communications to the secretary of state, were evidently of the tampering kind. They were impressed with all the marks of that enthusiastic insanity, which regulated the councils of the faction; and which, were calculated to mistake their object, by disgusting their intended victims. The mind of Mr. Jefferson, discovered itself, in an early period of his correspondence with the French minister. The communications of Genet were decorated with all the flowers of eloquence, without the force and conviction of rhetorical energy. Accustomed to diplomatic calculation, and intimately combining cause with effect, Mr. Jefferson apprehended the subject, with strength and precision; considered it--developed it--viewed it on all sides--listened to every appeal, and attended to every charge--and in every communication, burst forth with a strength of refutation, that at once detected and embarrassed, the disappointed minister of a wily and fanatic faction.

It is, in most instances, useless to oppose enthusiasm with the deliberate coolness of reason and argument. They are the antipodes of each other; and of that imperious nature, which mutually solicit triumph and disdain reconciliation. The tyranny of the Robesperian principles, were calculated to inveigle within the vortex of European politics, the American government and people. The coolness and sagacity of the secretary of state, composed their defence and protection. The appeal was mutually made to the government; and it is a fortunate circumstance, that there existed this tribunal to approbate the measures of the secretary, and to silence forever, the declamatory oracle of an insidious faction. Checked and defeated on all sides, his doctrines stripped of their visionary principles, and himself betrayed into the labyrinth of diplomatic mystery, their ex-divinity, shrank into the silence of contempt; declaring with his last breath, that Mr. Jefferson was the only man in America, whose talents he highly respected.

HENRY CLAY

Henry Clay, the most famous Kentuckian ever born, first saw the light in the "Slashes," Hanover county, Virginia, April 12, 1777. When twenty years of age, he settled in Lexington, Kentucky, as a lawyer; and Lexington was his home henceforth. In 1803 Henry Clay was elected to the State legislature; and before he was thirty years old he was filling an unexpired term in the United States Senate. In 1811 he was sent to the National House of Representatives from the old Lexington district. He was immediately chosen Speaker of that body, a position to which he was subsequently elected five times. This was the period of his greatest speeches. His utterances upon American rights did much to bring about the War of 1812. In 1814 Henry Clay went to Europe as a peace commissioner, and the Treaty of Ghent was signed on December 24, 1814. He had resigned the Speakership in order to go to Ghent, but on his return in 1815, he found himself reëlected; and he presided as Speaker until 1820, declining two diplomatic posts and two cabinet offices in order to continue in the chair. In 1820 Henry Clay advocated the Missouri Compromise, and a short time afterwards he retired from public life to devote his attention to his private affairs. He was, however, in 1823, again elected to the lower House of Congress, and was again chosen Speaker, serving as such until 1825. In 1824 he announced himself as a candidate for president, but he was defeated by John Quincy Adams, who made him his Secretary of State. Andrew Jackson was elected president, in 1828, and Mr. Clay--to give him the name he was always known by, regardless of the many positions he held--once more retired from American politics. In 1831 the people elected him United States Senator from Kentucky, and in that body he fought Jackson's policies so strenuously that the Whig party was born, with Mr. Clay as its legitimate parent. The Whigs nominated him as their first candidate for president, but he was overwhelmingly defeated by his old-time enemy, Andrew Jackson. He was the author of the Compromise tariff of 1832-1833, which did much toward winning him the sobriquet of the "Great Compromiser." Mr. Clay was reëlected to the Senate, in 1837; and two years later his great debates with John C. Calhoun took place. Late in this year of 1839, the Whig political bosses set him aside and nominated William Henry Harrison for president and he was elected. In 1842 Henry Clay was retired to private life for the third time, but two years later he was again the candidate of the Whigs for president, and he was defeated by a comparatively unknown man, James K. Polk of Tennessee--the only Speaker of the House who has ever been elected president of the United States. The year of 1849 found Henry Clay once more in the Senate, but he was now old and very feeble. The great Compromise of 1850 sapped his rapidly waning strength, though it greatly added to his fame as a statesman. On June 29, 1852, Henry Clay died at Washington City, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. His body was brought back to the land he loved so well, and to which he had brought world-wide fame, and was buried at Lexington, where a grateful people have erected a cloud-tipped monument to his memory. He is one of the American immortals, though it is not at all difficult to quarrel with many of his public acts. He carried the name and fame of Kentucky into the remotest corners of the universe, and it would be indeed surprising if it were not possible to find flaws in a record that was as long as his. His connection with the Graves-Cilley duel in 1838 appears unpardonable at this time, but perhaps the whole truth regarding this infamous affair has not yet been brought out. Considering the patent fact that few orators can stand the printed page, and that the methods by which Clay's addresses were preserved were crude and unsatisfactory, many of the speeches are very readable even unto this day. They undoubtedly prove, however, that the man behind them, and not the manner or matter of them, was the thing that made Henry Clay the most lovable character in American history.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. There are many biographies of Clay, and numerous collections of his speeches. Carl Schurz's _Henry Clay_ (Boston, 1887, two vols.), is the best account of the statesman; _Henry Clay_, by Thomas H. Clay (Philadelphia, 1910), is adequate for Clay the man; and Daniel Mallory's _Life and Speeches of the Hon. Henry Clay_ (New York, 1844), is the finest collection of his speeches made hitherto.

REPLY TO JOHN RANDOLPH[4]

[From _The Life and Speeches of the Hon. Henry Clay_, edited by Daniel Mallory (New York, 1844, v. i., 4th edition)]

Sir, I am growing old. I have had some little measure of experience in public life, and the result of that experience has brought me to this conclusion, that when business, of whatever nature, is to be transacted in a deliberative assembly, or in private life, courtesy, forebearance, and moderation, are best calculated to bring it to a successful conclusion. Sir, my age admonishes me to abstain from involving myself in personal difficulties; would to God that I could say, I am also restrained by higher motives. I certainly never sought any collision with the gentleman from Virginia. My situation at this time is peculiar, if it be nothing else, and might, I should think, dissuade, at least, a generous heart from any wish to draw me into circumstances of personal altercation. I have experienced this magnanimity from some quarters of the house. But I regret, that from others it appears to have no such consideration. The gentleman from Virginia was pleased to say, that in one point at least he coincided with me--in an humble estimate of my grammatical and philological acquirements, I know my deficiencies. I was born to no proud patrimonial estate; from my father I inherited only infancy, ignorance, and indigence. I feel my defects; but, so far as my situation in early life is concerned, I may, without presumption, say they are more my misfortune than my fault. But, however I regret my want of ability to furnish to the gentleman a better specimen of powers of verbal criticism, I will venture to say, it is not greater than the disappointment of this committee as to the strength of his argument.

ADDRESS TO LA FAYETTE

[From the same]

General,

The house of representatives of the United States, impelled alike by its own feelings, and by those of the whole American people, could not have assigned to me a more gratifying duty than that of presenting to you cordial congratulations upon the occasion of your recent arrival in the United States, in compliance with the wishes of Congress, and to assure you of the very high satisfaction which your presence affords on this early theatre of your glory and renown. Although but few of the members who compose this body shared with you in the war of our revolution, all have, from impartial history, or from faithful tradition, a knowledge of the perils, the sufferings, and the sacrifices, which you voluntarily encountered, and the signal services, in America and in Europe, which you performed for an infant, a distant, and an alien people; and all feel and own the very great extent of the obligations under which you have placed our country. But the relations in which you have ever stood to the United States, interesting and important as they have been, do not constitute the only motive of the respect and admiration which the house of representatives entertain for you. Your consistency of character, your uniform devotion to regulated liberty, in all the vicissitudes of a long and arduous life, also commands its admiration. During all the recent convulsions of Europe, amidst, as after the dispersion of, every political storm, the people of the United States have beheld you, true to your old principles, firm and erect, cheering and animating with your well-known voice, the votaries of liberty, its faithful and fearless champion, ready to shed the last drop of that blood which here you so freely and nobly spilt, in the same holy cause.

The vain wish has been sometimes indulged, that Providence would allow the patriot, after death, to return to his country, and to contemplate the intermediate changes which had taken place; to view the forest felled, the cities built, the mountains levelled, the canals cut, the highways constructed, the progress of the arts, advancement of learning, and the increase of population. General, your present visit to the United States is a realization of the consoling object of that wish. You are in the midst of posterity. Every where, you must have been struck with the great changes, physical and moral, which have occurred since you left us. Even this very city, bearing a venerated name, alike endeared to you and to us, has since emerged from the forest which then covered its site. In one respect you behold us unaltered, and this is in the sentiment of continued devotion to liberty, and of ardent affection and profound gratitude to your departed friend, the father of his country, and to you, and to your illustrious associates in the field and in the cabinet, for the multiplied blessings which surround us, and for the very privilege of addressing you which I now exercise. This sentiment, now fondly cherished by more than ten millions of people, will be transmitted, with unabated vigor, down the tide of time, through the countless millions who are destined to inhabit this continent, to the latest posterity.[5]

FOOTNOTES:

[4] This reply to Randolph was made in the House of Representatives, in 1824, in the course of the debate between Clay and Randolph. "During the session of 1823-4, attempts wore made to run at Mr. Clay, on account of his peculiar situation in being named for the presidency while Speaker of the House of Representatives, and for his zealous support of the American system. In a debate on an improvement bill he encountered Mr. Randolph of Virginia, who had endeavored to provoke him to reply," and the bit of the debate reproduced here is the answer the gentleman from Virginia received for his pains.

[5] After the above address, La Fayette rose, and in a tone influenced by powerful feeling, made an eloquent reply. In 1824 La Fayette visited the United States, as "the guest of the Nation," and he was gladly welcomed in many parts of the country. And "on the tenth of December, 1824, he was introduced in the House of Representatives by a committee appointed for that purpose. The general, being conducted to the sofa placed for his reception, the Speaker (Mr. Clay), addressed him" in the very happy words given above.

JOHN J. AUDUBON

John James Audubon, the celebrated ornithologist, was born at Mandeville, Louisiana, May 5, 1780. He was educated in France under private tutors, but his consuming love of Nature and especially of bird-life, was too strong to keep him in a beaten path of study, so most of his time was spent in the woods and fields. When seventeen years old Audubon returned to the United States to settle upon his father's estate, "Mill Grove," near Philadelphia. There he devoted his entire time to hunting, fishing, drawing, and music. Some months later he met and fell in love with his nearest neighbor, Lucy Bakewell, a young English girl. "Too young and too useless to be married," as he himself afterwards wrote, his about-to-be father-in-law, William Bakewell, advised Audubon to become a New York business man. With his friend, Ferdinand Rozier, whom he had met in France, and who was then connected with a French firm in Philadelphia, he visited Kentucky, late in 1806, "thought well of it, and liked it exceedingly." But his great love of Nature was not to be denied, and his business suffered accordingly. On April 8, 1808, Audubon was married to Miss Bakewell, and the next morning left for Pittsburgh, where he and his bride, accompanied by Rozier, floated down the Ohio river in a flatboat, which was their bridal tour, with Louisville, Kentucky, as their destination. Upon reaching Louisville Audubon and Rozier opened a large store which prospered when Audubon attended to it; "but birds were birds then as now, and my thoughts were ever and anon turning toward them as the objects of my greatest delight." His first child, Victor, was born at Louisville, in 1809. Rozier conducted the store, and Audubon spent his days in "the darling forests." In 1810 Alexander Wilson, the Scotch ornithologist and poet, called upon Audubon at his store in Louisville hoping to obtain his subscription to his work upon American birds, but Audubon showed him birds he had never seen before, which seemingly angered the Scot as he afterwards wrote slightingly of the Kentucky naturalist. Late in 1810 Audubon and Rozier removed their stock of goods to Henderson, Kentucky, where their trade was so poor that Rozier was left behind the counter, while Audubon was compelled to fish and hunt for food. A short time after their arrival in Henderson, the two partners decided to move to St. Genevieve on the Mississippi river, but Audubon disliked the community, sold out to Rozier, and returned to his home in Henderson. His second son, John Woodhouse, was born at Henderson, in 1812. Two daughters were also born at Henderson, the first of whom, Lucy, died in infancy and was buried in her father's garden. His pecuniary affairs were now greatly reduced, but he continued to draw birds and quadrupeds. He disposed of Mill Grove and opened a small store in Henderson, which prospered and put him on his feet again. Audubon was doing so finely in business now that he purchased a small farm and was adding to it from time to time. His brother-in-law, Thomas Bakewell, arrived at Henderson about 1816, and finally persuaded Audubon to erect a steam-mill on his property at a great expense. For a time this mill did all the sawing for the country, but in the end it ruined Audubon and his partners. He left Henderson in 1819, after having resided in the town for nearly ten years, and set up as a portrait painter in Louisville, where he was very successful. From Louisville Audubon went to Cincinnati and from there to New Orleans. In October, 1823, he again settled at Louisville as a painter of "birds, landscapes, portraits, and even signs." His wife was the only person in the world who had any faith in his ultimate "arrival" as a famous naturalist, and the outlook was indeed dark. Audubon quitted Louisville in March, 1824, and two years later he went to England, where the first public exhibition of his drawings was held. His first and most famous work, _Birds of America_, was published at London from 1827 to 1838, issued in numbers, each containing five plates, without text, the complete work consisting of four folio volumes. Audubon returned to America in 1829, and he was with his sons at Louisville for a short time, both of whom were engaged in business there. He went to New Orleans to see his wife, and together they came to Louisville, in 1830, to bid the "Kentucky lads," as he called them, goodbye, before sailing for England. At "the fair Edinburgh," in the fall of 1830, Audubon began the _Ornithological Biographies_ (Edinburgh, 1831-39, 5 vols.), the text to the plates of the _Birds_. In 1840-44 the work was republished in seven volumes, text and plates together, as _Birds of America_. In 1831 Audubon and his wife returned to America, and they were again in Louisville with the boys for some time. In 1833 his famous trip to Labrador was taken, and the following year found the family in England. The next ten years were passed in wandering from country to country in search of birds, but, in 1842, Audubon purchased "Minniesland," now Audubon Park, New York. With his sons and the Rev. John Bachman he planned the _Quadrupeds of America_, the last volume of which was issued after his death, which occurred at "Minniesland" on January 27, 1851. His wife, who wrote his life, survived him many years, dying at Shelbyville, Kentucky, June 19, 1874, but she is buried by his side on the banks of the Hudson.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Life of John James Audubon_, edited by his Widow (New York, 1869); _Audubon and His Journals_, edited by Maria R. Audubon (New York, 1900); _John James Audubon_, by John Burroughs (Boston, 1902).

