The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1876-06-03

dshonor of promoting these bloody strifes
so incompatible with its high Office. In
these quarrels of the fathers of Maryland,
the archives of government were seized
more than once, and, perhaps, destroyed.
On one occasion they were burnt And SO,
amongst all these disorders, it has fallen
out that the full development of the State
history has been rendered impossible.
Mr.. Ridgely's foray, however, into this
domain of dust and darkness has happily
future chronicler in supplying the deficiency
of past attempts to trace the path of our
modest annals through these silent inter
walls. incidentally the Librarians work
has assisted my story; for, although the
recovered folios did not touch the exact
year of my search, the pursuit of them led
me to what | may claim as discovery of
my own. | found what | could not say
was wholly lost, but what, until Mr. Ridge
ly's exploration drew attention to the re-
cords, might have been said to have shrunk
from all notice of the present generation,
and to be fast falling prey to the tooth of
time and the visit of the worm. \ few
years more Of neglect and the ill usage of
careless custodians, and it would have
passed to that depository of things lost
upon the earth, which fable has placed in
the moon. 1t was my good fortune, in this
upturning of relics of the past, to lay my
hand upon sadly tattered and decayed
Ms. volume, -unbound, without beginning
and without end, coated with the dust
which had been gathering upon it ever
since Chalmers and Bozman had done their
work of deciphering its quaint old text.
1t lay in the state of rubbish, in an old
case, where many documents of the same
kind had been consigned to the same OBJ
livion, and with it had been sleeping for as
many years, perhaps, as the Beauty in the
fairy tale,-happly destined, at last, to be
awakened, as she was, by one who by his
perseverance had won title to herself.
This manuscript was now, in this day of
revival, brought out from its hiding place,
and, upon inspection, proved to be Jour
nal of the Council for some few years in
Guiding the very date of the death of the
Collector on the Patuxent.
The record was complete, neatly written
in the peculiar manuscript character of
that age, SO difficult for modern reader to
decipher. Its queer old-fashioned spelling
suggested the idea that our ancestors con
sdered both consonants and vowels too
weak to stand alone, and that therefore
they doubled them as often as they could;
and there was such an actual identification
Of its antiquity in its exterior aspect as
we'll as in its forms of speech, that, when
have sat porting over it alone at midnight
in my study, as | have often done, | have
turned my eye over my shoulder, expecting
to see the apparition of Master John Lew
elen-who subscribes his name with Il very
energetic flourish as Clerk of the Council
standing behind me in grave-colored
doubet and trunk hose, with a starched
ruff, a wide.awake hat drawn over his
brow, and a short black feather falling
amongst the locks Of his dark hair towards
his back.
This Journal lets in a blaze of light upon
the old tradition of Talbot's Cave. The
narrative of what it dscloses it is now my
purpose to make as brief as is compatible
with common justice to my subject.
TO BE CONTINUED.