figures faultless. The greatest artists of the old world have complimented him on the vigorous execution and artistic finish of the painting.

Mr. Powell is not quite correct in all his facts; the commission to paint the picture was not given to him with quite such unanimity as he states: the resolution instructing the Library Committee to contract with him to paint a picture for the vacant panel of the Rotundo, was tacked on the civil and diplomatic appropriation bill on the last day but one of the twenty-ninth Congress, and passed amid the hubbub and confusion which always attend the close of Congress, by a vote of 89 to 48, according to the Congressional Globe, and not, as Mr. Powell states, by a vote of 198 out of 212. Great opposition was made to it, and it could hardly have been passed under other circumstances. Judge Campbell of this city, and Mr. Ingersoll of Philadelphia, proposed an open competition that should give all the artists in the country an opportunity to compete for the work, by sending in cartoons of designs, from which a committee should choose the one that was best adapted to the purpose. This method, which would have been honorable to Congress, beneficial to the nation, and just to our native artists, was, in the excitement of the moment, disregarded, and the work was intrusted to the discretion of Mr. Powell, who, by the terms of the resolution, had full power to choose his own subject. We do not wonder at his attempting to throw the blame of De Soto on the Library Committee; if they chose the subject, so much the worse for them; but then the artist himself should have protested against it, as being neither suitable in itself, nor adapted to his capacities. The work itself is proof that he was unequal to it; and his historical summary confirms our objections to his manner of treating the subject. We have found no reason to change the opinion which we originally formed of the picture, and the decisions of all intelligent people who have since scen it fully justifies what we said of it. Those who would form a correct opinion as to the historical fidelity of Mr. Powell's representation of the scene which he has attempted to delineate, should read Theodore Irving's history of the Conquest of Florida, and they will be able to judge of the possibility of such a pageant as that represented by Mr. Powell, having been

seen on the banks of the Mississippi when

De Soto found himself there after two years' wandering through the forests and swamps of the wilderness. According to his own showing he has introduced an incident into his picture, the raising of the crucifix and blessing it, which did not occur until some time after the chief event described took place, and which would have been physically impossible as he has depicted it. The picture is, in fact, in every respect bad, and is unworthy of being placed in the national capitol. We had always understood that the commission was given to the artist on sectional grounds, on the supposition that he was a Western inan; the resolution too was introduced into the House of Representatives by Mr. McDowell of Ohio, and it was carried as a Western measure. As the vote was passed on the 2d of March, 1847, it could not have been in consequence of the exhibition of his picture of Columbus in 1848-49, as he states. As to the letter of Mr. Irving alluded to by Mr. Powell, in praise of the picture of Columbus, we do not see what it has to do with the business. Mr. Irving is not a likely person to interfere in a case of this kind, unless solicited in a manner which rendered it difficult for him to decline. Mr. Powell should be content with having received the commission and painted the picture; he shows a very uncomplimentary distrust of his own performance in endeavoring to fight his critics with his pen instead of his pencil. If his De Soto be worthy of praise, it will soon disarm censure if left to itself. If it had been a private work, we should not have deemed it entitled to our notice; but being a "great national painting," and public property, we could not ignore it; and, as we were compelled to notice it, we could not do less than speak candidly of it. We wish it had been better. If "the greatest artists of the Old World have complimented him on the vigorous execution and artistic finish of the painting," all we have to say about it is, that the greatest artists of the Old World are very great wags; and, if it be true, as has been stated by some of the gentlemen who have undertaken the defence of Mr. Powell's painting, that the artists of Paris took their pupils to study the anatomy of De Soto, it must have been for the same reason that the Spartans permitted their children to see the antics of their drunken Helots.

WA

one an old fellow. named Hobby, one of his father's tenants, sexton as well as schoolmaster of the neighborhood, who used to boast, after he was superannuated and somewhat addicted to strong potations, especially on the general's birthdays, that it was he who, between his knees, had laid the foundation of George Washington's greatness, by teaching him his letters; and the other the Mr. Williams already mentioned, who was, according to Mr. Weems, a capital hand" at reading, spelling, English grammar, arithmetic, surveying, bookkeeping, and geography, and often boasted that he had made George Washington as great a scholar as himself. We cannot doubt that to his thoroughness in teaching what he did know, his great pupil owed much of his acquired power; for a good foundation in a few important things is the best possible beginning for a boy of ability and enterprise.