INDIAN SUMMER ON THE OHIO IN 1810[6]

[From _Audubon and His Journals_, edited by Maria R. Audubon (New York, 1900, v. ii)]

When my wife, my eldest son (then an infant), and myself were returning from Pennsylvania to Kentucky, we found it expedient, the waters being unusually low, to provide ourselves with a _skiff_, to enable us to proceed to our abode at Henderson. I purchased a large, commodious, and light boat of that denomination. We procured a mattress, and our friends furnished us with ready prepared viands. We had two stout negro rowers, and in this trim we left the village of Shippingport [now within the corporate limits of Louisville], in expectation of reaching the place of our destination in a very few days.

It was in the month of October. The autumnal tints already decorated the shores of that queen of rivers, the Ohio. Every tree was hung with long and flowing festoons of different species of vines, many loaded with clustered fruits of varied brilliancy, their rich bronzed carmine mingling beautifully with the yellow foliage which now predominated over the yet green leaves, reflecting more lively tints from the clear stream than ever landscape painter portrayed, or poet imagined. The days were yet warm. The sun had assumed the rich and glowing hue which at that season produces the singular phenomenon called there the "Indian Summer." The moon had rather passed the meridian of her grandeur. We glided down the river, meeting no other ripple of the water than that formed by the propulsion of our boat. Leisurely we moved along, gazing all day on the grandeur and beauty of the wild scenery around us.

Now and then a large catfish rose to the surface of the water, in pursuit of a shoal of fry, which, starting simultaneously from the liquid element like so many silver arrows, produced a shower of light, while the pursuer with open jaws seized the stragglers, and, with a splash of his tail, disappeared from our view. Other fishes we heard, uttering beneath our bark a rumbling noise, the strange sound of which we discovered to proceed from the white perch, for on casting our net from the bow, we caught several of that species, when the noise ceased for a time.

Nature, in her varied arrangements, seems to have felt a partiality towards this portion of our country. As the traveler ascends or descends the Ohio, he cannot help remarking that alternately, nearly the whole length of the river, the margin, on one side, is bounded by lofty hills and a rolling surface, while on the other, extensive plains of the richest alluvial land are seen as far as the eye can command the view. Islands of varied size and form rise here and there from the bosom of the water, and the winding course of the stream frequently brings you to places where the idea of being on a river of great length changes to that of floating on a lake of moderate extent. Some of these islands are of considerable size and value; while others, small and insignificant, seem as if intended for contrast, and as serving to enhance the general interest of the scenery. These little islands are frequently overflowed during great freshets or floods, and receive at their heads prodigious heaps of drifted timber. We foresaw with great concern the alterations that cultivation would soon produce along those delightful banks.

As night came, sinking in darkness the broader portions of the river, our minds became affected by strong emotions, and wandered far beyond the present moments. The tinkling of bells told us that the cattle which bore them were gently roving from valley to valley in search of food, or returning to their distant homes. The hooting of the Great Owl, or the muffled noise of its wings, as it sailed smoothly over the stream, were matters of interest to us; so was the sound of the boatman's horn, as it came winding more and more softly from afar. When daylight returned, many songsters burst forth with echoing notes, more and more mellow to the listening ear. Here and there the lonely cabin of a squatter struck the eye, giving note of commencing civilization. The crossing of the stream by a Deer foretold how soon the hills would be covered with snow.

Many sluggish flatboats we overtook and passed; some laden with produce from the different head-waters of the small rivers that pour their tributary streams into the Ohio; others, of less dimensions, crowded with emigrants from distant parts, in search of a new home. Purer pleasures I never felt; nor have you, reader, I ween, unless indeed you have felt the like, and in such company.

The margins of the shores and of the river were, at this season amply supplied with game. A Wild Turkey, a Grouse, or a Blue-winged Teal, could be procured in a few moments; and we fared well, for, whenever we pleased we landed, struck up a fire, and provided as we were with the necessary utensils, procured a good repast.

Several of these happy days passed, and we neared our home, when, one evening, not far from Pigeon Creek (a small stream which runs into the Ohio from the State of Indiana), a loud and strange noise was heard, so like the yells of Indian warfare, that we pulled at our oars, and made for the opposite side as fast and as quietly as possible. The sounds increased, we imagined we heard cries of "murder;" and as we knew that some depredations had lately been committed in the country by dissatisfied parties of aborigines, we felt for a while extremely uncomfortable. Ere long, however, our minds became more calmed, and we plainly discovered that the singular uproar was produced by an enthusiastic set of Methodists, who had wandered thus far out of the common way for the purpose of holding one of their annual camp-meetings, under the shade of a beech forest. Without meeting with any other interruption, we reached Henderson, distant from Shippingport, by water, about two hundred miles.

When I think of these times, and call back to my mind the grandeur and beauty of those almost uninhabited shores; when I picture to myself the dense and lofty summits of the forests, that everywhere spread along the hills and overhung the margins of the stream, unmolested by the axe of the settler; when I know how dearly purchased the safe navigation of that river has been, by the blood of many worthy Virginians; when I see that no longer any aborigines are to be found there, and that the vast herds of Elk, Deer, and Buffaloes which once pastured on these hills, and in these valleys, making for themselves great roads to the several salt-springs, have ceased to exist; when I reflect that all this grand portion of our Union, instead of being in a state of nature, is now more or less covered with villages, farms, and towns, where the din of hammers and machinery is constantly heard; that the woods are fast disappearing under the axe by day, and the fire by night; that hundreds of steamboats are gliding to and fro, over the whole length of the majestic river, forcing commerce to take root and to prosper at every spot; when I see the surplus population of Europe coming to assist in the destruction of the forest, and transplanting civilization into its darkest recesses; when I remember that these extraordinary changes have all taken place in the short period of twenty years, I pause, wonder, and although I know all to be a fact, can scarcely believe its reality.

Whether these changes are for the better or for the worse, I shall not pretend to say; but in whatever way my conclusions may incline, I feel with regret that there are on record no satisfactory accounts of the state of that portion of the country, from the time when our people first settled in it. This has not been because no one in America is able to accomplish such an undertaking. Our Irvings and our Coopers have proved themselves fully competent for the task. It has more probably been because the changes have succeeded each other with such rapidity as almost to rival the movements of their pens. However, it is not too late yet; and I sincerely hope that either or both of them will ere long furnish the generations to come with those delightful descriptions which they are so well qualified to give, of the original state of a country that has been rapidly forced to change her form and attire under the influence of increasing population. Yes, I hope to read, ere I close my earthly career, accounts from those delightful writers of the progress of civilization in our Western Country. They will speak of the Clarks, the Croghans, the Boones, and many other men of great and daring enterprise. They will analyze, as it were, into each component part the country as it once existed, and will render the picture, as it ought to be, immortal.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] Copyright, 1897, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

HORACE HOLLEY

Horace Holley, old Transylvania University's celebrated president, was born at Salisbury, Connecticut, February 13, 1781, the son of Luther Holley, a wealthy merchant. He was fitted at Williams College for Yale, from which institution he was graduated in 1803. Holley studied law in New York for awhile, but soon relinquished it for theology, which he returned to Yale to pursue. In 1805 he was appointed to his first pastorate. Going to Boston in 1809, as pastor of the Hollis Street Unitarian church, he at once made a great reputation for himself as an eloquent pulpit orator. Holley was at Hollis Street for nine years, during which time he was a member of the Board of Overseers of Harvard University, as well as a member of several civic boards. He was elected president of Transylvania University, of Lexington, in 1817, and he journeyed to Kentucky in the following spring, where he went carefully over the ground and finally decided to accept the position. He entered almost at once upon the most difficult task of converting a grammar school into a great university. Success soon crowned his efforts, however, and Transylvania took her place by the side of Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, as one of the higher seats of learning in the United States. In at least one year under the Holley régime, Transylvania had the largest student body in this country. The institution was as well known in New York or London, among scholars, as it was in the West. Several of the professors were men of national reputation, and the students came from all parts of the United States. Never before in the South or West has a seat of learning had higher hopes for the future, or greater success or reputation than had Transylvania under Horace Holley. Then the Kentucky Presbyterians and others launched Dame Rumor, freighted with falsehoods and misrepresentations galore. The president was charged with every crime in the calendar: he was an atheist, an agnostic, a blasphemer, a wine-bibber, and all that was evil. The whole truth was this: he was a Unitarian, holding the Christ to be the greatest personality in history, but denying him as the very Son of God. This his prejudiced, ill-advised enemies were unable to understand. Driven to desperation by the bitter crusade that was being waged against him, Holley resigned, in March, 1827, after nine years of great success as head of the University, which after his departure, fell away to almost nothing. He went from Kentucky to Louisiana, where he endeavored to re-organize the College of New Orleans, and in which work he wore himself out. Late in the summer he and his wife took passage for New York, but he contracted yellow-fever, and, on July 31, 1827, he died. His body was consigned to the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, but his fame is secure as an American educator of distinguished ability. The finest bit of prose he ever wrote, perhaps, is contained in one of his Kentucky letters to his wife in Boston, written while he was in Lexington looking over the lay of the land, which, as subsequent events proved, he utterly failed to anticipate in its most dangerous and damning aspect.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _A Discourse on the Genius and Character of the Rev. Horace Holley, LL. D._, by Charles Caldwell, M. D. (Boston, 1828); _More Colonial Homesteads_, by Marion Harland (New York, 1899); _Lore of the Meadowland_, by J. W. Townsend (Lexington, Kentucky, 1911).

MR. CLAY AND COLONEL MEADE

[From _A Discourse on the Genius and Character of the Rev. Horace Holley, LL. D._, by Charles Caldwell, M. D. (Boston, 1828)]

Lexington, May 27th, 1818.

I wrote a hasty letter to you on the night of my arrival. I shall now he able to speak a little more in detail.

The town and the vicinity are very handsome. The streets are broad, straight, paved, clean, and have rows of trees on each side. The houses are of brick almost universally, many of them in the midst of fields, and have a very rural and charming appearance. The taste is for low houses, generally two, sometimes even but one story high, like English cottages. This taste gives an effect that eyes accustomed to the high buildings of an Atlantic city, where there is but little room, are not at first pleased with. But it is a taste adapted to the circumstances, and to me is not unpleasant.

I have taken lodgings at the principal hotel of the place, where I have a drawing-room to receive calls, which were yesterday until dinner almost innumerable.... In the afternoon I walked about town with Mr. Clay, and called at a few charming houses. I visited also the Athenaeum, an institution not yet furnished with many books, but well supplied with newspapers, and the best periodicals. I find everything of this sort, which is valuable, from Boston and the other Atlantic cities.

This morning I breakfasted at Mr. Clay's, who lives a mile and a half from town. He arrived here only three days before me. Ashland is a very pleasant place, handsomer than I anticipated. The grounds are beautiful, the lawns and walks extensive, the shrubbery luxuriant, and the garden well supplied. The native forest of ash in the rear adds a charming effect to the whole. After breakfast Mr. Clay rode in with me, and we went with the trustees, by appointment, to the college, to visit the professors and students. They were all collected in the largest hall to receive us. I made a short address, which was received in a kind manner. I was then conducted to the library, the apparatus, and the recitation rooms. The library is small, and the apparatus smaller. There is no regular division of students into classes as in other colleges, and but few laws. Everything is to be done, and so much the better, as nothing is to be reformed. Almost the whole is proposed to be left to me to arrange. I am now making all necessary inquiries, and a meeting of the trustees is to be called next week.

After this visit, I went with a party of ladies and gentlemen, nine miles into the country to the seat of Colonel [David] Meade [1744-1838] where we dined and passed the day. This gentleman, who is near seventy, is a Virginian of the old school. He has been a good deal in England, in his youth, and brought home with him English notions of a country seat, though he is a great republican in politics. He and his wife dress in the costume of the olden time. He has the square coat and great cuffs, the vest of the court, short breeches, and white stockings, at all times. Mrs. Meade has the long waist, the white apron, the stays, the ruffles about the elbows, and the cap of half a century ago. She is very mild and ladylike, and though between sixty and seventy, plays upon the piano-forte with the facility and cheerfulness of a young lady. Her husband resembles Colonel Pickering in the face, and the shape of the head. He is entirely a man of leisure, never having followed any business, and never using his fortune but in adorning his place and entertaining his friends and strangers. No word is ever sent to him that company is coming. To do so offends him. But a dinner--he dines at the hour of four--is always ready for visitors; and servants are always in waiting. Twenty of us went out today, without warning, and were entertained luxuriously on the viands of the country. Our drink consisted of beer, toddy, and water. Wine, being imported and expensive, he never gives; nor does he allow cigars to be smoked in his presence. His house consists of a cluster of rustic cottages, in front of which spreads a beautiful, sloping lawn, as smooth as velvet. From this diverge, in various direction, and forming vistas terminated by picturesque objects, groves and walks extending over some acres. Seats, Chinese temples, verdant banks, and alcoves are interspersed at convenient distances. The lake, over which presides a Grecian temple, that you may imagine to be the residence of the water nymphs, has in it a small island, which communicates with the shore by a white bridge of one arch. The whole is surrounded by a low rustic fence of stone, surmounted and almost hidden by honey-suckle and roses, now in full flower, and which we gathered in abundance to adorn the ladies. Everything is laid out for walking and pleasure. His farm he rents, and does nothing for profit. The whole is in rustic taste. You enter from the road, through a gate between rude and massive columns, a field without pretension, wind a considerable distance through a noble park to an inner gate, the capitals to whose pillars are unique, being formed of the roots of trees, carved by nature. Then the rich scene of cultivation, of verdure and flower-capped hedges, bursts upon you. There is no establishment like this in our country. Instead of a description, I might have given you its name, "_Chaumiere du Prairies_."

