erudition, concerning Columbus, Vespucius and Cabot, Ralegh and Drake. It will, however, add materially to the stores of all future collections, in regard to some important periods and dates. The notices, moreover, are not confined to South Virginia, but contain much about the northern colony on the river Sadachehoc, and the adventures of Sir John Popham. The period occupied by Strachey's history ranges over 1610, 1611, and 1612; and this brings us very near to the first permanent colonization, which it will be remembered was in 1607. It is to be compared with the map of Virginia, published by the same W. Strachey, at Oxford, in 1612. A specimen of our author's manner will not be unwelcome. It relates to an Indian Queen named Oholac. "Twice or thrice in a sommer she hath come unto our towne; nor is so handsome a savadge woman as I have seene amongst them, yet, with a kind of pride, can take upon her a shewe of greatnes; for we have seene her forbeare to come out of her quintan or boat through the water, as the other, both mayds and married women, usually doe, unles she were carryed forth betweene two of her servants. I was once early at her howse (yt being sommer tyme) when she was layed without dores, under the shadowe of a broad leaved tree, upon a pallett of osiers, spred over with four or five fyne grey matts, herself covered with a faire white drest deare skynne or two; and when she rose, she had a mayd who fetcht her a frontall of white currall, and pendants of great but imperfect couloured and worse drilled pearles, which she put into her ears, and a chayne, with long lyncks of copper, which they call Tapoantaninais, and which came twice or thrice about her neck, and they accompt a jolly ornament, and sure thus attired, with some variety of feathers and flowers stuck in their haires, they seeme as debonaire, quaynt, and well pleased as (I wis) a daughter of the house of Austria behune with all her jewells; likewise her mayd fetcht her a mantell, which they call puttawus, which is like a side cloake, made of blew feathers, so artificyally and thick sowed togither, that it seemed like a deepe purple satten, and is very smoothe and sleeke; and after she brought her water for her hands, and then a braunch or two of fresh greene asshen leaves, as for a towell to dry them." FOOTE'S SKETCHES OF VIRGINIA. Sketches of Virginia, Historical and Biographical. By the Rev. William Henry Foote, D. D., Pastor of Presbyterian Church, Romney, Virginia. Philadelphia. Wm. S. Martieni. 8vo. pp. 568. 1850. We welcome this work as a highly valuable contribution to the historic literature of our State. It is true that, for the most part, it is only what we should call a copious collection of materials to serve for a history of the Presbyterian Church in Virginia, (not always very properly arranged,) but mens agitat molem-mind moves the mass and a warm patriotic spirit pervades and animates the whole volume, which makes it much more interesting to general readers than it could otherwise have been. The main design of the work, indeed, as the author states it in his Introductory Chapter, is truly liberal, and worthy of all praise; it is, he tells us, "to rescue from oblivion the names and virtues of noble men,-'Sons of Liberty'-of that liberty which rejoices all good men❞—and to blazon their merits, hitherto too much overlooked by the writers of our civil histories, and to shew that the "religious principle" under which they acted contributed materially and essentially to the establishment of that happy frame of polity which we now enjoy. "While political events," he says, "have had their historians, and political men their biographers, the great struggle for Religious Liberty which preceded the Bill for Religious Freedom, has never been set forth. It has been but slightly referred to in the record of those very events over which it had a controlling influence. And while it remains unknown, Virginia, both past and present, remains unknown. The power of the religious principle in moulding the civil and political institutions of Virginia, has not been appreciated. The law for religious freedom, in the Statute book, cannot be duly estimated, while the history of the men that thought and laboured and suffered for the unrestrained liberty we enjoy, remains unwritten.' In pursuing this object, then, and supplying this desideratum, Dr. F. discourses at great length upon the merits and labors of the "Sons of Liberty," more particularly of course of his own denomination, but without injury to those of any other, and certainly sets their characters and conduct in a very fair and honorable light. We have, accordingly, very ample accounts of Makemie, whom he calls the father of the Presbyterian Church in Virginia, but whose labors were chiefly confined to the county of Accomack on the Eastern Shore, and have left hardly any traces behind them-of Davies, whom he styles, with more reason, the Apostle of our State, who found his immediate sphere in Hanover, but radiated his beams about