There are two other sketches of Old Virginia travel in the volume of the Westover Manuscripts; -one of a Progress to the Mines in the year 1732, and another in the following year of A Journey to the Land of Eden, which possess the same pleasant characteristics of adventure, personal humor, and local traits. JAMES LOGAN. JAMES LOGAN, the founder of the Loganian Library of Philadelphia, was a man of note in his literary and scientific accomplishments and writings. He was born in Ireland in 1674; was a good scholar in the classics and mathematics in his youth, was for a while a teacher, then engaged in business, when he fell in with Penn, and came over with him to America as his secretary in 1699. He rose to the dignities of Chief Justice and President of the Council. He continued the administration of Penn to the satisfaction of the colony. As a testimony of the respect in which he was held by the Indians, the chief, Logan, celebrated for his speech presented in Jefferson's Notes on Virginia, was named after him. In 1735, he communicated to Peter Collinson, of London, an account of his experiments on maize, with a view of investigating the sexual doctrine, which was printed in the Philosophical Transactions.* This was afterwards enlarged, and printed in a Latin essay at Leyden, in 1739, with the title Experimenta et Meletemata de Plantarum Generatione, and republished in London, with an English translation, by Dr. Fothergill, in 1747. He also published at Amsterdam, in 1740, Epistola ad Virum Clarissimum Joannem Albertum Fabricium, and at Leyden, in 1741, Demonstrationes de Radiorum Lucis in Superficies sphericas ab Axe incidentium a pri mario Foco Aberrationibus. He passed his old age in retirement, at his country seat named Stenton, near Germantown, penning the translation of Cicero's De Senectute, to which he added extensive familiar notes. The first edition, a very neat specimen of printing,t was published by his friend Franklin in 1744, with this preface: THE PRINTER TO THE READER. This version of Cicero's tract De Senectute was made ten years since, by the honorable and learned Mr. Logan, of this city; undertaken partly for his own amusement (being then in his 60th year, which is said to be nearly the age of the author when he wrote it), but principally for the entertainment of a neighbor, then in his grand climacteric; and the notes were drawn up solely on that neighbor's account, who was not so well acquainted as himself with the Roman history and language; some other friends, however (among whom I had the honor to be ranked), obtained copies of it in MS. And, as I believed it to be in itself equal at least, if not far preferable to any other translation of the same piece extant in our language, besides the advantage it has of so many valuable notes, which at the same time they clear up the text, are highly instructive and entertaining, I resolved to give it an impression, being confident that the public would not unfavorably receive it. A certain freed-man of Cicero's is reported to have said of a medicinal well, discovered in his time, wonderful for the virtue of its waters in restoring sight to the aged, That it was a gift of the bountiful Gods to men, to the end that all might now have the pleasure of reading his Master's works. As that well, if still in being, is at too great a distance for our use, I have, gentle reader, as thou seest, printed this piece of Cicero's in a large and fair character, that those who begin to think on the subject of OLD AGE (which seldom happens till their sight is somewhat impaired by its approach), may not, in reading, by the pain small letters give to the eyes, feel the pleasure of the mind in the least allayed. I shall add to these few lines my hearty wish, that this first translation of a classic in this Western World,* may be followed with many others, performed with equal judgment and success; and be a happy omen, that Philadelphia shall become the seat of the American muses. This was reprinted in London in 1750, at Glasgow in 1751, and in 1778, with Franklin's name falsely inscribed on the title-page. Buckminster reviewed this translation at length in the Monthly Anthology,† with his accustomed scholarship, and has given it the praise of being the best translation previous to that of Melmoth. The notes, biographical and narrative, are entertaining, and are taken from the original classics, of which Logan had a great store in his library. Buckminster suggests that "from their general complexion, it would not be surprising if it should prove that Dr. Franklin himself had occasionally inserted some remarks. There is sometimes much quaintness and always great freedom in the reflexions, which, perhaps, betray more of Pagan than of Christian philosophy." Besides these writings, Logan made A Translation of Cato's Distichs into English verse, which was printed at Philadelphia. He left behind him in MS. part of an ethical treatise entitled, The Duties of Man as they may be deduced from Nature; fragments of A Dissertation on the Writings of Moses; A Defence of Aristotle and the Ancient Philosophers; Essays on Languages and the Antiquities of the British Isles; a trans *It had been preceded by Sandys, in his translation of Ovid, ante, 1. + V. 281, 340, 391. Memoirs by Mrs. Lee, 234, Monthly Anthology, v. 395. lation of Maurocordatus яept xanxovtwv, and of Philo Judæus's Allegory of the Esseans.