As to grammar, though Mr. Williams may have been a proficient, it is certain that Washington's early compositions are by no means perfectly grammatical, though by incessant care he became an excellent and most lucid writer at a later period. Some minds seem to come at the philosophy of grammar more easily than they can master the technical, school-statement of it. When Washington began to have important things to say, his great good sense showed him that they must be expressed so as to leave no possibility of misunderstanding, and this we take to be the highest ground and object of grammar. The office of taste is, afterwards, to guard against jarring and tautological expressions; and the study of the standard writers, with the aid of conversation with well-bred people will generally suffice for VOL. III.-9

this. So that in the end, Washington, ever seeking improvement and alive to his own deficiencies, became a great writer, in addition to his other accomplishments; and has left us, among other precious legacies, a mass of wise, manly, generous and patriotic thoughts, expressed in clear, dignified language, and including so much practical wisdom and high suggestion that it is well worthy to be treasured as our national palladium.

Laurence Washington, naturally ambitious for the tall, handsome, athletic boy. already, at sixteen, endowed with strength and discretion beyond his age, had procured for his favorite half-brother, who was fourteen years his junior, a midshipman's warrant for the British navy, then the most direct path to preferment; and all was prepared for the departure of the youth, when his mother's courage gave out, or her judgment demurred, and the project was abandoned, much to the regret of every body else concerned in the transaction. One gentleman writes to Laurence thus: "I am afraid Mrs. Washington will not keep up to her first resolution. She seems to dislike George's going to sea, and says several persons have told her it was a bad scheme. She offers several trifling objections, such as fond. unthinking mothers habitually suggest; and I find that one word against his going has more weight than ten for it."

Fond, unthinking mothers!" George was his widowed mother's eldest son, a boy of noble promise, and by no means destitute of fortune. Why should she have consented to send him from her at sixteen, to enter on a career which would for ever separate him from her and his family? Truly there is a worldly wisdom which is sadly shortsighted, and we can

not but think the mother's instincts deserved more respect than they received from her advisers. The young man himself seems to have shown his good sense, by submitting, first to the advice of his family friends, then to the wishes of his mother, for we hear nothing of any repining on his part. Mr. Fairfax writes of him to Laurence-" George has been with us, and says he will be steady, and thankfully follow your advice as his best friend." So a project which must have been very fascinating to a young, warm imagination was quietly abandoned, and the youth, in the dutiful spirit which ever characterized him, entered at once upon the comparatively humble business of a

surveyor.

In March, 1748, he went into the woods with Mr. George Fairfax, to explore lands among the Alleghany Mountains, in Virginia. A diary kept by him during this his first tour has some interest, because it tells of the personal experiences, and betrays something of the turn of thought of Washington at sixteen.

"15th.-Worked hard till night, and then returned. After supper we were lighted into a room, and I, not being so good a woodsman as the rest, stripped myself very orderly and went into the bed, as they called it, when, to my surprise, I found it to be nothing but a little straw matted together, without sheet or any thing else but only one throadbare

blanket. I was glad to get up and put on my clothes, and lie as my companions did. Had we not been very tired, I am sure we should not have slept much that night. I made a promise to sleep so no more, choosing rather to sleep in the open air before a fire."

"21st. We went over in a canoe, and travelled up the Maryland side all day, in a continued rain, to Colonel Cresap's over against the South Branch, about forty miles from our place of starting in the morning, and over the worst road, I believe, that ever was trod by man or beast."

"23d.-Rained till about two o'clock, and then cleared up, when we were agreeably surprised at the sight of more than thirty Indians, coming from war with only one scalp. We had some liquor with us, of which we gave them a part. This, elevating their spirits, put them in the humor of dancing. We then had a wardance. After clearing a large space and making a great fire in the middle, the men seated themselves around it, and the speaker made a grand speech, telling them in what manner they were to dance. After he had finished, the best dancer jumped up, as one awakened from sleep, and ran and jumped about the ring in the most comical manner. He was followed by the rest. Then began their music, which was performed with a pot half full of water, and a deerskin stretched tight

over it, and a gourd with some shot in it to rattle, and a piece of horse's tail tied to it, to make it look fine. One person kept rattling, and another drumming, all the while they were dancing."

"26th.-Travelled up to Solomon Hedge's, Esquire, one of his Majesty's Justices of the Peace in the county of Frederic, where we camped. When we came to supper, there was neither a knife on the table nor a fork to eat with, but as good luck would have it, we had knives of our own."

ແ April 2d. A blowy, rainy night. Our straw upon which we were lying, took fire, but I was luckily preserved by one of our men awaking when it was in a flame."

