The Early Day Virginians

Virginia, the oldest of the colonias, was least to be distingulshed by any private character of her own from the rural communities of England Jier.-elf. Hor population had come to her almo.it without se'ection throughout every etage of quick change and troubled fortune that England had soen during the fateful days since Jame3 Stuart became k!ng ; and Engllshmen in Virginia were in no way radically distinguishable from Englishmen in England, cxcept that they were provinciale and frontiersmcn. Thcy h,ad their own tasks and ways of He, indeed, living, as they did, withiu the old forests of a virgin continent, upan the confines of the world. Uut their tastes and temperament, npite of change a.nd seclusion, they had in common witli Englishmen at home. They gave leave to their opinions, too, with a like downright con.ldence and hardihood of be'.ief, never doubting they knew how practical affairs should go. They had even kept the English character as tliey had received it, against tfae touch of time and social rovolution, until Virgini ins seemed like eider Englishmen. England changed, bilt Virginia did not. These landed estates spread themselves with an ampie acreage along tli margins of the Btreams that everywhere threaded the virgin woodland ; and the planter drew about him a body of dependents who kuew no other masfcer ; to whom came, in tlicir seclusion, none of that quick air of change that had so stirred in England throughout all her century of revolution. Some were his slaves bound t-o him in perpetual subíection. Others were nis tonants, and looked upon him as a sort of patrón. In Maryland, where similar broad estats lay upon every shore, the la-w dubbed a great property here and tíhere a "manor." and suifered It to boast its separate court baron and private jurisdiction. ___ Virgini i __ gentlemen enjoyed independence and autaority without need of formaljtitle. "There"was but one center of social Ufe in Virginia : at ■Williamsburg, the village capital, where the governor had his "palace," where stood the colonial college, where there were taverns and the town-houses of sundry planters of the vicinage, and where there was much gay company and not a 1 ittie formal ceremonial in the Beason. Fot the rest, the Old ion made shift to do without towns. There was ino great mart to which all the trade of the colony was drawn. Ships came and went upon each broad river as upon a highway, taking and discharging freight at the private wharves of the eeveral plantations. For every palnter was his own inerchant, shipping his tobáceo to EngIa-nd, and importing thence in return his clothes, his tools, his household fittings, his knowledge of the Ivondon rashioivs and of the game of politics at home. His mc-chnnics he found amongst his own slaves and dependente. Their "qun "i ■■■■" and the offices of his simple establishment showed almost like a villaje of themselves where they stood in Irregular groups aTout lus own square, broad-gab'ed liouHe, with its airy lm 1 and liomclike living rooms. He miglit have good plate upon his sideboard and on his table, palatable ol:l wint' in his cellar, and on the wails alvout him portraits of the stately men and dames from whom he took his blood andbreeding. But tliere ras little luxury in his li e. Pl.ain comfort and a honiely abundance suificed him. He was a gentleman, owned all he saw around him, exercised authority, and on;oyed consideration throughout the colcnny ; but he was no prince. He lived always in the etyle of a porvincial and a gentleman commoncr, as his neighbors and friends did.- "Woodrow Wilson, in Harper's Magazine for January. x