CONSTANTINE S. RAFINESQUE

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, the learned, eccentric scientist of Kentucky and the West, was born near Constantinople, Turkey, October 22, 1783. He was of French-German descent. His boyhood years were spent in Italy and in traveling on the Continent. Rafinesque came to America in 1802, and he remained in this country but three years, when he returned to Italy; and there the subsequent ten years of his life were passed. In 1809 he married, after a fashion, a Sicilian woman, Josephine Vaccaro, who bore him two children. Rafinesque returned to America in 1815, and a short time after his arrival, he met his former friend, John D. Clifford, of Philadelphia and Lexington--twin-towns in those days--"the only man he ever loved," who persuaded him to come out to Kentucky. At Henderson, Kentucky, Rafinesque met the great Audubon, who took him under his roof, and who told him many amusing tales of the fishes of the Ohio--which the little scientist believed, as coming from a famous man--and which caused him no end of trouble and work in after years. Audubon ridiculed him to his face, which the simple-minded man could not understand; and in his _Journals_ the ornithologist has much fun at his guest's expense. That he treated him very badly, no one can deny. Through Clifford's influence, probably, Rafinesque was appointed, in 1819, to the chair of natural science and modern languages in Transylvania University. This was during the presidency of Horace Holley, when the old University was at the high-tide of its history, but the diminutive scientist, though heralded as "the most learned man in America," was not received as such in the Blue Grass region of Kentucky an hundred years ago. From the president down to the children of the little city he was looked upon as an impossible creature. Seven of the best years of his life were spent in the service of the University and of the town. His boldest dream for the town was a Botanical Garden, modeled upon the gardens of France, and though he did actually make a splendid start toward this ideal, in the end all his plans came to nothing. In June, 1825, Rafinesque left Lexington, never to return. He went to Philadelphia, where the remaining fifteen years of his life were spent. Death discovered the little fellow among his books, plants, and poverty, September 18, 1840, in a miserable, rat-ridden garret on Race street, Philadelphia. Rafinesque's publications reach the surprising number of 447, consisting of books, pamphlets, magazine articles, translations, and reprints. His most important works are _Ichthyologia Ohiensis, or Natural History of the Fishes Inhabiting the River Ohio and its Tributary Streams_ (Lexington, 1820), a reprint of which his biographer, Dr. Call, has published (Cleveland, 1899); and his _Ancient Annals of Kentucky_, which Humphrey Marshall printed as an introduction to his _History of Kentucky_ (Frankfort, 1824). The oversheets of this were made into a pamphlet of thirty-nine pages. The little work considers the antiquities of the State, and is the starting point for all latter-day writers upon "the prehistoric men of Kentucky." Imagination and fact run riotously together, yet the work has been correctly characterized as "the most remarkable history of Kentucky that was ever written, or ever will be."

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _A Kentucky Cardinal_, by James Lane Allen (New York, 1894); _Life and Writings of Rafinesque_, by Richard E. Call (Louisville, Kentucky, 1895); _Rafinesque: A Sketch of his Life_, by T. J. Fitzpatrick (Des Moines, Iowa, 1911).

GEOLOGICAL ANNALS OF THE REVOLUTIONS OF NATURE IN KENTUCKY

[From _Ancient Annals of Kentucky_ (Frankfort, Kentucky, 1824)]

1. Every complete history of a country ought to include an account of the physical changes and revolutions, which it may have undergone.

2. The documents for such geological survey, are to be found everywhere in the bowels of the earth, its rocks and strata, with the remains of organized bodies imbedded therein, which are now considered as the medals of nature.

3. The soil of Kentucky shows, like many other countries, that it has once been the bed of the sea. In James's Map, the primitive ocean is supposed to have covered North America, by having a former level of 6000 feet above the actual level. Since the highest lands in Kentucky do not exceed 1800 feet above the level of the actual ocean, they were once covered with at least 4200 feet of water.

4. The study of the soil of Kentucky, proves evidently the successive and gradual retreat of the salt waters, without evincing any proofs of any very violent or sudden disruptions or emersions of land, nor eruptions of the ocean, except some casual accidents, easily ascribed to earthquakes, salses and submarine volcanoes.

5. There are no remains of land or burning volcanoes in Kentucky, nor of any considerable fresh water lake. All the strata are nearly horizontal, with valleys excavated by the tides and streams during the soft state of the strata.

6. After these preliminary observations, I shall detail the successive evolution of this soil and its productions, under six distinct periods of time, which may be compared to the six epochs or days of creation, and supposed to have lasted an indefinite number of ages.

MANN BUTLER

Mann Butler, the first Kentucky historian who worked with comparatively modern methods, eliminating personal prejudices and imagination, was born at Baltimore, July, 1784. At the age of three years he was taken to the home of his grandfather in Chelsea, England. Mann Butler returned to the United States, in 1798, and entered St. Mary's College, Georgetown, D. C., from which institution he was afterwards graduated in the arts, medicine, and law. His tastes were decidedly literary, and he preferred law to medicine as being, perhaps, more in line with literature. He emigrated to Kentucky, locating at Lexington, in 1806, for the practice of law. He later abandoned law for pedagogy, opening an academy at Versailles, Kentucky. Some years later he taught in Maysville and Frankfort, and was then called to a professorship in Transylvania University, Lexington, where he remained for several years. In 1831 Butler removed to Louisville, where he was engaged in teaching for fifteen years. His _History of Kentucky_ (Louisville, 1834; Cincinnati, 1836) was, after Filson's florid sentences, Rafinesque's imagination, and Marshall's prejudices and castigations, most welcome and timely. He was microscopic in finding facts, fair, having no enemies to punish, an excellent chronicler, in short, and doing a work that was much needed. The Kentucky legislature took a keen interest in his history, rendering him great assistance. Butler's _Appeal from the Misrepresentations of James Hall, Respecting the History of Kentucky and the West_ (Frankfort, 1837), was a just criticism of the Cincinnati writer's _Sketches of History in the West_ (Philadelphia, 1835), a work in which fact and fiction are well-nigh inseparable. Mann Butler spent the last seven years of his life in St. Louis, teaching and in preparing a history of the Ohio valley, which he left in manuscript, but which, together with his library, was afterwards destroyed by Federal soldiers during the Civil War. He was killed in Missouri, in 1852, while a passenger on a Pacific train which was wrecked by the falling of a bridge spanning the Gasconade river. Mann Butler had many of the qualities required in a great historian, and the work he did has lived well and will live longer.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _History of Kentucky_, by R. H. Collins (Covington, 1882); Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1887, v. i).

PIONEER VISITORS

[From _A History of the Commonwealth of Kentucky_ (Louisville, Kentucky, 1834)]

During this same year [1769], a party of about forty stout hunters, "from New River, Holstein and Clinch" united in a hunting expedition west of the Cumberland Mountains.

Nine of this party, led on by Col. James Knox, reached Kentucky; and, from the time they were absent from home, they "obtained the name of the _Long Hunters_." This expedition reached "the country south of the Kentucky river," and became acquainted with Green river, and the lower part of the Cumberland.

In addition to these parties, so naturally stimulated by the ardent curiosity incident to early and comparatively, idle society, the claimants of military bounty lands which had been obtained from the British crown, for services against the French, furnished a new and keen band of western explorers. Their land warrants were surveyed on the Kenhawa and the Ohio; though most positively against the very letter of the royal proclamation of '63. But at this distance from the royal court, it was nothing new in the history of government that edicts emanating, even from the king in council, should be but imperfectly regarded. However, this may be, land warrants were actually surveyed on the Kenhawa as early as 1772, and in 1773, several surveyors were deputied to lay out bounty lands on the Ohio river.

Amongst others Thomas Bullitt, uncle to the late Alexander Scott Bullitt, first lieutenant governor of Kentucky; and Hancock Taylor, engaged in this adventurous work. These gentlemen with their company were overtaken on the 28th of May, 1773, by the McAfees, whose exertions will hereafter occupy a conspicuous station in this narrative.

On the 29th, the party in one boat and four canoes, reached the Ohio river, and elected Bullitt their captain.

There is a romantic incident connected with this gentleman's descent of the Ohio, evincing singular intrepidity and presence of mind; it is taken from his journal, as Mr. [Humphrey] Marshall says, and the author has found it substantially confirmed by the McAfee papers. While on his voyage, he left his boat and went alone through the woods to the Indian town of Old Chillicothe, on the Scioto. He arrived in the midst of the town undiscovered by the Indians, until he was waving his white flag as a token of peace. He was immediately asked what news? Was he from the Long Knife? And why, if he was a peace-messenger, he had not sent a runner? Bullitt, undauntedly replied, that he had no bad news; was from the Long Knife, and as the red men and the whites were at peace, he had come among his brothers to have friendly talk with them, about living on the other side of the Ohio; that he had no runner swifter than himself; and, that he was in haste and could not wait the return of a runner. "Would you," said he, "if you were very hungry, and had killed a deer, send your squaw to town to tell the news, and wait her return before you eat?" This simple address to their own feelings, soon put the Indians in good humor, and at his desire a council was assembled to hear his talk the next day. Captain Bullitt then made strong assurances of friendship on the part of the whites and acknowledged that these "Shawanees and Delawares, our nearest neighbors," "did not get any of the money or blankets given for the land, which I and my people are going to settle. But it is agreed by the great men, who own the land, that they will make a present to both the Delawares and the Shawanees, the next year; and the year following, that shall be as good." On the ensuing day, agreeably to the very deliberate manner of the Indians in council, Captain Bullitt was informed, that "he seemed kind and friendly, and that it pleased them well." That as "to settling the country on the other side of the Ohio with your people, we are particularly pleased that they are not to _disturb_ us in our hunting. For we must hunt, to kill meat for our women and children, and to get something to buy our powder and lead with, and to get us blankets and clothing." In these talks, there seems a strange want of the usual sagacity of the Indians as to the consequences of white men settling on their hunting grounds; so contrary to their melancholy experience for a century and a half previous; yet, the narrative is unimpeachable. On the part of Bullitt, too, the admission of _no compensation_ to the Delawares and Shawanees, appears to be irreconcilable with the treaty at Fort Stanwix with the master tribes of the confederacy, the Six Nations. However, this may be, the parties separated in perfect harmony, and Captain Bullitt proceeded to the Falls. Here he pitched his camp above the mouth of Bear-grass creek, retiring of a night to the upper point of the shoal above _Corn Island_, opposite to the present city of Louisville. It was this gentleman, who, according to the testimony of Jacob Sodowsky, a respectable farmer, late of Jessamine county, in this State, first laid off the town of Louisville, in August, 1773. He likewise surveyed Bullitt's Lick in the adjoining county, of the same name.

ZACHARY TAYLOR

Zachary Taylor, twelfth president of the United States, was a Kentuckian save for his accidental birth near Orange, Virginia, September 24, 1784. His father, Richard Taylor, had been planning for many years to remove to Kentucky, but his vacillation gave Virginia another president. When but nine months old Zachary Taylor was brought to Kentucky, the family settling near Louisville. He "grew up to manhood with the yell of the savage and the crack of the rifle almost constantly ringing in his ears." The first twenty-four years of his life were passed wholly in Kentucky amid all the dangers of the Western wilderness. He was fighting Indians almost before he could hold a rifle at arm's length, and in such an environment his education was, of course, very limited. Taylor entered the army, in 1808, serving in the War of 1812, in Black Hawk's war of 1832, and against the Seminole Indians (1836-1837). In 1837 he was brevetted brigadier-general. In 1838 General Taylor was placed in command of the military stations in Florida; and in 1845 he took command of the army on the Texas border. The next five years of General Taylor's life is the history of the Mexican War. At Palo Alto, Monterey, and at Buena Vista, on February 22-23, 1847, where he crushed Santa Anna, he was the absolute man of the hour, the hero of the country. On the strength of his military renown, General Taylor was elected as the Whig candidate for president of the United States, in 1848, defeating General Lewis Cass of Michigan, and former president, Martin Van Buren, of New York. He was inaugurated in March, 1849, but he died at the White House, Washington, July 9, 1850. The country was torn asunder with many important questions during Taylor's administration, which, though brief, was a stormy one. His remains were interred at his old home near Louisville--the only president ever buried in this State--and a ruined monument marks the grave at this time. In 1908 a volume of his _Letters from the Battlefields of the Mexican War_ appeared.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Some Notable Families of America_, by Annah Robinson Watson; _The War with Mexico_, by H. O. Ladd (New York, 1835); _General Taylor_, by O. O. Howard (New York, 1892).

A LETTER TO HENRY CLAY

[From _The Private Correspondence of Henry Clay_, edited by Calvin Colton (New York, 1855)]

Baton Rouge, La., December 28, 1847.

My dear Sir,--Your kind and acceptable letter of the 13th instant, congratulating me on my safe return to the United States, and for the complimentary and flattering terms you have been pleased to notice my services, I beg leave to tender you my sincere thanks.

The warm and hearty reception I have met with from so many of my fellow-citizens, where I have mingled among them since my return, in addition to their manifestations of their high appreciation and approval of my conduct while in Mexico, has been truly gratifying, and has ten-fold more than compensated me for the dangers and toils encountered in the public service, as well as for the privations in being so long separated from my family and friends; yet there are circumstances connected with my operations in that country which I can never forget, and which I must always think of with feelings of the deepest sorrow and regret.