"8th.-We breakfasted at Cassey's,

and rode down to Vanmeter's to get our company together, which, when we had accomplished, we rode down below the Trough to lay off lots there. The Trough is a couple of ledges of mountains impassable, running side by side for seven or eight miles, and the river between them. You must ride round the back of the mountains to get.below them. We camped in the woods, and, after we had pitched our tent and made a large fire, we pulled out our knapsacks to recruit ourselves. Every one was his own cook. Our spits were forked sticks; our plates were large chips. As for dishes, we had none."

We have picked out only here and there an item from this part of the Diary as being more personal than the rest. Here is the rough copy of a letter, giving a

general description of the excursion. No date.

"Dear Richard,-The receipt of your kind favor of the 2d instant afforded me unspeakable pleasure, as it convinces me that I am still in the memory of so worthy a friend,—a friendship I shall ever be proud of increasing. Yours gave me the more pleasure as I received it among barbarians and an uncouth set of people. Since you received my letter of October last, I have not slept above three or four nights in a bed, but after walking a good deal all day, I have lain down before the fire upon a little hay, straw, fodder, or a bear-skin, whichever was to be had, with man, wife, and children, like dogs and cats; and happy is he who gets the berth nearest the fire. Nothing would make it pass off tolerably but a good reward. A doubloon is my constant gain every day that the weather will permit of my going ont, and sometimes six pistoles. The coldness of the weather will not admit of my making a long stay, as the lodging is rather too cold for the time of year. I have never had my clothes off, but have lain and slept in them, except the few nights I have been in Frederictown."

Among the influences that conspired to mature the mind and refine the manners of Washington, we must account his intimacy with the Fairfax family, sensible as well as well-bred people, and living on a large fortune in the exercise of liberal hospitality. Lord Fairfax, besides the social advantages which resulted from his rank, had had a University education, when such culture was a distinction, and he seems, moreover, to have been a person of independent ways of thinking, and a discernment and practical sagacity not always found in high places. His nephew, William Fairfax, was wealthy, and held a high position in the colony. The family was, altogether, the first in the district where they lived, and one such family inevitably does much towards raising the general standard of manners and ideas in its neighborhood. A young man must be dull indeed, if the society of gentlemen and elegant women has no inspiration for him. When wo read George Washington's "Rules of Civility and decent Behavior in Company and Conversation," we need no assurance that no grace of manner, refinement of expression, or conventional improvement, that came under his observation at Mr.

Fairfax's, passed unnoted. The exquisite propriety of address and conduct, so often mentioned as having distinguished him, may not improbably have owed no little

of its finish to these early opportunities; to suppose so much elegance the natural product of innate refinement, in spite of plain farmer's living in early youth, and the rough career of a practical surveyor afterwards, might be more complimentary but scarcely so rational. Lord Fairfax was not a courtier, any more than his American planter nephew; and Washington never became one, but only in all circumstances a gentleman. This is as

evident in the early journal from which we have just quoted a few passages, as in the letters written in after life to ladies and the most distinguished men. Selfrespect ever regulates and limits his complimentary expressions, as it had in early life afforded the standard by which he judged so unerringly the dispositions of others towards himself, and decided on the fitness of the circumstances in which he was placed. He had an exquisite sense of personal respect, and as he never forgot or was mistaken about the amount of it due to others, so he never hazarded his own claims by requiring more than he knew himself entitled to and able to exact. In reading his correspondence, so voluminous and various, as well as so remarkable in other respects, this propriety is ever most striking.

Speaking of the attachment of Lord Fairfax to the young surveyor, who spent much time at his house, Mr. Weems remarks, "Little did the old gentleman expect that he was educating a youth who should one day dismember the British empire and break his own heart-which truly came to pass. For on hearing that Washington had captured Cornwallis and all his army, he called out to his black waiter, 'Come, Joe! carry me to my bed, for I'm sure it is high time for me to die!'" And die he did, certainly, but not prematurely, for Mr. Sparks says he lived to be ninety-two, a much respected and very benevolent person, though rather eccentric.

George Fairfax was the companion of Washington's first expedition through the forest. How old was the companion we are not informed, but the chief was just turned of sixteen, an age at which most boys are in need of tutors and guardians if ever. Mrs. Washington seems to have made no particular objection to this undertaking, the exposures of which were nevertheless formidable, to health at least, as the result proved. Lodging on the ground, night after night, in the month of April, is no agreeable variety in our climate, and we can hardly doubt that in this and similar journeys, which occupied a large portion of his time for three years,