him in all directions, whose talents were of a far higher order, and whose influence was much more extensive and enduringof Waddell, the Chrysostom, or "golden-mouth" of our pulpit, who turns out to be the famous blind preacher of Orange, whom Wirt celebrates so worthily and handsomely in his British Spy-of William Graham, the founder of Washington College of Samuel Stanhope Smith, the founder of Hampden Sidney Academy, (afterwards erected into a college,) and of his brother John Blair Smith, the first President of it-of Lacy, Hoge, and some others :all full of interesting details which must be read, we sup pose, by all pious Presbyterians, and other evangelical christians, with almost equal profit and pleasure. We may say further, that many of these particulars are either altogether new, or at least are now given to the public, for the first time, in a convenient and permanent form. And we may add, that the style in which they are written, though generally plain and unpretending, has evidently been wrought with considerable care, and rises occasionally into something like a true historic tone. After all, however, we owe it perhaps to Dr. F. but certainly to historic justice, to say that we do not think he has shed quite all that quantity of new light upon the subject of the establishment of religious liberty in our State, which he seems to suppose. On the contrary, we can assure him that we have found little or nothing on this point in his book which we have not read very frequently and familiarly before-not indeed in our civil histories-but in other publications, and more particularly in a pamphlet published some years ago by the Rev. Dr. John H. Rice, of this city, entitled "An Illustration of the Character and Conduct of the Presbyterian Church in Virginia;" in which we have all the highly interesting memorials of the Presbytery of Hanover, with proper comments upon them (afterwards re peated in the Virginia Evangelical and Literary Magazine, edited by the same gentleman,) which Dr. F. has here given us over again as if now published for the first time! This is really a little surprising, and, as it strikes us, hardly just to the memory of a man who has done more, in his day and generation, by his various writings and other labors, to raise the Presbyterian Church to its present high and honorable standing in our State, than perhaps any other person who has ever lived within its bounds. We feel strongly tempted to pursue this subject at some length; but we forbear. We are glad to see by the author's advertisement, that he has already materials in abundance" for a continuation of the work, and though he adds that the appearance of a second volume will depend upon the favorable reception of the first, that, we think, cannot be doubted; and we shall confidently hope to have our supplemental satisfaction in due time. EDUCATION IN AMERICA. What is the enterprise and general prosperity of the Americans to be attributed to, except to their general enlightenment? The oldest manufacturers of cotton in the world are the Hindoos; labor with them is cheaper than it is in any other part of the world: yet we take the cotton that grows at the doors of their factories, bring it 13,000 miles to this country, manufacture it here where labor is so expensive, take it back 13,000 miles, and undersell the native manufacturer. Labor is dearer in America than in any part of the world, and yet we dread and fear their competition more than that of any other nation. The reason of all this is obvious. All the advantages which the Hindoo possesses are far more than counterbalanced by his intellectual inferiority to ourselves; while we dread the American, with reason, because he is, intellectually at least, our equal, and, considering the general intelligence and good conduct of the hands he employs, our superior. To what cause, except that of a decided superiority in captains and crews, can we attribute the fact that the Americans have deprived us of so large a portion of the whale fishery, as in a measure to have monopolized it? American clocks, which we now see in almost every hall and cottage, ought to set us thinking. We may be sure of this, the commerce of the world will fall into the hands of those who are most deserving of it. If political or philanthropic considerations should fail to show us the necessity of educating our people, commercial considerations will one day remind us of what we ought to have done. We can only hope that the reminder may not come too late. Enlightenment is the great necessity and the great glory of our age; ignorance is the most expensive, and most dangerous, and most pressing of all our evils.-Fraser. LINES TO WOMAN. Suggested by a Drawing, (taken from an antique gem,) of a Woman Contemplating a Household God. O Woman! whosoe'er thou art, It is not thine to rove abroad, But by that dear, domestic hearth, Seek there thy proper sphere on earth, And true to HIM who placed thee there, Bid Duty's altar rise; And soar, on wings of faith and prayer, |