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comedies, Doctor Bluff and The School for Politics which appeared in 1854. Gayarré's histories are reliable, and written in readable narrative style.

ORIGIN OF THE HISTORY OF LOUISIANA.

If every man's life were closely analyzed, accident — or what seems to be so to human apprehension, and whatever usually goes by that name, whatever it may really be would be discovered to act a more conspicuous part, and to possess a more controlling influence than preconception, and that volition which proceeds from long-meditated design. My writing the history of Louisiana from the expedition of De Soto in 1539 to the final and complete establishment of the Spanish government in 1769, after a spirited resistance from the French colonists, was owing to an accidental circumstance, which in the shape of disease, drove me from a seat I had lately obtained in the Senate of the United States; but which, to my intense regret, I had not the good fortune to occupy. Travelling for health, not from free agency, but a slave to compulsion, I dwelt several years in France. In the peculiar state in which my mind then was, if its attention had not been forcibly diverted from what it brooded over, the anguish under which it sickened, from many causes, would soon not have been endurable. I sought for a remedy; I looked into musty archives; I gathered materials; and subsequently became a historian-or rather a mere pretender to that name.- Preface to First Series of Colonial History and Romance.

PROGRESS OF THE WORK.

The success of my Romance of the History of Louisiana from the discovery of that country by De Soto, to the surrender by Crozat of the charter which he had obtained from Louis XIV. in relation to that French colony, has been such that I deem it my duty to resume my pen and to present the following work to the kind and friendly regard of my patrons. When I wrote the precedent

one, I said, in the words of Spenser's Faerie Queene, while I mentally addressed the public:

"Right I note, most mighty souveraine,
That all this famous antique history

Of some th' aboundance of an idle braine,
Will judged be, and painted forgery,

Rather than matter of just memory."

Nor was I mistaken: for I was informed that many had taken for the invention of the brain what was historical truth set in a gilded frame, when to use the expression of Sir Joshua Reynolds- I had taken but insignificant liberties with facts, to interest my readers, and make my narration more delightful-in imitation of the painter who, though his work is called history-painting, gives in reality a poetical representation of the facts. The reader will easily perceive that in the present production I have been more sparing of embellishments, although "I well noted, with that worthy gentleman, Sir Philip Sydney," as Raleigh says in his History of the World, that historians do borrow of poets not only much of their ornament, but somewhat of their substance."

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Such is not the case on this occasion; and I can safely declare that the substance of this work- embracing the period from 1717 to 1743, when Bienville, who with Iberville, had been the founder of the colony, left it foreverrests on such foundations as would be received in a court of justice; and that what I have borrowed of the poet for the benefit of the historian, is hardly equivalent to the delicately wrought drapery which even the sculptor would deem necessary as a graceful appendage to the nakedness of the statue of Truth.- Preface to Second Series of Colonial History and Romance.

CLOSE OF THE HISTORICAL LECTURES.

This is the third and last series of the Historical Lectures on Louisiana, embracing a period which extends from the discovery to 1769, when it was virtually trans

ferred by the French to the Spaniards, in virtue of the Fontainebleau treaty signed signed in November, 1762.

. . I looked upon the first four Lectures as nuga seria, to which I attached no more importance than a child does to the soap-bubbles which he puffs through the tube of the tiny reed, picked up by him for the amusement of the passing hour. But struck with the interest which I had excited, I examined, with more sober thoughts, the flowery field in which I had sported almost with the buoyancy of a schoolboy. Checking the freaks of my imagination that boon companion with whom. I had been gamboling - I took to the plough, broke the ground, and turned myself to a more serious and useful occupation..

--

Should the continuation of life and the enjoyment of leisure permit me to gratify my wishes, I purpose to write the history of the Spanish domination in Louisiana, from 1769 to 1803, when was effected the almost simultaneous cession of that province, by Spain to France and by France to the United States of America. Embracing an entirely distinct period of history, it will be a different work from the preceding, as much, perhaps, in point of style, and the other elements of compositions, as with regard to the characteristic features of the new lords of the land.-Preface to Louisiana as a French Colony.