I left Mexico after it was determined the column under my orders was to act on the defensive, and after the capital of the enemy had fallen into our hands, and their army dispersed, on a short leave of absence, to visit my family, and to attend to some important private affairs, which could not well be arranged without my being present, and which had been too long neglected. After reaching New Orleans, I informed the Secretary of War that should my presence in Mexico be deemed necessary at any time, I was ready to return, and that a communication on that or any other subject connected with my public duties would reach me if addressed to this place. I therefore feel bound to remain here, or in the vicinity, until the proper authorities at Washington determine what disposition is to be made of or with me. Under this state of things I do not expect to have it in my power to visit Kentucky, although it would afford me much real pleasure to mix once more with my numerous relatives and friends in that patriotic State, to whom I am devotedly attached; as well as again to visit, if not the place of my nativity, where I was reared from infancy to early manhood. And let me assure you I duly appreciate your kind invitation to visit you at your own hospitable home, and should anything occur which will enable me to avail myself of it, I will embrace the opportunity with much real pleasure.

I regret to say, I found my family, or rather Mrs. Taylor, on my return, in feeble health, as well as my affairs in any other than a prosperous condition; the latter was, however, to be expected, and I must devote what time I can spare, or can be spared from my public duties, in putting them in order as far as I can do so.

Should circumstances so turn out as will induce you to visit Washington the present winter, I trust you will take every precaution to protect yourself while traveling from the effects of the severe cold weather you must necessarily encounter in crossing the mountains, particularly so after having passed several of the last winters in the South.

The letter which you did me the honor to address to me, referred to, reached me on the eve of my leaving Monterey to return to the United States, and was at once replied to, which reply I flatter myself reached you shortly after writing your last communication; in which I stated, although I had received some letters from individuals in Kentucky, calculated, or perhaps intended, to produce unkind feelings on my part toward you, even admitting such was the case, their object has not been accomplished in the slightest degree, and I hope it will never be the case.

Please present me mostly kindly to your excellent lady, and wishing you and yours continued health and prosperity, I remain, with respect and esteem, etc.

DANIEL DRAKE

Daniel Drake, "the Franklin of the West," was born at Plainfield, New Jersey, October 20, 1785. When he was but three years old, his family removed to Mayslick, Mason county, Kentucky, where they dwelt in a log cabin for some time. When he was sixteen years of age, Drake went to Cincinnati to study medicine, the city's first medical student. He later attended lectures at the medical school of the University of Pennsylvania. On his return to Kentucky, Dr. Drake practiced his profession near his home at Mayslick, Kentucky, but he shortly afterwards went to Cincinnati, where he became a distinguished physician and author. In 1816 he was appointed professor of materia medica and botany in the medical school of Transylvania University, and he held this chair for one year. He returned to Transylvania, in 1823, and this time he remained for four years. In 1835 Dr. Drake organized the medical department of Cincinnati College. Four years later he went to Louisville to accept the chair of clinical medicine and pathological anatomy in the University of Louisville, which he occupied for ten years. He returned to Cincinnati two years before his death, which occurred there, November 6, 1852. Dr. Drake's publications include _Topography, Climate, and Diseases of Cincinnati_ (1810); _Picture of Cincinnati_ (Cincinnati, 1815); _Practical Essays on Medical Education_ (1832); _Systematic Treatise on the Principal Diseases of the Interior Valley of North America_ (Philadelphia, 1850; 1852), a work which was characterized by Judge James Hall of Cincinnati as "the most important and valuable work ever written in the United States. The subject is large. The work could not be compiled. The subject was new, and the materials were to be collected from original sources, from observation, personal inspection, oral evidence, etc. It occupied many years; and was, probably, in contemplation during the whole or most part of Dr. Drake's long professional life." To-day Dr. Drake's most popular work is _Pioneer Life in Kentucky_, a series of reminiscential letters addressed to his children, concerning early times in Kentucky. It was issued by Robert Clarke, the Cincinnati publisher in his well-known Ohio Valley Historical Series. This is a charming volume and it has been much quoted and praised by Western writers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1887, v. ii); _Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley_, by W. H. Venable (Cincinnati, 1891); Allibone's _Dictionary of Authors_ (Philadelphia, 1897).

MAYSLICK, KENTUCKY, IN 1800

[From _Pioneer Life in Kentucky_ (Cincinnati, 1870)]

Mayslick, although scarcely a village, was at once an emporium and capital for a tract of country six or eight miles in diameter, and embracing several hundred families, of which those in father's neighborhood were tolerably fair specimens. Uncle Abraham Drake kept a store, and Shotwell and Morris kept taverns; besides them there were a few poor mechanics. Uncle Cornelius Drake was a farmer merely, and lived a little out of the center of the station; the great men of which were the three I have just named. With this limited population, it seems, even down to this time, wonderful to me that such gatherings and such scenes should have been transacted there. They commenced within five years after its settlement, and increasing with the progress of surrounding population, continued in full vigor long after I left home for Cincinnati. It was the place for holding regimental militia musters, when all the boys and old men of the surrounding country, not less than those who stood enrolled, would assemble; and before dispersing at night, the training was quite eclipsed by a heterogeneous drama of foot racing, pony racing, wrestling, fighting, drunkenness and general uproar. It was also a place for political meetings and stump conflict by opposing candidates, and after intellectual performances there generally followed an epilogue of oaths, yells, loud blows, and gnashing of teeth. Singing-schools were likewise held at the same place in a room of Deacon Morris's tavern. I was never a scholar, which I regret, for it has always been a grief with me that I did not learn music in early life. I occasionally attended. As in all country singing-schools, sacred music only was taught, but in general there was not much display of sanctity. I have a distinct remembrance of one teacher only. He was a Yankee, without a family, between forty and fifty years of age, and wore a matted mass of thick hair over the place where men's ears are usually found. Thus protected, his were never seen, and after the opinion spread abroad that by some misfortune they had been cut off, he "cut and run."

The infant capital was, still further, the local seat of justice; and Saturday was for many years, at all times I might say, the regular term time. Instead of trying cases at home, two or three justices of the peace would come to the Lick on that day, and hold their separate courts. This, of course, brought thither all the litigants of the neighborhood with their friends and witnesses; all who wished to purchase at the store would postpone their visit to the same day; all who had to replenish their jugs of whiskey did the same thing; all who had business with others expected to meet them there, as our city merchants, at noon, expect to meet each other on 'change; finally, all who thirsted after drink, fun, frolic, or fighting, of course, were present. Thus Saturday was a day of largely suspended field labor, but devoted to public business, social pleasure, dissipation, and beastly drunkenness. You might suppose that the presence of civil magistrates would have repressed some of these vices, but it was not so. Each day provided a bill of fare for the next. A new trade in horses, another horse race, a cock-fight, or a dog-fight, a wrestling match, or a pitched battle between two bullies, who in fierce encounter would lie on the ground scratching, pulling hair, choking, gouging out each other's eyes, and biting off each other's noses, in the manner of bull-dogs, while a Roman circle of interested lookers-on would encourage the respective gladiators with shouts which a passing demon might have mistaken for those of hell. In the afternoon, the men and boys of business and sobriety would depart, and at nightfall the dissipated would follow them, often two on a horse, reeling and yelling as I saw drunken Indians do in the neighborhood of Fort Leavenworth, in the summer of 1844. But many would be too much intoxicated to mount their horses, and must therefore remain till Sunday morning.

MARY A. HOLLEY

Mrs. Mary Austin Holley, the historian of Texas, was born at New Haven, Connecticut, in 1786. On January 1, 1805, she was married to the Rev. Horace Holley, who, in the fall of that year, became pastor of a church at Greenfield Hill, Connecticut. Mrs. Holley, of course, was in Boston with her husband from 1809 to 1818; and she accompanied him to Lexington, Kentucky, when he accepted the presidency of Transylvania University. Mrs. Holley was one of the few persons whom the eccentric scientist, Rafinesque, set down as having been very kind to him while he was connected with the University. She lived in Lexington until the spring of 1827, when she went with her husband to New Orleans. She wrote a poem, _On Leaving Kentucky_, the first stanza of which is as follows:

Farewell to the land in which broad rivers flow, And vast prairies bloom as in Eden's young day! Farewell to the land in which lofty trees grow, And the vine and the mistletoe's empire display.

She later embarked with her husband for New York, and it was her pen that so vividly described his death on shipboard. After Dr. Holley's death his widow returned to Lexington, Kentucky, and wrote the memoir for Dr. Charles Caldwell's _Discourse on the Genius and Character of the Rev. Horace Holley, LL. D._ (Boston, 1828). Mrs. Holley left Kentucky in 1831 and emigrated to Texas under the protection of her celebrated kinsman, General Stephen Fuller Austin, a Transylvania University man, and the founder of Texas. Her _Texas_ (Lexington, Kentucky, 1836), was one of the first histories of that country ever published. Mrs. Holley was a widely read woman, theology being her favorite study, and, like her husband, she was a Unitarian. In person she was said to be a very charming woman. Mrs. Holley spent the last several years of her life at New Orleans, in which city she died on August 2, 1846.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Transylvanian_ (Lexington, January, 1829); Adams's _Dictionary of American Authors_ (Boston, 1905).

TEXAS WOMEN

[From _Texas_ (Lexington, Kentucky, 1836)]

Living in a wild country under circumstances requiring constant exertion, forms the character to great and daring enterprise. Women thus situated are known to perform exploits, which the effeminate men of populous cities might tremble at. Hence there are more Dianas and _Esther Stanhopes_ than one in Texas. It is not uncommon for ladies to mount their mustangs and hunt with their husbands, and with them to camp out for days on their excursions to the sea shore for fish and oysters. All visiting is done on horseback, and they will go fifty miles to a ball with their silk dresses, made perhaps in Philadelphia or New Orleans, in their saddle-bags. Hardy, vigorous constitutions, free spirits, and spontaneous gaiety are thus induced, and continued a rich legacy to their children, who, it is to be hoped, will sufficiently value the blessing not to squander it away, in their eager search for the luxuries and refinements of polite life. Women have capacity for greatness, but they require occasions to bring it out. They require, perhaps, stronger motives than men--they have stronger barriers to break through of indolence and habit--but, when roused, they are quick to discern and unshrinking to act. _Lot was unfortunate in his wife._ Many a wife in Texas has proved herself the better half, and many a widow's heart has prompted her to noble daring.

Mrs. ---- left her home in Kentucky with her six sons, and _no other jewels_. There was good land and room in Texas. Hither she came with the first settlers, at a time when the Indians were often troublesome by coming in large companies and encamping near an isolated farm, demanding of its helpless proprietors, not then too well provided for, whatever of provisions or other things struck their fancies. One of these _foraging_ parties, not over nice in their demands, stationed themselves in rather too near proximity to the dwelling of this veteran lady. They were so well satisfied with their position, and scoured the place so completely, that she ventured to remonstrate, gently at first, then more vehemently. All would not do: the _pic-nics_ would not budge an inch; and moreover threatened life if she did not forbear from further expressions of impatience. The good woman was _armed_. She buckled on her _breastplate_ of _courage_, if not of _righteousness_, and with her children and women servants, all her household around her, sent for the chief, and very boldly expostulating with him, _commanded_ him to depart on the instant at the peril of his tribe; or by a signal she would call in her whole _people_, numerous and formidable, and exterminate his race. She was no more troubled with the Indians. She lives comfortably with her thriving family and thriving fortune, and with great credit to herself, on the road between Brazoria and San Felipe, in the same house now famed for its hospitality and comfort. It is the usual stopping place for travellers on that route, who are not a little entertained with the border stories and characteristic jests there related, by casual companies meeting for the night and sharing the same apartment. It was thus that the above incident, much more exemplified, was drawn from the hostess herself. A volume of _reminiscences_ thus collected, racy with the marvellous, would not be _unapt_ to modern taste, and the modern science of book-making.

JOHN J. CRITTENDEN

John Jordan Crittenden, a Kentucky statesman and orator of national reputation, was born near Versailles, Kentucky, September 10, 1787. He was graduated from the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia, studied law, and was admitted to the Frankfort bar. Crittenden served in the War of 1812; and in 1816 he was a member of the Kentucky legislature. In the following year he was elected United States Senator from Kentucky, his party, the Whig, then being in power in this State. From 1827 to 1829 Crittenden was United States Attorney for the district of Kentucky; and in 1835 he was again sent to the Senate, with Henry Clay as his colleague. President William Henry Harrison made him his Attorney-General, in 1841, and he resigned his seat in the Senate. When John Tyler succeeded to the presidency six months later, on the death of Harrison, Crittenden withdrew from the cabinet portfolio, and he was almost immediately returned to the Senate by the legislature of Kentucky. He served until 1848, when he was elected Governor of Kentucky. Governor Crittenden was the most distinguished, if not indeed the ablest, chief executive this Commonwealth has ever known. He resigned the governorship, in 1850, in order to become President Fillmore's Attorney-General, which position he held for three years. In 1855 Crittenden was for the fourth time elected United States Senator from Kentucky. As the war between the States approached, Senator Crittenden, though a Southerner, chose the cause of the Union, lining up with the administration heart and soul. In the beginning he did his utmost to prevent the war, and, failing, he exerted his entire energies to aid Abraham Lincoln and the North to prosecute it. In 1860 the Senator urged his famous Compromise, providing for the reëstablishment of the old slave-line of 36' 30 N., and for the enforcement of the fugitive-slave laws, but it was never moulded into law. The last two years of his life were spent as a member of the lower House of Congress, where he continued his fight for the supremacy of the Constitution. Senator Crittenden died near Frankfort, Kentucky, July 26, 1863, thus surviving his greatest friend and fellow patriot, Henry Clay, more than eleven years.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Life of John J. Crittenden_, by Mrs. Chapman Coleman (Philadelphia, 1871); _History of Kentucky_, by R. H. Collins (Covington, 1882).