* Like Franklin, Logan was a diligent correspondent with the learned scientific men of Europe. Among his correspondents, says Mr. Fisher, who speaks from acquaintance with his papers, were, "in this country, Cadwallader Colden, Governor Burnet, and Colonel Hunter, the accomplished friend of Swift; and in Europe, Collinson, Fothergill, Mead, Sir Hans Sloane, Flamsteed, Jones the mathematician, father of the celebrated Sir William Jones, Fabricius, Gronovius, and Linnæus; the last of whom gave the name of Logan to a class in botany." Logan was a man of general reading in the ancient and modern languages, and had formed for himself a valuable library. He was making provision, at the time of his death, which occurred October 31, 1751, to establish this collection of books as a permanent institution, and confer it upon the city, and had erected a building for the purpose. His heirs liberally carried out his intentions, and founded the Loganian Library at Philadelphia. It consisted at first of more than two thousand volumes which Logan had collected, chiefly Greek and Latin classics, and books in the modern languages of the European continent. A large collection of books was afterwards bequeathed by Doctor William Logan, a younger brother of the founder, who was for some time librarian. The library remained unopened for some time after the Revolution, when the legislature of Pennsylvania, in 1792, annexed it to the library company established by Franklin and his associates. It then contained nearly four thousand volumes. The collection has been kept separate. It received a handsome accession of five thousand volumes, by the bequest of William Mackenzie, a Philadelphian, in 1828. John Davis, in his Travels in America, speaks of his visit to the Loganian Library in 1798, in terms which remind us of the corresponding compliment to Roscoe and the Liverpool Athenæum in the Sketch Book. "I contemplated with reverence the portrait of James Logan, which graces the room-Magnum et venerabile nomen. I could not repress my exclamations. As I am only a stranger, said I, in this country, I affect no enthusiasm on beholding the statues of her Generals and Statesmen. I have left a church filled with them on the shore of Albion that have a prior claim to such feeling. But I here behold the portrait of a man whom I consider so great a * A Sketch of Logan's Career, by J. Francis Fisher, in Sparks's Life of Franklin, vii. 24-27. A volume of Memoirs of Logan, by W. Armistead, was published in London in 1852. 12mo. pp. 192. When Swift was in London in 1708 and 9, "there was," says Sir Walter Scott in his memoirs of that personage, "a plan suggested, perhaps by Col. Hunter, governor of Virginia, to send out Dr. Swift as bishop of that province, to exercise a sort of metropolitan authority over the colonial clergy." Vol. i. of works, 98. He was appointed Governor of Virginia in 1708, and was taken by the French on his voyage thither. There is an amusing letter of Swift's to Hunter, in Paris, dated January 12, 1708-9. Colonel Hunter arrived in America as Governor of New York in 1710. In 1719 he returned to England, and on the accession of George II. was continued Governor of New York and the Jerseys. He obtained, on account of his health, the government of Jamaica, where he died in 1784. He was the author of a celebrated "Letter on Enthusiasm," ascribed to Swift; and a farce, entitled Androboros, has been attributed to him. Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes of 18th Century, vi. 89. 90. Reed's Biog. Dram. i. 250. Bancroft, iii. 64. benefactor to literature, that he is scarcely less illustrious than its munificent patrons of Italy; his soul has certainly been admitted to the company of the congenial spirits of a Cosmo and Lorenzo of Medicis. The Greek and Roman authors, forgotten on their native banks of the Ilyssus and Tiber, delight, by the kindness of a Logan, the votaries to learning on those of the Delaware."* We take a single passage, characteristic of our philosopher's pursuits, from his translation of Cicero: THE INTELLECTUAL DELIGHT OF AGE. For how solid, how sincere, think you, must that pleasure be to the mind, when, after it has happily worked through the ruffling tides of those uneasy passions, lust, ambition, emulation, contention, and every strong impetuous desire, it finds itself arrived at its harbor, and like a veteran discharged from the fatigues of war, got home, and retired within itself into a state of tranquillity? But if it has the further advantage of literature and science, and can by that means feed on, or divert itself with some useful or amusing study, no condition can be imagined more happy than such calm enjoyments, in the leisure and quiet of old age. How warm did we see Gallus, your father's intimate friend, Scipio, in pursuit of his astronomical studies to the last? How often did the rising sun surprise