New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1878-12-13


the same time in New England. The people of New
England settled in groups offamlies forming neigh
borhoods. villages towns and cities Hence there was
a constant play of mind upon mind and facility of
ntercommuncatiOn IN the different relations of
society. The founders of Virginia pursued an oppo-
site course. They were inclined to settle not III
proups of families but in detached establishments.
With them, the type of the highest human felicity
was the English territorial lord, seated i'll his own
castle, protected from all human interference by
manvIniles of his own land which spread In all dl-
rectOns from the view of his castle windows. Thus
from the first while the social structure OF New
England was that of concentration the social struc-
tuTe of Virginia was that Of dispersion. The one
sought personal community, the other domestic $50
latiun The one developed cooperation in civil AZ
fairs in trade, in culture, in religion; the Othcr
practsed solitary action in all these relations, and
hence made but little progress in any of them The
effect of these opposing tendencies was mani
fest in the intellectual development OF
the people. For the first three generations
there were few schools in Virginia. The higher
education was, of course at low estate. During the
seventeenth century, Virginia answered TO the de-
scriptlOn which Sir Philip Sidney gave of Ireland
in the sixteenth century, as "a place where truly
learning gOeth very bare" There is no record of
printing press earlier than 1851 In 1858, Lord
Efingham, the Governor of Virginia, received III"
structOns from the ministry to allow no person to
use a printing press on any occasion whatever"
From that date till about the year 1923, no print
ing was done in Virginia, and from 1923 until
about ten years before the Declaration of lndepen-
dence, Virginia had but one printing-house and
even that was thought to be much under the con-
troll of the Governor" These conditions explain
the comparative literary barrenness Of Virginia
There might have been found at intervals some men
of elegant literary culture mostly acquired abroad;
perhaps after awhile few amateur literary men;
but no literary class and almost no literature
In his description of the early coloniss of New
England, Professor Tyler represents them as per-
sons addicted in some sense, to habits of thought
and the use of books. The proportion Of learned
men among them was extraordinary. Between the
years 1880 and 1890 there were in New-England
probably as many graduates of Cambridge
and Oxford as could be found in any
population of similar size in the mother
country. During the first part of that period
in Massachusetts and Connecticut there was Cam
bridge graduate Tor every two hundred and fifty in
habitants, besides not a few sons of Oxford. No
other community of pioneers ever so honoTcd study
OF so reverenced the instruments and symbols of
learning The cornerstone of their social structure
rested upon a book. Only six years after the arr-
of Massachusetts laid the foundation of college
from their own treasury. While the uee-Stumps IN
their harvest-feds had as yet hardly become
weather-brOwncd, they had made arrangements
even in that wilderness by which their young men
could at once enter upon the study Of Aristotle and
Thucydides, of Horace and TacItu5, and the
Hebrew Bible. The people of Ncw-England
began to produce literature in their earliest
age. They-.Rere never without a literary
class. There were many men accustomed
to express themselves luently by voice and pen. 1t
was literary class made up of men OF affairs, cOun-
try gentlemen, teachers, and above all clergymen
men of letters who did not depend on letters for
their bread, but did their work under conditions OF
intellectual independence. Nor was the ENVIRON
ment of their lives unfrendly to literature. For a
certain class Of minds indeed, it wholesome and
stimulating. They were surrounded with the forces
of a picturesque romantic, and impressive life.
There were the infinite solitudes of the wilderness
its mystery its peace; they had the intimate pres
ence of Nature in it's vastness and power the savage
life presented to them strange prObloms; they re-
joiced in their own escape from great cities from
crowds, from mean competitions; they were con-
scous of the interest of the whole Protestant world
10 their undertaking; and welcomed the coming to
them of scholars and saints, statesmen and phloso-
piers "New- England" as Hawthorne believed,
"was then in astate incOmparably more picturesque
than at present or than it has been within the
memory of man."
Among the portraits of the Massachusetts, Purltans
by Mr.. Tyler, that of John Winthrop will win espe-
cal admiration both for the nObleness and dignity
of the subject and the felicity Of its character
drawing He is described as a man of good looks
and of good manners, catholic in opinion and SYM
pathy-a deeply conscientious man, not willing that
his life should be thing of eXtempOrzed policies
and makeshifts, but building it up clear from the
foundation on solid principle" His History of
New-England grew out of the journal OF his yoy-
age The end of the voyage was the end OF his
leisure. Henccforth there are frequent breaks and
blanks IN the record. Many great day had to be
dismissed with small mention. The resOIute diarlst
was compelled to resist the encroachmeLts OF weari-
ness and haste. Still he presents clear, true story
of the experience of the founders of Massachusetts
in the days of that stern beginning. For almost
twenty years the story went forward from 1880 I'M
til a few weeks before the death of the writer in
1919. The work was written with full purpose of
having it published as history but with no anxi-
ETY. about style with the sole object of telling the
truth in plain aud honest manner. 1.-THE native
qualities of the man were lofty, self-rcspectlng,
grave by culture and habit he expressed himself
spontaneously in diGnifed and calm words and at
times, when the thought lifted HIM, he rose to a
stately, unconscious eoquence. He was 10 artist,
Only thinker and dOer. OF course, he never
aimed at effect. His moral qualities are plainly
stamped upon his manner of expresslOn-modcra-
ton, disnterestedness reverence, piety dignity,
love of truth and of justice The prevailing tone il
judicial he tells the truth squarely, even against
himself The greatest incidents in the life of the
colony are reported; also the least The pathOs
and heroism and pettness of their life all are here"
Passing over an interval of some twenty years, of
whose literary worthless Professor Tyler has pre-
sented many quaint characteristic specimens, we