EULOGY UPON ASSOCIATE JUSTICE McKINLEY

[From _The Life of John J. Crittenden_, edited by his daughter, Mrs. Chapman Coleman (Philadelphia, 1871)]

At the opening of the court this morning, Mr. Crittenden, the Attorney-General of the United States, addressed the court as follows:

"Since its adjournment yesterday, the members of the bar and officers of the court held a meeting and adopted resolutions expressive of their high sense of the public and private worth of the Hon. John McKinley, one of the justices of this court, and their deep regret at his death. By the same meeting I was requested to present those resolutions to the court, and to ask that they might be entered on its records, and I now rise to perform that honored task.

"Besides the private grief which naturally attends it, the death of a member of this court, which is the head of the great, essential, and vital department of the government, must always be an event of public interest and importance.

"I had the good fortune to be acquainted with Judge McKinley from my earliest manhood. In the relations of private life he was frank, hospitable, affectionate. In his manners he was simple and unaffected, and his character was uniformly marked with manliness, integrity, and honor. Elevation to the bench of the Supreme Court made no change in him. His honors were borne meekly, without ostentation or presumption.

"He was a candid, impartial, and righteous judge. Shrinking from no responsibility, he was fearless in the performance of his duty, seeking only to do right, and fearing nothing but to do wrong. Death has now set her seal to his character, making it unchangeable forever; and I think it may be truly inscribed on his monument that as a private gentleman and as a public magistrate he was without fear and without reproach.

"This occasion cannot but remind us of other afflicting losses which have recently befallen us. The present, indeed, has been a sad year for the profession of the law. In a few short months it has been bereaved of its brightest and greatest ornaments. Clay, Webster, and Sergeant have gone to their immortal rest in quick succession. We had scarcely returned from the grave of one of them till we were summoned to the funeral of another. Like bright stars they have sunk below the horizon, and have left the land in widespread gloom. This hall that knew them so well shall know them no more. Their wisdom has no utterance now, and the voice of their eloquence shall be heard here no more forever.

"This hall itself seems as though it was sensible of its loss, and even these marble pillars seem to sympathize as they stand around us like so many majestic mourners.

"But we will have consolation in the remembrance of these illustrious men. Their _names_ will remain to us and be like a light kindled in the sky to shine upon us and to guide our course. We may hope, too, that the memory of them and their great examples will create a virtuous emulation which may raise up men worthy to be their successors in the service of their country, its constitution, and its laws.

"For this digression, and these allusions to Clay, Webster, and Sergeant, I hope the occasion may be considered as a sufficient excuse, and I will not trespass by another word, except only to move that these resolutions in relation to Judge McKinley, when they shall have been read by the clerk, may be entered on the records of this court."

JOHN M. HARNEY

John Milton Harney, the first of the Kentucky poets to win and retain a wide reputation, a man with the divine afflatus, whose whole body of song is slender but of real worth, was born near Georgetown, Delaware, March 9, 1789. He was the second son of Major Thomas Harney, of Revolutionary War fame, and the elder brother of General William S. Harney, a hero of Cerro Gordo. When John Milton Harney was but two years old, his family emigrated to Tennessee, and later removed to Louisiana. He studied medicine and settled at Bardstown, Kentucky. In 1814 Dr. Harney married a daughter of Judge John Rowan, the early Kentucky statesman; and her death four years later was such a shock to her husband that he was compelled to abandon his practice, and seek solace in travel and new scenes. Dr. Harney spent some time in England, and on his return to America he settled at Savannah, Georgia. He over-exerted himself at a disastrous fire in Savannah, which resulted in a violent fever and ended in breaking his health. He returned to Bardstown, Kentucky, became a convert to Roman Catholicism, and in that place he died, January 15, 1825, when but thirty-five years of age. At the age of twenty-three years, Dr. Harney wrote _Crystalina, a Fairy Tale_, in six cantos, but his extreme sensitiveness caused him to hold it in manuscript for four years, or until 1816, when it was issued anonymously at New York. This work was highly praised by Rufus W. Griswold, John Neal, and other well-known critics, but the unfavorable criticism far outweighed the favorable criticism, so the author held, and he published nothing more in book form; and he did all in his power to suppress the edition of _Crystalina_. William Davis Gallagher, poet and critic of a later time in the West, went over Dr. Harney's manuscripts and from them rescued his masterpiece, the exquisite _Echo and the Lover_. This Gallagher published in his _Western Literary Journal_ for 1837--the first form in which the public saw it. No Western poem has had a wider audience than the _Echo_. It has been parodied in Europe and America many times, and is the finest expression of Dr. Harney's genius. It is to be regretted that no comprehensive account of the poet's life and literary labors has come down to posterity. As a poet and as a man his merits were of the truest sort, but a handful of facts, a suppressed book, a lyric or so, are all that have been brought to the attention of the literary world.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Poets and Poetry of the West_, by W. T. Coggeshall (Columbus, Ohio, 1860); _Blades o' Bluegrass_, by Fannie P. Dickey (Louisville, 1892).

ECHO AND THE LOVER

[From _The Poets and Poetry of the West_, edited by W. T. Coggeshall (Columbus, Ohio, 1860)]

_Lover._ Echo! mysterious nymph, declare Of what you're made and what you are-- _Echo._ "Air!"

_Lover._ 'Mid airy cliffs, and places high, Sweet Echo! listening, love, you lie-- _Echo._ "You lie!"

_Lover._ You but resuscitate dead sounds-- Hark! how my voice revives, resounds! _Echo._ "Zounds!"

_Lover._ I'll question you before I go-- Come, answer me more apropos! _Echo._ "Poh! poh!"

_Lover._ Tell me, fair nymph, if e'er you saw So sweet a girl as Phoebe Shaw! _Echo._ "Pshaw!"

_Lover._ Say, what will win that frisking coney Into the toils of matrimony! _Echo._ "Money!"

_Lover._ Has Phoebe not a heavenly brow? Is it not white as pearl--as snow? _Echo._ "Ass, no!"

_Lover._ Her eyes! Was ever such a pair? Are the stars brighter than they are? _Echo._ "They are!"

_Lover._ Echo, you lie, but can't deceive me; Her eyes eclipse the stars, believe me-- _Echo._ "Leave me!"

_Lover._ But come, you saucy, pert romancer, Who is as fair as Phoebe? Answer. _Echo._ "Ann, sir!"

THE WHIPPOWIL

[From the same]

There is a strange, mysterious bird, Which few have seen, but all have heard: He sits upon a fallen tree, Through all the night, and thus sings he: Whippowil! Whippowil! Whippowil!

Despising show, and empty noise, The gaudy fluttering thing he flies: And in the echoing vale by night Thus sings the pensive anchorite: Whippowil!

Oh, had I but his voice and wings, I'd envy not a bird that sings; But gladly would I flit away, And join the wild nocturnal lay: Whippowil!

The school-boy, tripping home in haste, Impatient of the night's repast, Would stop to hear my whistle shrill, And answer me with mimic skill: Whippowil!

The rich man's scorn, the poor man's care, Folly in silk, and Wisdom bare, Virtue on foot, and Vice astride, No more should vex me while I cried: Whippowil!

How blest!--Nor loneliness nor state, Nor fame, nor wealth, nor love, nor hate, Nor av'rice, nor ambition vain, Should e'er disturb my tranquil strain: Whippowil! Whippowil! Whippowil!

SYLPHS BATHING

[From _Crystalina_ (New York, 1816)]

The shores with acclamations rung, As in the flood the playful damsels sprung: Upon their beauteous bodies, with delight, The billows leapt. Oh, 'twas a pleasant sight To see the waters dimple round, for joy, Climb their white necks, and on their bosoms toy: Like snowy swans they vex'd the sparkling tide, Till little rainbows danced on every side. Some swam, some floated, some on pearly feet Stood sidelong, smiling, exquisitely sweet.

GEORGE ROBERTSON

George Robertson, the most widely quoted Kentucky jurist, and an able writer, was born near Harrodsburg, Kentucky, November 18, 1790. He was educated in the arts and in law at Transylvania University, and entered upon the practice of his profession at Lancaster, Kentucky, in 1809. In 1816 Robertson was elected to Congress, where he remained for two terms. He drew up the bill for the establishment of Arkansaw territory; and he projected the system of cutting public lands into small lots, selling them to actual settlers for one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. He declined another term in the House, as well as the attorney-generalship of Kentucky, in order to devote his whole attention to the law. Robertson was elected against his desire to the Kentucky legislature, in 1822, and he was a member of that body for the next five years. This was the time of the struggle between the Old-Court and New-Court parties, which was one of the most bitter political fights ever seen in Kentucky. Robertson consistently and vigorously championed the cause of the Old-Court party, which finally won. That this disgusted him with political life in any dress, is shown by his subsequent declination of the governorship of Arkansaw, and the Columbian and Peruvian missions. In 1828 he was elected an associate justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, and, in the following year, chief justice. This position was George Robertson's heart's desire--he hated politics with a never-dying hatred, the law and the bench being his earthly paradise. He was chief justice of Kentucky for fourteen years, when he resigned to return to the active practice of law. From 1834 to 1857 Judge Robertson was professor of law in Transylvania University at Lexington. He died at Lexington, May 16, 1874, generally regarded as the ablest jurist Kentucky has produced. He was also the author of four books: _Introductory Lecture to the Transylvania Law Class_ (Lexington); _Biographical Sketch of John Boyle_ (Frankfort, 1838); _Scrap-Book on Law and Politics, Men and Times_ (Lexington, 1855), his best known book; and his very interesting and well-written autobiography, entitled _An Outline of the Life of George Robertson, written by Himself_ (Lexington, 1876), to which his son contributed an introduction and appendix.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. The chief authority for the facts of Judge Robertson's life is, of course, his autobiography; Samuel M. Wilson's study in _Great American Lawyers_ (Philadelphia, 1908).

ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS ON THE SETTLEMENT OF KENTUCKY

[From _Scrap Book on Law and Politics, Men and Times_ (Lexington, Kentucky, 1855)]

Yet we have hopes that are immortal--interests that are imperishable--principles that are indestructible. Encouraged by those hopes, stimulated by those interests, and sustained by and sustaining those principles, let us, come what may, be true to God, true to ourselves, and faithful to our children, our country, and mankind. And then, whenever or wherever it may be our doom to look, for the last time, on earth, we may die justly proud of the title of "Kentuckian," and, with our expiring breath, may cordially exclaim--Kentucky, as she was;--Kentucky, as she is;--Kentucky, as she will be;--Kentucky forever.

EARLY STRUGGLES

[From _An Outline of the Life of George Robertson, written by Himself_ (Lexington, Kentucky, 1876)]

Yet, thus juvenile, poor, and proud, I ventured not only on the rather hopeless prospects of professional life, but, on the 28th of November, 1809, when I was only ten days over nineteen years of age, I ventured on the far more momentous contingencies of marriage, and, linking my destinies with a wife only fifteen years and seven months old, we embarked without freight or pilotage, on the untried sea of early marriage. I had never made a cent, and had nothing but ordinary clothes, a horse, an old servant, a few books, and the humble talents with which God had blessed me. I borrowed thirteen dollars as an outfit, and out of that fund I paid for my license and handed to my groomsman, R. P. Letcher, five dollars for paying the parson, Randolph Hall, father of Rev. Nathan H. Hall. Some days afterwards Letcher rather slyly put into my hand a dollar, suggesting that he had saved that much for me by paying the preacher only four dollars. This looked to me as such minute parsimony as to excite my indignation, important as was only one dollar then to me. And I manifested that feeling in a manner both emphatic and censurious; to which Letcher replied that four dollars was more than was then customary, and that Mr. Hall, when he received it, expressed the warmest gratitude, and said that, old as he was, he had never received so large a fee for solemnizing the matrimonial rite! This reconciled me to the return of the dollar.

My wife and myself lived with her mother until the 9th of September, 1810, when we set up for ourselves in a small buckeye house with only two rooms, built and first occupied by Judge [John] Boyle, and respecting which I may here suggest this remarkable coincidence of successive events:--That Boyle commenced housekeeping in that house, and, while he occupied it, was elected to Congress; that Samuel McKee commenced housekeeping in the same house, and succeeded Boyle in Congress; that I commenced housekeeping in the same house, and succeeded McKee in Congress; and that R. P. Letcher commenced housekeeping in the same house, and, after an interval of two years, succeeded me in Congress. I was unable to furnish it with a carpet, and our only furniture consisted of two beds, one table, one bureau, six split-bottomed chairs, and a small supply of table and kitchen furniture, which I bought with a small gold watch. I had bought a bag of flour, a bag of corn meal, a half barrel of salt, and two hams and two middlings of bacon; and these, together with the milk of a small cow given to my wife by her mother, and a few chickens and some butter, constituted our entire outfit of provisions. But all our supplies were stolen the night we commenced housekeeping. This was, at that time, a heavy blow. I had no money; and, though I had good credit, I resolved not to buy anything on credit. And that was one of the best resolutions I ever made. It stimulated my industry and economy, and soon secured to me peace and a comfortable sense of independence. In adhering to my privative, but conservative resolve, I often cut and carried on my shoulders wood from a neighboring forest.

LITERARY FAME

[From the same]

The classical reader remembers that, when almost all the Greeks, captured with Nicias at Syracuse, had died in dungeons, a remnant of the survivors saved themselves by the recitation of beautiful extracts from Euripides. How potent was the shadowed genius of the immortal Athenian, when it alone melted the icy hearts that nothing else could touch, and broke the captive's chains, which justice, and prayers, and tears, had in vain tried to unloose! And hence "the glory of Euripides had all Greece for a monument." He too was elevated by the light of other minds. It is said that he acquired a sublime inspiration whenever he read Homer--whose Iliad and whose Odyssey--the one exhibiting the fatality of strife among leading men, the other portraying the efficacy of perseverance--have stamped his name on the roll of fame in letters of sunshine, that will never fade away. No memorial tells where Troy once stood--Delphi is now mute--the thunder of Olympus is hushed, and Apollo's lyre no longer echoes along the banks of the Peneus--but the fame of Homer still travels with the stars.