him, fixed on a calculation he began over night? And how often the evening, on what he had begun in the morning? What a vast pleasure did it give him, when he could foretell to us, when we should see the sun or moon in an eclipse? And how many others have we known in their old age delighting themselves in other studies? which, though of less depth than those of Gallus, yet must be allowed to be in themselves ingenious and commendable? How pleased was Nævius with his poem of the Punic war? And how Plautus, with his Truculentus and Pseudolus? I remember even old Livius, who had his first dramatic piece acted six years before I was born, in the consulship of Cento and Tuditanus, and continued his compositions till I was grown up towards the state of manhood. What need I mention Licinius Crassus's studies in the pontifical and civil law? Or those of Publius Scipio, now lately made supreme pontiff? And all these I have seen, not only diverting themselves in old age, but eagerly pursuing the several studies they affected. With what unwearied diligence did we behold Marcus Cethegus, whom Ennius justly enough called the soul of persuasion, applying himself at a great age to oratory, and the practice of pleading? Upon all which let me ask you, what gratifications of sense, what voluptuous enjoyments in feasting, wine, women, or play, and the like, are to be compared with those noble entertainments? Those pure and serene pleasures of the mind, the rational fruits of knowledge and learning, that grafted on a good natural disposition, cultivated by a liberal education, and trained up in prudence and virtue, are so far from being palled in old age, that they rather continually improve, and grow on the possessor. Excellent, therefore, was that expression of Solon, which I mentioned before, when he said, that daily learning something, he grew old: for the pleasures arising from such a course, namely, those of the mind, must be allowed incomparably to exceed all others, * Travels, 40, ROGER WOLCOTT. ROGER WOLCOTT was born at Windsor, Conn., Jan. 4, 1679. Owing to the unsettled state of the country, and the constant incursions of Indians, it was impossible to maintain a school or clergyman at that time in the little town, and Wolcott was consequently deprived of the advantages of early education. At the age of twelve he was apprenticed to a mechanic. On becoming his own master, at twenty-one, he was enabled to & Wolcom establish himself on the banks of the Connecticut, where, by diligence and frugality, he succeeded in acquiring a competence. In 1711 he was appointed a commissary of the forces of the colony in the attack on Canada, and he bore the commission of major-general at the capture of Louisbourg, in 1745. He was also prominent in the civil service of the colony, and after passing through various judicial and political grades of office, was chosen governor from 1751 to 1754. He died May 17, 1767, at the advanced age of 88. He wrote A Brief Account of the Agency of the Honorable John Winthrop, Esq., in the Court of King Charles the Second, Anno Dom. 1662, when he obtained a Charter for the Colony of Connecticut, a narrative and descriptive poem of 1500 lines, which has been printed in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and a small volume of verse, in 1725, entitled, Poetical Meditations, being the improvement of some Vacant Hours. It is prefaced by a rambling dissertation, chiefly on titles to land, by the Reverend Mr. Bulkley, of Colchester, in which he expresses the opinion, that "the darling principle of many, viz. that native rightt is the only valuable title to any lands in the country, is absurd and foolish, and may with reason be look't upon as one of our vulgar errors." This dissertation fills fifty-six pages, the poems which it preludes occupying but seventy-eight, and these are flanked at the close by the advertisement of Joseph Dewey, clothier, who, "having been something at charge in promoting the publishing the foregoing meditations, takes the liberty to advertise his country people touching certain rules which ought to be observed in the making and working of cloth. Wolcott's verses are rude, but possess some force. The lines we give are one of the briefest of his "Meditations:" Proverbs xviii. 14. A WOUNDED SPIRIT, WHO CAN BEAR? Money answers everything But a Guilty Conscience sting, Quite insupportable to bear. Nor the silver of Peru, Nor the wealth the East do shew, Poetical Meditations, being the improvement of some Vacant Hours, by Roger Wolcott, Esq., with a preface by the Reverend Mr. Bulkley, of Colchester. New London: printed and sold by T. Green, 1725. That of the aborigines. Nor the softest bed of down, The strong arm of the Most High, The most extreme and vexing sense View those torments most extreme, When a thousand years are gone, Thus those pains that are to come, Every moment that doth come, For God Himself, He is but one, Possessing His Eternity 'With whom the like proportion bears, These very meditations are My hands, made for my life's defence, Unto my life: And send me hence, There to be fill'd with that despair, But, oh! my soul, think once