THE ABORIGINES OF LOUISIANA.

Three centuries have hardly elapsed since that immense territory which extends from the Gulf of Mexico to the Lakes of Canada, and which was subsequently known under the name of Louisiana, was slumbering in its cradle of wilderness, unknown to any of the white race to which we belong. Man was there, however - but man in his primitive state, claiming, as it were, in appearance at least, a different origin from ours; or being at best a variety of our species. There was the hereditary domain of the Red Man, living in scattered tribes over that magnificent country. These tribes earned their precarious subsistence chiefly by pursuing the inhabitants of the earth and of the water. They sheltered themselves

in miserable huts, spoke different languages; observed contradictory customs; and waged fierce war upon each other. Whence they came, none knew; none knows, with absolute certainty, to the present day; and the faint glimmerings of vague tradition have afforded little or no light to penetrate into the darkness of their mysterious origin.- Colonial History and Romance.

DEATH OF DE SOTO.

It would be too long to follow De Soto in his peregrinations during two years, through part of Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. At last he stands on the banks of the Mississippi, near the spot where now flourishes the Egyptian-named city of Memphis. He crosses the mighty river, and onward he goes, up to the White River, while roaming over the territory of the Arkansas. Meeting with alternate hospitality and hostility on the part of the Indians, he arrives at the mouth of the Red River, within the present limits of the State of Louisiana. There he was fated to close his adventurous ca

reer.

Three years of intense bodily fatigue and mental excitement had undermined the hero's constitution. Alas! well might the spirit droop within him! He had landed on the shore of the North American continent with high hopes, dreaming of conquest over wealthy nations and magnificent cities. What had he met? Interminable forests, endless lagoons, inextricable marshes, sharp and continuous conflicts with men little superior, in his estimation, to the brutish creation. He who in Spain was cheered by beauty's glance, by the songs of the minstrel, when he sped to the contest with adversaries worthy of his prowess - with the noble and chivalric Moors; he who had revelled in the halls of the imperial Incas of Peru, and who had there amassed princely wealth; he the flower of knightly courts, had been roaming like a vagrant over an immense territory, where he had discovered none but half-naked savages, dwelling in miserable huts, ignobly repulsive when compared with Castilla's stately domes, with Granada's fantastic palaces, and with

Peru's imperial dwellings, massive with gold! His wealth was gone; two-thirds of his brave companions were dead. What account of them would he render to their noble families? He, the bankrupt in fame and in fortune, how would he withstand the gibes of envy? Thought that scourge of life, that inward consumer of man - racks his brain; his heart is seared with deep anguish; a slow fever wastes his powerful frame; and he sinks at last on the couch of sickness, never to rise again.

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The Spaniards cluster round him, and alternately look with despair at the dying chieftain, and at the ominous hue of the bloody river, known at this day as the Red River. But not he the man to allow the wild havoc within the soul to betray itself in the outward mien; not he, in common with the vulgar herd, the man to utter one word of wail! With smiling lips and serene brow he cheers his companions, and summons them, one by one, to swear allegiance in his hands to Muscoso de Alvarado, whom he designates as his successor. “Union and perseverance, my friend," he says. 'So long as breath animates your bodies, do not falter in the enterprise you have undertaken. Spain expects a richer harvest of glory, and more ample domains, from her children!" These are his last words, and then he dies. Blest be the soul of the noble knight and of the true Christian! Rest his mortal remains in peace within that oaken trunk scooped by his companions, and by them sunk many fathoms deep in the bed of the Mississippi! - Colonial History and Romance.

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THE DEATH-BED OF PHILIP II. OF SPAIN.

The King, with the complication of diseases under which he was sinking, became so weak that his physicians were much alarmed. It was a tertian fever, and although it was with much difficulty stopped for some time, it returned with more violence, with daily attacks, and within shortening intervals. At the end of a week a malignant tumor manifested itself in his right knee, increased prodigiously, and produced the most intense pain. As the last resort, when all other modes of relief had been ex

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