SHADRACH PENN

Shadrach Penn, one of the ablest of Kentucky journalists, was born at Frederick, Maryland, in 1790. His family settled near Georgetown, Kentucky, when he was a mere boy. Penn began his newspaper career at Georgetown when he was but nineteen years of age; and he subsequently served in the War of 1812. In 1818 Penn removed to Louisville and established _The Public Advertiser_, which was a weekly for the first few years of its history, then a semi-weekly, and, on April 4, 1826, a final change was made "and the first daily newspaper west of the Alleghanies was flung to the public." After the establishment of the _Kentucky Gazette_, this marked the second most epoch-making event in Kentucky journalism. Penn was an able editor, the very ablest in Kentucky, and he was having things his own way in the West, advocating Jacksonian Democracy. In 1828 President Jackson showed his appreciation of Penn's services by offering him a place in his cabinet, which he declined, but he did spend a winter at Washington as the President's warm friend and adviser. Then, _mirabile dictu!_ the Whigs brought George D. Prentice to Kentucky and, in 1830, he established the _Louisville Journal_, and began a most bitter fight upon Penn's paper. Penn fought back as best he could, but he was quite unequal for the contest. For nearly twelve years the warfare was waged without either editor asking quarter, and to the infinite amusement of the whole country. In 1841 Penn ran up the white flag and went to St. Louis to become editor of the _St. Louis Reporter_. Prentice bade him farewell in the best of temper, and when he died at St. Louis, on June 15, 1846, the old Whig's tribute to his memory was the finest one written.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Pioneer Press of Kentucky_, by W. H. Perrin (Louisville, 1888); _Memorial History of Louisville, Kentucky_, by J. Stoddard Johnston (Chicago, 1896).

THE COMING OF GEORGE D. PRENTICE

[From _The Public Advertiser_ (Louisville, September 10, 1830)]

This gentleman and Mr. Buxton, of Cincinnati, have issued proposals for publishing a daily paper in Louisville, which is to be edited by Mr. Prentice. Willing that the gentleman shall be known by the people whose patronage he is seeking, we copy today from a Cincinnati paper his account of the late elections in Kentucky. The production may be viewed as a fair specimen of his "fine literature, his drollery, strong powers of sarcasm," and, above all, his "poetical capacity." The respect and attachment he displays toward Kentucky (to say nothing of the Jackson party), must be exquisitely gratifying to the respectable portion of Mr. Clay's friends in this city. To them we commend the letter of Mr. Prentice as an erudite, chaste, and veritable production, worthy of the "great editor" who is hereafter to figure as Mr. Clay's champion in the West. We may, moreover, congratulate them in consequence of the fair prospect before them; for with the aid of such an editor they cannot fail to effect miraculous revolutions or revulsions in the political world. The occupants of all our fish markets will be confirmed in their devotion to the opposition beyond redemption.

WILLIAM O. BUTLER

William Orlando Butler, one of General Lew Wallace's favorite poets, was born near Nicholasville, Kentucky, in 1791. He was the son of Percival Butler, a noted Revolutionary soldier. He was graduated from Transylvania University, Lexington, in 1812. Butler studied law for a short time, but the War of 1812 called him and he enlisted. At the River Raisin he was wounded and captured and carried through Canada to Fort Niagara, but he was later exchanged. Butler was with General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans, and his gallantry attracted the attention of the general, who placed him upon his staff. In 1817 Butler returned to the law, married, and settled in the little river town of Carrollton, Kentucky, on the Ohio, his home henceforth. In July, 1821, the first draft of his famous poem, _The Boatman's Horn_ (then called _The Boat Horn_), was published in _The Western Review_, a monthly magazine of Lexington, Kentucky. In describing his boyhood days at Covington, Indiana, General Lew Wallace very charmingly writes of his early love for the Wabash river, and for old Nebeker, the lonesome ferryman, who "welcomed me for my company. On the farther side, chained to a tree, he kept a long tin horn. A traveller, coming to the bank and finding us on the townward side, blew to get our attention ... when the voice of the big horn on the thither side called to us--How it startled me! What music there was in it! What haste I made to unship my oar!... And if since then I have been an ardent fisherman, believing with my friend Maurice Thompson that

"Halcyon prophecies come to pass In the haunts of the bream and bass;"

and if the song of Butler, the soldier-poet of Kentucky--

"Oh, boatman, wind that horn again! For never did the joyous air Upon its lambent bosom bear So wild, so soft, so sweet a strain"--

is still a favorite of mine, with power to stir my pulses and return me to a freak of childhood full of joyousness alloyed only with thought of my mother's fears, the shrewd reader will know at once how such tastes inured to me. And as swimming seems to have been one of my natural accomplishments, I must have acquired it during my days at the ferry." This is far and away the best background for Butler's poem that has been done, and with it before the reader the famous poem must mean more to him. The poem was subsequently published as the title-poem in a small collection of his verse, entitled _The Boatman's Horn and Other Poems_. From 1839 to 1843 Butler was a Kentucky Congressman; and in 1844 the unsuccessful candidate for governor of Kentucky. Upon his Mexican War record, General Butler was nominated by the Democratic party for vice-president of the United States with General Lewis Cass, of Michigan, as the head of the ticket, but they were defeated by Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams. In 1855 General Butler declined the governorship of the territory of Nebraska; and in 1861 he went to Washington as a member of the famous "Peace Congress." General Butler died at his home, Carrollton, Kentucky, August 6, 1880, in the ninetieth year of his age. Though famous as a soldier and politician, _The Boatman's Horn_ is the work that will keep his name green for many years; and several of his other poems are not to be utterly despised.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Biographical Sketch of Gen. William O. Butler_, by F. P. Blair, Senior (Washington, 1848), was reprinted in full in _The Kentucky Yeoman_ (Frankfort, June 15, 1848); _The Poets and Poetry of the West_, by W. T. Coggeshall (Columbus, Ohio, 1860); Lew Wallace's _Autobiography_ (New York, 1906).

THE BOATMAN'S HORN

[From _The Poets and Poetry of the West_, edited by W. T. Coggeshall (Columbus, Ohio, 1860)]

O, boatman! wind that horn again, For never did the list'ning air Upon its lambent bosom bear So wild, so soft, so sweet a strain! What though thy notes are sad and few, By every simple boatman blown, Yet is each pulse to nature true, And melody in every tone.

How oft, in boyhood's joyous day, Unmindful of the lapsing hours, I've loitered on my homeward way By wild Ohio's bank of flowers; While some lone boatman from the deck Poured his soft numbers to the tide, As if to charm from storm and wreck The boat where all his fortunes ride!

Delighted, Nature drank the sound, Enchanted, Echo bore it round In whispers soft and softer still, From hill to plain and plain to hill, Till e'en the thoughtless frolic boy, Elate with hope and wild with joy, Who gambolled by the river's side And sported with the fretting tide, Feels something new pervade his breast, Change his light steps, repress his jest, Bends o'er the flood his eager ear, To catch the sounds far off, yet dear-- Drinks the sweet draught, but knows not why The tear of rapture fills his eye. And can he now, to manhood grown, Tell why those notes, simple and lone, As on the ravished ear they fell, Bind every sense in magic spell?

There is a tide of feeling given To all on earth, its fountains, heaven, Beginning with the dewy flower, Just ope'd in Flora's vernal bower, Rising creation's orders through, With louder murmur, brighter hue-- That tide is sympathy! its ebb and flow Give life its hue, its joy, and woe.

Music, the master-spirit that can move Its waves to war, or lull them into love-- Can cheer the sinking sailor 'mid the wave, And bid the warrior on! nor fear the grave, Inspire the fainting pilgrim on the road, And elevate his soul to claim his God.

Then, boatman, wind that horn again! Though much of sorrow mark its strain, Yet are its notes to sorrow dear; What though they wake fond memory's tear? Tears are sad memory's sacred feast, And rapture oft her chosen guest.

HEW AINSLIE

Hew Ainslie, the foremost Scottish-Kentucky poet, was born at Bargery Mains, Ayrshire, April 5, 1792. Ill-health cut short Ainslie's education at the Ayr Academy, but some years later he went up to Glasgow to study law. Law and Hew Ainslie were not congenial fellows, and he shortly embarked upon the art of landscape gardening. He was next a clerk in Edinburgh, and also amanuensis for Professor Dugald Stewart. "Gradually the clouds of [Ainslie's] tobacco smoke began to curl into seven letters which looked like America." He was thirty years of age when he arrived at New York. He spent his first years in New York and Indiana as a farmer, but he soon relinquished this work and went, in 1829, to Louisville, Kentucky, where, three years later, an Ohio river flood swept his property away. And two years after this disastrous flood, fire destroyed his property in Indiana. Undismayed by misfortune, Ainslie became a contractor and supervised the erection of many large business structures in Louisville and other cities. During all these years he was assiduously courting the Muse, and making a great reputation for himself as a poet. Ainslie's first book, _A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns_ (Deptford, 1822), is the English edition of his charming lyrics; and his _Scottish Songs, Ballads, and Poems_ (New York, 1855), is the only American edition of his work. In 1864, forty-two years after his departure, Ainslie revisited the land of his birth, where he was hailed as one of Scotland's finest singers since Robert Burns. Kentucky was in the poet's blood, however, and a year later he returned to his home at Louisville. His American friends were not to be outdone by his home people, and they arranged a great home-coming for him. In 1871, when the Scots of Louisville assembled to celebrate the birthday of Burns, Ainslie, the toastmaster, arose and smilingly confessed to having once kissed "Bonnie Jean," Burns's widow. He died at Louisville, March 11, 1878. A comprehensive Scottish edition of his _A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns, and Poems_, was issued in 1892. _The Ingle Side_, a little song of sixteen lines, is Ainslie's masterpiece; but it was as a poet of the sea that he won his great reputation. "As Lloyd Mifflin is America's greatest sonneteer, so Hew Ainslie, the adopted Kentuckian, may perhaps be ranked as America's most ardent singer of the sea."

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1887, v. i); _Hew Ainslie_, by A. S. Mackenzie (Library of Southern Literature, Atlanta, Georgia, 1909, v. i).

THE BOUROCKS O' BARGENY

[From _A Pilgrimage to the Land of Burns, and Poems_ (Paisley, Scotland, 1892)]

I left ye, Jeanie, blooming fair, 'Mang the bourocks o' Bargeny; [bowers] I've found ye on the banks o' Ayr, But sair ye're altered, Jeanie.

I left ye 'mang the woods sae green, In rustic weed befitting; I've found ye buskit like a queen, [attired] In painted chaumbers sitting. [chambers]

I left ye like the wanton lamb That plays 'mang Hadyed's heather; I've found ye noo a sober dame, A wife and eke a mither.

Ye're fairer, statelier, I can see, Ye're wiser, nae dou't, Jeanie; But ah! I'd rather met wi' thee 'Mang the bourocks o' Bargeny.

THE HAUGHS O' AULD KENTUCK

[From the same]

Welcome, Edie, owre the sea, Welcome to this lan' an' me, Welcome from the warl' whaur we Hae whistled owre the lave o't. [rest]

Come, gie your banes anither hitch, Up Hudson's stream, thro' Clinton's ditch, An' see our watlin meadows rich [cane-brake] Wi' corn an' a' the lave o't. [all the rest of it]

We've hizzie here baith swank and sweet [maidens agile] An' birkies here that can stan' a heat [young men] O' barley bree, or aqua vit [brew; water of life] Syne whistle owre the lave o't.

Gude kens, I want nae better luck [Goodness knows] Than just to see ye, like a buck, Spanking the haughs o' auld Kentuck, [speeding over the meadows] An' whistling owre the lave o't.

THE INGLE SIDE

[From the same]

It's rare to see the morning bleeze, [blaze] Like a bonfire frae the sea; It's fair to see the burnie kiss [streamlet] The lip o' the flowery lea; An' fine it is on green hillside, When hums the hinny bee; But rarer, fairer, finer far, Is the ingle side to me.

Glens may be gilt wi' gowans rare [daisies] The birds may fill the tree, An' haughs hae a' the scented ware [river meadows] That simmer's growth can gie; But the canty hearth where cronies meet, [cheerful] An' the darling o' our e'e-- That makes to us a warl' complete, Oh! the ingle side for me.

THE HINT O' HAIRST

[From the same]

It's dowie in the hint o' hairst, [dreary; end; harvest] At the wa'-gang o' the swallow, [away-going] When the wind blows cauld an' the burns grow bauld, [bold] An' the wuds are hingin' yellow; But oh! it's dowier far to see The deid-set o' a shining e'e That darkens the weary warld on thee.

There was muckle love atween us twa-- Oh! twa could ne'er been fonder; An' the thing on yird was never made That could hae gart us sunder. But the way of Heaven's aboon a' ken, [above all knowing] And we maun bear what it likes to sen'-- [must] It's comfort, though, to weary men, That the warst o' this warld's waes maun en'.

There's mony things that come and gae, Just kent and syne forgotten; The flow'rs that busk a bonnie brae [deck; slope] Gin anither year lie rotten. But the last look o' that lovin' e'e, An' the dying grip she gied to me, They're settled like eternitie-- O Mary! that I were with thee.