again. Christ's blood will fetch out all this fire, And oh! my God, let me behold Thy Son, With such an eye of faith that may from thence, Derive from Him a gracious influence, To cure my sin and wounded conscience. CADWALLADER COLDEN. CADWALLADER COLDEN, who heads with honor the ranks of the authors of the State of New York, unless we except the previous compositions in the Dutch language, the political tract of Van der Donck, the satire of the Breeden Raedt, and an account of the Maquaas Indians, in Latin, by Megapolensis,* was the son of the Rev. Alexander Colden, of Dunse, Scotland, where he was born February 17, 1688. He was prepared, by the private instructions of his father, for the University of Edinburgh, where he was graduated in 1705. He devoted the three following years to medical and mathematical studies, when he emigrated to Pennsylvania and practised physic with great success in Philadelphia until 1715. At that time he visited London, and there became acquainted with Halley, the astronomer, who was so well pleased with a paper on Animal Secretions, written by Colden some years before, that he read it before the Royal Society, by whom the production was received with equal favor. In 1716 he returned to America, having in the meantime married in Scotland a young lady of the name of Christie. He settled in New York in 1718, where he soon abandoned his profession for the service of the State, filling in succession the offices of surveyor-general of the province, master in chancery, member of the council, and lieutenant-governor. In 1756 he removed with his family to a tract of land on the Hudson, near Newburgh, which he named Coldenham. He was appointed lieutenantgovernor of the province in 1760, and retained the office until his death, September 21, 1776, having been several times called upon to act as governor in consequence of the death or retirement of various occupants of the office. * Adrian Van der Donck, a graduate of the University of Leyden, was appointed by the patroon of Rensselaerwick sheriff of his colony, and came to New Netherlands in 1642. In 1648 we find a grant of land made to him as Yonker Van der Donck, at Yonkers on the Hudson, Yonker being the usual title of gentleman. His name appears as one of the eleven signers of a tract of fifty pages quarto, published at the Hague in 1650, entitled, Vertoogh van Nieuw Nederlandt; Representation from New Netherland, concerning the situation, fruitfulness, and poor condition of the same. It is addressed to the West India Company as a petition for changes in the government of Kieft and Stuyvesant. It has been translated by Mr. Henry C. Murphy for the New York Historical Society, and published by them and also by Mr. James Lenox of this city, in a quarto edition for private circulation. In consequence of its attacks on the government Van der Donck was denied access to the colonial records during the preparation of his Description of New Netherlands, a work the translation of which occupies 106 pages of the New York Historical Society's Collections, 1841. It contains an account of the rural products, animals, and inhabitants of the Colony. The date of the first edition is unknown. The second appeared at Amsterdam in 1656, by Evert Nieuwenhof, who introduces the work with a poetical preface. The Breeden-Raedt (Broad Advice to the United Netherland Provinces, by J. A., G. W. C., Antwerp, 1649), is a coarse but to some extent amusing satire, growing out of the disaffection to the Colonial Government. The Rev. Johannes Megapolensis, the "Dominie" of the colony of Rensselaerwick, where he officiated from his arrival in New Netherlands August, 1642, wrote in 1644, and published in 1651, a tract on the Maquaas Indians,-a translation of which was published in Hazard's Historical Collections (Phila. 1792), vol. i. p. 517, where it occupies eight quarto pages. Megapolensis's activity as a missionary among the Indians furnished him with excellent opportunities for observing their peculiarities. In 1649 he became pastor of the Church of New Amsterdam. His name appears frequently in the city annals down to the time of the surrender to the English. His Colden was the author of the History of the Five Indian Nations.* The object of this work was to call attention to the importance of Indian affairs in reference to commerce. It contains a brief history of the intercourse between the aborigines and the Europeans from the settlement of the country to the period of its publication in 1727. It was reprinted at London in 1747, with the addition of a number of treaties and other documents, and the remarkable transfer by the London publisher of the dedication from Governor Burnet to General Oglethorpe,† a liberty at which Colden was justly indignant. A third edition, in two neat 12mo. volumes, appeared at London in 1755 He also wrote a philosophical treatise, published in 1751, entitled, The Principles of Action in Matter. He printed in 1742, a tract on a fever which had recently ravaged the city of New York, in which he showed how greatly the deadly effects of disease were enhanced by filth, stagnation, and foul air, pointing out