LITTELL'S Jay LIVING AG E. CONDUCTED BY E. LITTELL. E PLURIBUS UNUM. These publications of the day should from time to time be winnowed, the wheat carefully preserved, and the VOL. XXV. APRIL, MAY, JUNE, 1850. BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY E. LITTELL & COMPANY. NEW YORK, DEWITT & DAVENPORT, Tribune Buildings. STEREOTYPED BY HOBART & ROBBINS. LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 307.-6 APRIL. fession Strachey was a lawyer; his turn seems to have been for out-of-the-way learning and pedantic casuistry; Destiny as clearly made him an adventurer. The allusions in his book prove him to have been in France and the Levant; and if the records of the original Turkey Company are still in being, some biographical particulars might possibly be found there. The inference is clear that he had been in the West Indies; probable that he had visited Spain, Italy, and Germany; he speaks from actual knowledge of the size of the bears of " Muscovia and Tartaria”—which, however, a traveller like himself might have observed in collections. In 1610, he went to Virginia, as From the Spectator. STRACHEY'S VIRGINIA BRITANNIA.* THE present volume of the Hakluyt Society is not perhaps so generally interesting as most of its predecessors, but in a literary point of view it is as curious as any. Although "William Strachey, Gent., the first secretary of the colony," derived a good deal of matter from his own observation, he deals not at all in narrative or adventure, and little in the direct presentation of personal experience. The first book of his Historie of Travaile is a description of the geographical features of Virginia, and its political divisions (if the word political can be applied to savage tribes;) an account of its natural productions, secretary to Lord Delaware; the expedition arrivand the manners, customs, religion, institutions, and character of the natives, with some incidental notices of the proceedings of the colonists, and of the actions of men who are famous in the early history of the colony. The second book appears to be part of an historical summary of the discovery and colonization of British North America, from the voyages of the Cabots to the writer's own time. It breaks off with the abandonment of the first attempt to found a colony in New England, near the river Penobscot, in 1607-8; and as it now stands would seem to have more properly formed an introduction than a sequel to the description of Virginia. It is a mere compilation, and rather brief and jejune. Although this work has remained in manuscript (at Oxford and the British Museum) until now, Strachey appears to have been a person of some colonial activity in his own day, as well as a writer upon the subject. So little is known of him, however, that the industry of his editor, Mr. Major, has been unable to glean sufficient materials on which to found a biographical notice. The place and time of his birth and death are unknown, as well as what family he belonged to; which seems singular, as we learn from his dedication (to Bacon) that he was a member of Gray's Inn, where some such particulars are usually entered. He was a man of very quaint and curious scholarship, especially as regards geography, history, and the law of nations as then understood: he was also learned in Latin and Greek, so much so as to argue an university education; but Mr. Major has doubtless searched the books of Oxford and Cambridge, as well as of Gray's Inn. By pro The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Britannia; expressing the Cosmographie and Commodities of the Country, together with the Manners and Customes of the People. Gathered and observed as well by those who went first thither as collected by William Strachey, Gent., the first Secretary of the Colony. Now first edited from the Original Manuscript, in the British Museum, by H. R. Major, Esq., of the British Museum. Printed for the Hakluyt Society. VOL. XXV. 1 ing just in time to prevent the abandonment of the settlement. He seems to have remained there till 1612; and on his return he engaged in the business of colonization, of which this volume was one fruit: but of his subsequent career, or of the time or place of his death, no memorial, as Mr. Major tells us, is known. The attraction of the book is derived from circumstances in the life and character of the author. His description of the physical features and divisions of Virginia as they were nearly two centuries and a half ago, in the style of the age and with the illustration of Captain Smith's map, have indeed an interest; though it will be stronger in Virginia, perhaps, than in England. The incidental indications of colonial struggles and management in those times, with passing remarks on names that are now the property of romantic his, tory, have also attraction; but the true interest of the book arises (as is usually the case) from the writer's mind. His experience leads him into a frequent and not injudicious comparison of the people and productions of Virginia with those of other countries; his scholarship is shown in illustrations drawn from a wide range of reading— pedantic, and presented digressively, but striking, in itself, and not more pedantic than was the fash ion of his day. The great quality of the book, however, is its earnestness and reality. Although there is a deal that to us seems needless, it was not so to the author and his age. Much of his learning may be false in itself, and his arguments. (with our lights) unfounded; but the author firmly believed what he urged, ill-grounded, not to say absurd, as some of it now appears; and in this faith consists the author's strength. those who are curious in considering character, William Strachey exhibits in remarkable combination the learned and practical character of the Elizabethan age. To For the introduction of much of his learning and his arguments this reason may be alleged |