JAMES G. BIRNEY

James Gillespie Birney, leader of the Conservative Abolitionists, opposed to the radicalism of William Lloyd Garrison and all his ilk, yet as earnest and sincere in his hatred of slavery, was born at Danville, Kentucky, February 4, 1792. He was at Transylvania University for a short time, then proceeded to Princeton, from which institution he was graduated in 1810. In 1814 he became a lawyer in his native town of Danville. In 1816 Birney was in the Kentucky legislature; but two years later he removed to Alabama, settling upon a plantation near Huntsville. The slavery question was appealing to him more and more, and he finally became an agent for the American Colonization Society. In the fall of 1833 Birney returned to Kentucky, and went to Danville, where he freed his own slaves, and organized the Kentucky Anti-Slavery Society. On January 1, 1836, the first issue of his anti-slavery sheet, _The Philanthropist_, appeared from his Cincinnati office. This soon became the Bible of the Conservative Abolitionists, who opposed the drastic methods of Garrison and his followers. In his speeches Birney denounced all violence and fanaticism in the handling of the slavery problem, though he himself received much violence at the hands of mobs and almost insane partisans. His strong addresses through the North won him the secretaryship of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1837. In this capacity he was soon recognized as the real leader of the "Constitutional Abolitionists," who said they stood upon the Constitution, fought against secession, and desired to wipe slavery from the face of the American continent with decency and in order. In 1840 and again in 1844 Birney was the candidate of the Liberty party for president of the United States. In the second campaign he multiplied his very small vote received in the first race by nine. He was thrown from his horse, in 1845, and the final twelve years of his life were passed as an invalid. Birney died at Perth Amboy, New Jersey, November 25, 1857. Besides numerous contributions to the press, his principal writings are _Letter on Colonization_ (1834); _Addresses and Speeches_ (1835); _American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery_ (1840); _Speeches in England_(1840); and _An Examination of the Decision of the_ _United States Supreme Court in the Case of Strader et al. v. Graham_ (1850).

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _History of Kentucky_, by R. H. Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); _James G. Birney and His Times_, by his son, William Birney (New York, 1890).

THE NO-GOVERNMENT DOCTRINES

[From _A Letter on the Political Obligations of Abolitionists_ (Boston, 1839)]

Within the last twelve or eighteen months, it is believed--after efforts, some successful, some not, had been begun to affect the elections--and whilst the most indefatigable exertions were being made by many of our influential, intelligent and liberal friends to convince the great body of the abolitionists of the necessity--the indispensable necessity--of breaking away from their old "_parties_," and uniting together in the use of the elective franchise for the advancement of the cause of human freedom in which we were engaged;--at this very time, and mainly, too, in that part of the country where _political action_ had been most successful, and whence, from its promise of soon being wholly triumphant, great encouragement was derived by abolitionists everywhere, a sect has arisen in our midst, whose members regard it as of religious obligation, in no case, _to exercise the elective franchise_. This persuasion is part and parcel of the tenet which it is believed they have embraced--that as Christians have the precepts of the Gospel to direct, and the Spirit of God to guide them, all human governments, as necessarily including the idea of _force to secure obedience_, are not only superfluous, but unlawful encroachments on the Divine government, as ascertained from the sources above mentioned. Therefore, they refuse to do anything voluntarily, by which they would be considered as acknowledging the lawful existence of human governments. Denying to civil governments the right to use force, they easily deduce that family governments have no such right. Thus they would withhold from parents any power of personal chastisement or restraint for the correction of their children. They carry out to the full extent the "non-resistance" theory. To the first ruffian who would demand our purse, or oust us from our houses, they are to be unconditionally surrendered, unless _moral suasion_ be found sufficient to induce him to decline from his purpose. Our wives, our daughters, our sisters--our mothers we are to see set upon by the most brutal, without any effort on our part, except argument, to defend them--and even they themselves are forbidden to use in defense of their purity such powers as God has endowed them with for its protection, if resistance should be attended with any injury or destruction to the assailant. In short, the "No-Government" doctrines, as they are believed now to be embraced, seem to strike at the root of the social structure; and tend--so far as I am able to judge of their tendency--to throw society into entire confusion, and to renew, under the sanction of religion, scenes of anarchy and license that have generally heretofore been the offspring of the rankest infidelity and irreligion.

It is but justice to say--judging from the moral deportment of the adherents of the "No-Government" scheme--that so far from admitting, what I have supposed to be, its legitimate consequences, they would wholly deny and repudiate them.

These Sectaries have not as yet separated themselves from the American [Anti-Slavery] society. Far from it. They insist that their views are altogether harmonious with what is required for membership by the constitution.... But is this really so? Is the difference between those who seek to abolish any and every government of human institution, and those who prefer _any_ government to a state of things in which every one may do what seemeth good in his own eyes--is the difference between them, I say, so small that they can act harmoniously under the same organization? When, in obedience to the principles of the society, I go to the polls and there call on my neighbors to unite with me in electing to Congress men who are in favor of Human Rights, I am met by a No-Government abolitionist inculcating on them the doctrine that Congress has _no rightful authority_ to act at all in the premises--how can we proceed together? When I am animating my fellow-citizens to aid men in infusing into the government salutary influences which shall put an end to all oppression--my No-Government brother cries out at the top of his lungs, _all_ governments are of the Devil(!) where is our harmony! Our efficiency? We are in the condition of the two physicians called in to the same patient--one of whom should be intent on applying the proper remedies for expelling the disease from the body and thus restoring and purifying its functions; the other equally intent on utterly destroying body, members, functions and all. Could they be agreed, and could they walk together? It seems to me not. And simply because their aim, their objects are radically and essentially different. So with the No-Government and the Pro-Government abolitionists. One party is for sustaining and purifying governments, and bringing them to a perfect conformity with the principles of the Divine government--the other for destroying _all_ government.

THOMAS CORWIN

Thomas Corwin, witty, delightful "Tom" Corwin, was born near Paris, Kentucky, July 29, 1794. Before he was five years old, his father had taken him into the wilds of Ohio, the Lebanon of today. "Tom" Corwin was admitted to the bar, in 1818, after a slender education and a brief reading of the law. His wit and eloquence made his reputation rapidly and, in 1830, he found himself in the lower House of Congress. The whole country laughed at his inimitable speeches; and that he had a strong hold on the Ohio Whigs is certain as they returned him to the House for ten years. In 1840 Corwin was elected governor of Ohio, after a brilliant and successful state-wide campaign. He was incomparable on the stump, and he rode into the gubernatorial chair on an overwhelming Whig tide. Two years later, however, his former opponent, Wilson Shannon, defeated him for reëlection. In 1844 Corwin was sent to the United States Senate, in which body he renewed his House reputation as an orator. On the eve of the Mexican War, he made his memorable anti-war speech, which practically ruined his future political career, as the country desired to fight the hated men on the border. But a more bravely beautiful speech was never made. President Fillmore chose Corwin his Secretary of the Treasury, in 1850. At the expiration of Fillmore's term, Corwin returned to the practice of law at Lebanon, Ohio. In 1858 he reëntered public life, serving a term in Congress; and, in 1861, President Lincoln appointed him minister to Mexico. Corwin remained in Mexico until the coming of Maximilian, when he returned to Washington to practice law. In the capital of the country he died, December 18, 1865. "Tom" Corwin was one of the most captivating of American orators, and most lovable of men.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Life and Speeches of Thomas Corwin_, by Isaac Strohn (Dayton, Ohio, 1859); _The Library of Oratory_ (New York, 1902, v. vi).

THE MEXICAN WAR

[From _Life and Speeches of Thomas Corwin_, by Isaac Strohn (Dayton, Ohio, 1859)]

Mr. President, this uneasy desire to augment our territory has depraved the moral sense and blunted the otherwise keen sagacity of our people. What has been the fate of all nations who have acted upon the idea that they must advance! Our young orators cherish this notion with a fervid but fatally mistaken zeal. They call it by the mysterious name of "destiny." "Our destiny," they say, is "onward," and hence they argue, with ready sophistry, the propriety of seizing upon any territory and any people that may lie in the way of our "fated" advance. Recently these progressives have grown classical; some assiduous student of antiquities has helped them to a patron saint. They have wandered back into the desolated Pantheon, and there, among the polytheistic relics of that "pale mother of dead empires," they have found a god whom these Romans, centuries gone by, baptized "Terminus."

Sir, I have heard much and read somewhat of this gentleman Terminus. Alexander, of whom I have spoken, was a devotee of this divinity. We have seen the end of him and his empire. It was said to be an attribute of this god that he must always advance and never recede. So both republican and imperial Rome believed. It was, as they say, their destiny. And for a while it did seem to be even so. Roman Terminus did advance. Under the eagles of Rome he was carried from his home on the Tiber to the farthest East on the one hand, and to the far West, among the then barbarous tribes of western Europe, on the other.

But at length the time came when retributive justice had become "a destiny." The despised Gaul calls out the contemned Goth, and Attila, with his Huns answers back the battle-shout to both. The "blue-eyed nations of the North," in succession or united, pour forth their countless hosts of warriors upon Rome and Rome's always-advancing god Terminus. And now the battle-axe of the barbarian strikes down the conquering eagle of Rome. Terminus at last recedes, slowly at first, but finally he is driven to Rome, and from Rome to Byzantium. Whoever would know the further fate of this Roman deity, so recently taken under the patronage of American democracy, may find ample gratification of his curiosity in the luminous pages of Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_.

Such will find that Rome thought as you now think, that it was her destiny to conquer provinces and nations, and no doubt she sometimes said, as you say, "I will conquer a peace," and where now is she, the mistress of the world? The spider weaves his web in her palaces, the owl sings his watch-song in her towers. Teutonic power now lords it over the servile remnant, the miserable memento of old and once omnipotent Rome. Sad, very sad, are the lessons which time has written for us. Through and in them all I see nothing but the inflexible execution of that old law which ordains as eternal that cardinal rule, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods, nor anything which is his." Since I have lately heard so much about the dismemberment of Mexico I have looked back to see how, in the course of events, which some call "Providence," it has fared with other nations who engaged in this work of dismemberment. I see that in the latter half of the eighteenth century three powerful nations, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, united in the dismemberment of Poland. They said, too, as you say, "It is our destiny." They "wanted room." Doubtless each of these thought, with his share of Poland, his power was too strong ever to fear invasion, or even insult. One had his California, another his New Mexico, and the third his Vera Cruz. Did they remain untouched and incapable of harm? Alas! no--far, very far, from it. Retributive justice must fulfill its destiny, too.

HENRY B. BASCOM

Henry Bidleman Bascom, the distinguished Methodist preacher and orator, was born at Hancock, New York, May 27, 1796. He received a scanty education, and when but eighteen years of age he was licensed to preach by the Ohio conference of the Methodist church. He was a circuit-rider, traveling more than four hundred miles upon horseback his first year in the work, and receiving the princely salary of $12.10 for his year's services. Bascom was too florid for the Ohio brethren, and they caused him to be transferred to Tennessee and Kentucky circuits. In this work he won a wide reputation as a pulpit orator. In 1823 Henry Clay had Bascom appointed chaplain of the House of Representatives, but his long sermons did not please the members, and he was not a great success in Washington. Bascom was elected as the first president of Madison College, Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1827, but two years later he became an agent for the American Colonization Society. From 1831 to 1841 he was professor of moral science and belles-lettres in Augusta College, Augusta, Kentucky, the first Methodist college in the world. The Methodist church having taken over Transylvania University, at Lexington, Dr. Bascom was elected president of that institution in 1842. He revived the ancient seat of learning to a wonderful degree, becoming another Horace Holley, but the rebirth proved ephemeral. In 1844 President Bascom protested against the action of the General Conference of the Methodist church concerning slavery, and, in the Louisville conference of 1845, he took a most prominent part, winning for himself the title of "father of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South." Dr. Bascom was editor of the _Southern Methodist Review_ for several years; and in 1848 he resigned the presidency of Transylvania University, only to be elected a bishop in the branch of the Methodist church he had helped to establish. He was ordained as bishop in May, 1850, and almost immediately set out for Missouri, where he held his first and only conference. On his return to Kentucky he was in very poor health; and he died at Louisville, September 8, 1850. Bishop Bascom was the greatest Methodist preacher Kentucky can claim; and he was also an able writer. His works include _Sermons from the Pulpit_; _Lectures on Infidelity_; _Lectures and Essays on Moral and Mental Science_; and _Methodism and Slavery_. In 1910 a portrait in oils of Bishop Bascom was painted by Paul Sawyier, the Kentucky artist, for Transylvania University.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Life of Henry Bidleman Bascom, D.D., LL.D._, by M. M. Henkle (Nashville, Tennessee, 1856); _The Transylvanian_ (Lexington, Kentucky, June, 1910).

A CLERGYMAN'S VIEW OF NIAGARA

[From _The Life of Henry Bidleman Bascom, D. D., LL. D._, by Rev. M. M. Henkle (Nashville, Tennessee, 1856)]

I have seen, surveyed, and communed with the whole!--and awed and bewildered, as if enchanted before the revealment of a mystery, I attempt to write. You ask me, in your last, for some detailed, veritable account of the Falls, and I should be glad to gratify you; but how shall I essay to paint a scene that so utterly baffles all conception, and renders worse than fruitless every attempt at description? In five minutes after my arrival, on the evening of the fifth, I descended the winding-path from the "Pavillion," on the Canadian side, and, for the first time in my life, saw this unequaled cascade from "Table Rock;" the whole indescribable scene, in bold outline, bursting on my view. I had heard and read much, and imagined more of what was before me. I was perfectly familiar with the often-told, the far-traveled story of what I saw; but the overpowering _reality_ on which I was gazing, motionless as the rock on which I stood, deprived me of recollection, annihilated all curiosity; and with emotions of sublimity till now unfelt, and all unearthly, the involuntary exclamation escaped me, "_God of Grandeur! what a scene!_"

But the majesty of the sight, and the interest of the moment, how depict them? The huge amplitude of water, tumbling in foam above, and dashing on, arched and pillared as it glides, until it reaches the precipice of the _chute_, and then, in one vast column, bounding with maddening roar and rush, into the depths beneath, presents a spectacle so unutterably appalling, that language falters; words are no longer signs, and I despair giving you any idea of what I saw and felt. Yet this is not all. The eye and mind necessarily take in other objects, as parts of the grand panorama, forests, cliffs, and islands; banks, foam, and spray; wood, rock, and precipice; dimmed with the rising fog and mist, and obscurely gilded by the softening tints of the rainbow. These all belong to the picture; and the effect of the whole is immeasurably heightened by the noise of the cataract, now reminding you of the reverberations of the heavens in a tempest, and then of the eternal roar of ocean, when angered by the winds!