those portions of the city which most needed purification. The corporation voted him their thanks, and carried out many of his sanitary suggestions with good effect. Čolden took a great interest in the study of botany, and was the first to introduce the Linnæan system in America, a few months after its publication in Europe. acquaintance with Kalm, the Swedish traveller, a pupil of the great naturalist, may have aided him in the prosecution of his inquiries. His essay On the Virtues of the Great Water Dock led to a correspondence with Linnæus, who included an account of between three and four hundred American plants, furnished by Colden, and about two hundred of which were described for the first time in the Acta Upsala, and afterwards bestowed the name of Coldenia on a plant of the tetrandrous class, in honor of his American disciple. Colden maintained an active correspondence from the year 1710 to the close of his life, with the leading scientific men of Europe and America. Franklin was among the most constant as well as celebrated of these correspondents, and it was to this friend that Colden communicated one of his most valuable inventions, that of the art of stereotyping. The letter is dated October, 1743. It is probable that Franklin may have conversed on the subject in France, and that thus the hint of the process was communicated to the German, Herhan, who in the commencement of the present century carried it into successful practice in Paris, and obtained the credit of being its originator. *The History of the Five Indian Nations of Canada, which are dependent on the Province of New York in America, and are the Barrier between the English and the French in that part of the world, with particular accounts of their religion, manners, customs, laws, and forms of government; their several battles and treaties with the European nations; their wars with other Indians; and a true account of the present state of our trade with them. In which are shewn the great Advantage of their Trade and Alliance to the British nation, and the Intrigues and attempts of the French to engage them from us; a subject nearly concerning all our American Plantations, and highly meriting the attention of the British nation at this juncture. To which are added, Accounts of the several other Nations of Indians in North America, their numbers, strength, &c., and the Treaties which have been lately made with them. 3rd edit., London, 1755. † Rich, Bibl. Amer. The additions seem also to have been without the author's sanction. "I send you herewith," Franklin writes to Colden from Philadelphia, Oct. 1, 1747, "The VOL. I.—6 In the correspondence of Jefferson there is a letter, in which, writing to Francis Hopkinson, he says, "Many years ago Cadwallader Colden wrote a very small pamphlet on the subjects of attraction and impulsion, a copy of which he sent to Monsieur de Buffon. He was so charmed with it, that he put it into the hands of a friend to translate it, who lost it. It has ever since weighed on his mind, and he has made repeated trials to have it found in England."* The unpublished Colden Papers,† embracing a large Correspondence and a number of treatises and notes on historical and philosophical topics, now form part of the valuable manuscript Collections of the New York Historical Society. The value of these papers as records of the anterevolutionary period has been tested by Mr. Bancroft, who acknowledges his indebtedness to this source in the preface to the sixth volume of his History. THOMAS PRINCE. THOMAS PRINCE, a grandson of John Prince, of Hull, who emigrated to America in 1633, was Thomas Prince. born in Sandwich, Massachusetts, May 15, 1687. He graduated at Harvard in 1707, and in 1709 visited Europe, and preached for several years at Combs in Suffolk. He was urged to remain longer, but returned to Boston in July, 1717, and was ordained pastor of the Old South Church, as colleague of his class-mate, Dr. Sewall, October 1, 1718, where he remained until his death, October 22, 1758. He commenced in 1703, and continued during his life, to collect documents relating to the history of New England. He left the valuable collection of manuscripts thus formed, to the care of the Old South Church. They were deposited in an apartment in the tower, which also contained a valuable library of the writings of the early New England Divines, formed by Mr. Prince, where they remained until the manuscripts were destroyed by the British, during their occupation of the city in the revolutionary war. The books were preserved, and are now deposited in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Mr. Prince was the author of a Chronological History of New England, in the form of annals, the first volume of which was published in a duodecimo form in 1736, and two numbers of the second in 1755. He unfortunately commenced with an epitome of history from the creation, on which he bestowed much time, which might have been better employed on his specific object, that of presenting a brief narrative of occurrences in New England, from 1602 to 1730. His work unfortunately does not come down later than the year 1633. |