The concave bed of rock, from which the water falls some two hundred feet into the almost boundless reservoir beneath, is the section of a circle, which, at first sight, from "Table Rock," presents something like the geometrical curve of the rainbow; and the wonders of the grand "crescent," thus advantageously thrown upon the eye in combination, and the appropriate sensations and conceptions heightened by the crash and boom of the waters, render the sight more surpassingly sublime, than anything I have ever looked upon, or conceived of. As it regards my thoughts and feelings at the time, I can help you to no conception of their character. Overwhelming astonishment was the only bond between thought and thought; and wild, vague, and boundless were the associations of the hour! Before me, the strength and fullness of the congregated "lakes of the north," were enthroned and concentrated within a circumference embraced by a single glance of the eye! Here I saw, rolling and dashing, at the rate of _twenty-five hundred millions of tons per day_, nearly one half of all the fresh water upon the surface of the globe! On the American side, I beheld a vast deluge, nine hundred feet in breadth, with a fall of one hundred and eighty or ninety, met, fifty feet above the level of the gulf, by a huge projection of rock, which seems to break the descent and continuity of the flood, only to increase its fierce and overwhelming bound. And turning to the "crescent," I saw the mingled rush of foam and tide, dashing with fearful strife and desperate emulation--four hundred yards of the sheet rough and sparry, and the remaining three hundred a deep sealike mass of living green--rolling and heaving like a sheet of emerald. Even imagination failed me, and I could think of nothing but ocean let loose from his bed, and seeking a deeper gulf below! The fury of the water, at the termination of its fall, combined with the columned strength of the cataract, and the deafening thunder of the flood, are at once inconceivable and indescribable. No imagination, however creative, can correspond with the grandeur of the reality.

I have already mentioned, and it is important that you keep it in view, the ledge of rock, the verge of the cataract, rising like a wall of equal height, and extending in semicircular form across the whole bed of the river, a distance of more than two thousand feet; and the impetuous flood, conforming to this arrangement, in making its plunge, with mountain weight, into the great horseshoe basin beneath, exhibits a spectacle of the sublime, in geographical scenery, without, perhaps, a parallel in nature. As I leaned from "Table Rock," and cast my eye downward upon the billowy turbulence of the angry depth, where the waters were tossing and whirling, coiling and springing, with the energy of an earthquake, and a rapidity that almost mocked my vision, I found the scene sufficient to appal a sterner spirit than mine; and I was glad to turn away and relieve my mind by a sight of the surrounding scenery; bays, islands, shores, and forests, everywhere receding in due perspective. The rainbows of the "crescent" and American side, which are only visible from the western bank of the Niagara, and in the afternoon, seem to diminish somewhat from the awfulness of the scene, and to give it an aspect of rich and mellow grandeur, not unlike the bow of promise, throwing its assuring radiance over the retiring waters of the deluge.

JAMES T. MOREHEAD

James Turner Morehead, Kentucky's most scholarly governor, was born near Shepherdsville, Kentucky, May 24, 1797. He was prepared for Transylvania University, Lexington, and there he studied from 1813 to 1815. He studied law under John J. Crittenden and, in 1818, entered upon the practice at Bowling Green, Kentucky. Ten years later Morehead was in the Kentucky legislature, and he was returned for several sessions. In 1832 he was a delegate to the Baltimore convention which nominated Henry Clay for the presidency; and while in Baltimore he himself was nominated for lieutenant-governor of Kentucky, with John Breathitt for governor. They were elected in August, 1832, but the Governor died on February 21, 1834, and Morehead succeeded to his office on the following day. He served until September, 1836. Upon the expiration of his term, Governor Morehead resumed the practice of law at Frankfort. He was elected United States Senator from Kentucky, in 1841, and he served until 1847. Senator Morehead was an attractive public speaker, and when it was known in Washington that he was to make a speech the galleries were usually well filled. After the expiration of his term, he practiced law at Covington, Kentucky. Senator Morehead had the most extensive collection of books and manuscripts upon the history of Kentucky and the West of any man of his day and generation. After his death, which occurred at Covington, Kentucky, December 28, 1854, his library was purchased by the Young Men's Mercantile Library Association of Cincinnati. Morehead's _Address in Commemoration of the First Settlement of Kentucky, at Boonesborough_ (Frankfort, 1840, 181 pp.), rescued and preserved numerous documents of great historical importance. In the preparation of his great _History of the United States_, George Bancroft is said to have relied upon this famous address of Morehead for much of his information concerning the early history of the West. Morehead also published _Practice and Proceedings at Law in Kentucky_ (1846). The fine face of this scholar and statesman is one of Matthew Harris Jouett's most luminous canvasses.[7]

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _History of Kentucky_, by R. H. Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); Appletons' _Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1888, v. iv); _National Cyclopaedia of American Biography_ (New York, 1906, v. xiii).

JOHN FINLEY

[From _An Address in Commemoration of the First Settlement of Kentucky_ (Frankfort, Kentucky, 1840)]

The first successful attempt to explore the Kentucky country was made by John Finley, a backwoodsman of North Carolina, in 1767. He was attended by a few companions, as adventurous as himself, whose names have escaped the notice of history. They were evidently a party of hunters, and were prompted to the bold and hazardous undertaking, for the purpose of indulging in their favorite pursuits. Of Finley and his comrades, and of the course and extent of their journey, little is now known. That they were of the pure blood, and endowed with the genuine qualities, of the pioneers, is manifestly undeniable. That they passed over the Cumberland, and through the intermediate country to the Kentucky river, and penetrated the beautiful valley of the Elkhorn, there are no sufficient reasons to doubt. It is enough, however, to embalm their memory in our hearts, and to connect their names with the imperishable memorials of our early history, that they were the first adventurers that plunged into the dark and enchanted wilderness of Kentucky--that of all their contemporaries they saw her first--and saw her in the pride of her virgin beauty--at the dawn of summer--in the fullness of her vegetation--her soil, instinct with fertility, covered with the most luxuriant verdure--the air perfumed with the fragrance of flowers, and her tall forests looming in all their primeval magnificence.

How long Finley lived, or where he died, the silence of history does not enable us to know. That his remains are now mingled with the soil that he discovered, there is some reason to hope, for he conducted Boone to Kentucky in 1769--and there the curtain drops upon him forever. It is fit it should be raised. It is fit that justice, late and tardy that it be, should be done to the memory of the first of the pioneers. And what can be more appropriate, than that the first movement should be made for the performance of such a duty, on the day of the commemoration of the discovery and settlement of the Commonwealth?

FOOTNOTE:

[7] Governor Morehead's widow, Mrs. L. M. Morehead, who died several years ago, published a slender volume of verse, _Christmas Is Coming and Other Poems for the "House Mother" and her Darlings_ (Philadelphia, 1871).

LEWIS COLLINS

Lewis Collins, the Kentucky historian, was born near Lexington, Kentucky, on Christmas Day, 1797. When a boy he entered the printing office of Joel R. Lyle, editor of _The Paris Citizen_, where he worked for more than a year as a printer. He removed to Mason county, Kentucky, to become associate editor of the _Washington Union_. On November 1, 1820, Lewis Collins purchased the _Maysville Eagle_, which had been established six years prior to his purchase, and he made it one of the best country newspapers ever published in Kentucky. In 1823 he was married to a sister of Benjamin O. Peers, afterwards president of Transylvania University. Collins was editor of the _Eagle_ for twenty-seven years, when he retired in order to give his entire attention to his _Historical Sketches of Kentucky_ (Maysville, 1847). This was the first illustrated history of Kentucky, and easily the most comprehensive that had appeared. The histories of Marshall and Butler began at the beginning, but both concluded with the year of 1812, while Collins brought his work down to 1844. His was a mine of historic lore, arranged in departments, and not altogether readable as a continuous narrative. It was the foundation upon which his son, Richard H. Collins, was later to build the most magnificent state history ever published. Lewis Collins was presiding judge of the Mason county court from 1851 to 1854. He was a just judge, a painstaking chronicler of his people's past, and a fine type of Christian citizen. Judge Collins died at Lexington, Kentucky, January 29, 1870. The Kentucky legislature passed an appropriate resolution in which his life was commended and his death deplored.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _History of Kentucky_, by Z. F. Smith (Louisville, Kentucky, 1892); _Kentucky in the Nation's History_, by R. M. McElroy (New York, 1909).

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

[From _Historical Sketches of Kentucky_ (Maysville and Cincinnati, 1847)]

The late H. P. Peers, of the city of Maysville, laid the foundation for the work which is now presented to the reading community. Mr. Peers designed it to be simply a small _Gazetteer_ of the State; and had collected, and partially arranged for publication, the major part of the materials, comprising a description of the towns and counties. Upon his decease, the materials passed into the hands of the Author, who determined to remodel them, and make such additions as would give permanency and increased value to the work. He has devoted much labor to this object; but circumstances having rendered its publication necessary at an earlier day than was contemplated, some errors may have escaped, which more time, and a fuller investigation, would have enabled him to detect.

Serious obstacles have been encountered in the preparation of the Biographical Sketches. Many of those which appear in the work, were prepared from the personal recollections of the Author; while others have been omitted because he did not know to whom he could apply for them, or having applied, and in some instances repeatedly, failed in procuring them. This is his apology for the non-appearance of many names in that department which are entitled to a distinguished place in the annals of Kentucky.

In the preparation of the work, one design of the Author has been to preserve, in a durable form, those rich fragments of local and personal history, many of which exist, at present, only in the ephemeral form of oral tradition, or are treasured up among the recollections of the aged actors in the stirring scenes, the memory of which is thus perpetuated. These venerable witnesses from a former age, are rapidly passing away from our midst, and with them will be buried the knowledge of much that is most interesting in the primitive history of the commonwealth. It is from sources such as we have mentioned, that the materials for the future historian are to be drawn; and, like the scattered leaves of the Sybil, these frail mementos of the past should be gathered up and preserved with religious veneration. If the Author shall have succeeded, in thus redeeming from oblivion any considerable or important portion of the early history of the State, his design will be fully accomplished, and his labor amply rewarded.

Of all the members of this great republican confederacy, there is none whose history is more rich in the variety, quality, and interest of its materials. The poet, the warrior, and the statesman, can each find subjects, the contemplation of which will instruct him in his art; and to the general reader, it would, perhaps, be impossible to present a field of more varied and attractive interest.

JULIA A. TEVIS

Mrs. Julia Ann (Hieronymous) Tevis, author of a delightful autobiography, was born near Winchester, Kentucky, December 5, 1799. When but seven years old her parents removed to Virginia, settling at Winchester, and at the female academy of the town her education was begun. In 1813 Miss Hieronymous's family removed to Georgetown, D. C., where her education was continued under private teachers--"a considerable portion of my time was devoted to music, drawing, and French, with various kinds of embroidery." Two years later she was placed in the finishing school of an English woman in Washington where French and music continued to be her major subjects. Miss Hieronymous completed her training at the school of Mrs. Stone in Washington when nineteen years of age, and returned to her home to read and study. She spent many hours at the Capital meeting and hearing most of the famous men of her time. At the age of twenty years she became a school-ma'am at Wytheville, Virginia, and the following sixty years of her life were devoted to teaching. She later taught at Abingdon, Virginia, where she united with the Methodist church, and where she was married on March 9, 1824, to Rev. John Tevis (1792-1861), a Kentucky Methodist preacher. Mrs. Tevis desired to continue teaching, and upon her removal to her husband's home at Shelbyville, Kentucky, she opened Science Hill Academy. This famous old institution for the instruction of young women--founded March 25, 1825, and the second Protestant female academy established in the Mississippi Valley--has continued without interruption until the present time. The remaining years of the founder's life were filled with the school, her girls, her children, her cares and perplexities. In 1875 the semi-centennial of the founding of Science Hill was celebrated in a fitting manner. Some time later Mrs. Tevis closed the manuscripts of her autobiography, entitled _Sixty Years in a School-Room_ (Cincinnati, 1878), a large work of nearly five hundred pages, in which the details of her splendid service are ably set forth. Mrs. Tevis died at Shelbyville, Kentucky, April 21, 1880. Her pupils erected a fitting monument to her memory.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. The chief authority for the facts of Mrs. Tevis's life is, of course, her autobiography; Annual Catalogues of Science Hill.

THE MAY QUEEN

[From _Sixty Years in a School-Room_ (Cincinnati, 1878)]

For many years we kept up the custom of crowning a "Rose Queen" in May, and enjoying a holiday in the woods. Happily for the girls, I greeted the return of the festival day with a gladness almost equal to theirs, for I retained enough of the freshness of youth in my heart to enable me to participate with zest in the joys of childhood.

"Once upon a time," after a long severe Winter, followed by a Spring of unusual beauty, it was determined to celebrate the day with great rejoicings. The girls were wild with delight at the prospect of a whole day's release from slates, books, and blackboards--a charming episode in the drudgery of their everyday life. Ah, happy children! to whom every glimpse of nature is beautiful, and every blade of grass a marvel! Give them ever so small a bit of green meadow checkered with sunshine and shade upon which to revel among buttercups and daisies, and "little they'll reck" how the world goes on.

There was but little opportunity for canvassing or intrigue in the election of Queen. Fanny Henning was chosen by acclamation as best fitted to grace the regal authority. Fanny possessed a mind and a character as transparent as a clear brook. Her ingenuous face, her self-forgetting and amiable bearing towards her companions made her the loved and cherished of them all. She also held a distinguished place in the estimation of her teachers for superior excellence, dutiful affection, and modest deportment. Thus it was universally conceded that "Fair-handed Spring" might well resign to Fanny her sovereignty for one day over the brilliant treasures of garden, glade, and forest, awakened into life and brightened into beauty by her magic wand.

The rosy hours followed each other in quick succession until within a few days of the anticipated time, when lo! the "queen elect" broke out with measles. The whole school was filled with dismay, bitter tears of disappointment were shed by some; others predicted that she would be well enough to go through the ceremony. Fanny, uniting in their hopeful aspirations, prepared her coronation speech and rehearsed it to perfection, for, though confined to her room, she was not really