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waiting for some device of perfect retribution with which to overwhelm her husband, suddenly enters her own beloved son Itys. But Itys is his son, likewise; the one object in all the world most dear to him. In the instant there flames through her soul the most fierce and hideous inspiration that ever possessed a mother's mind: by a bloody sacrifice of that son she can thrust the knife of anguish deepest into the heart of her husband. The whole plan evolves itself before her in a flash; and even the warmth of her own love for her darling child is frozen wellnigh dead in comparison with the intolerable heat of her purpose of vengeance. And yet

"when her son saluted her, and clung

Unto her neck; mixed kisses, as he hung,

With childish blandishments; her high-wrought blood
Began to calm, and rage distracted stood :

Tears trickled from her eyes by strong constraint."

But, in a moment, the sight of her sister once more, standing in the woe of her speechless shame and pain, rccalls her to her unpitying purpose, and she breaks out into a renewed cry of vengeance against her husband through the sacrifice of their son. Him she now clutches with a maniacal fury,

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as when by Ganges' floods

A tigress drags a fawn through silent woods.
Retiring to the most sequestered room,

While he, with hands upheaved, foresees his doom,

Clings to her bosom; mother! mother! cried;

She stabs him, nor once turned her face aside.

His yet quick limbs, ere all his soul could pass,

She piecemeal tears. Some boil in hollow brass,

Some hiss on spits. The pavements blushed with blood.

Procne invites her husband to this food,

And feigns her country's rite, which would afford

No servant, nor companion, but her lord."

The king unwittingly accepts her invitation; he comes to the feast; and seated on his grandsire's throne, devours, unknowingly, the tender flesh of his own son. Then, when exhilarated by the feast, he

"bids her-so soul-blinded!-call his boy.

Procne could not disguise her cruel joy.
In full fruition of her horrid ire,

Thou hast, said she, within thee thy desire.
He looks about, asks where; and while again
He asks and calls, all bloody with the slain,
Forth like a Fury, Philomela flew
And at his face the head of Itys threw ;
Nor ever more than now desired a tongue
To express the joy of her revenged wrong.
He with loud outcries doth the board repel,
And calls the Furies from the depths of hell;

Now tears his breast, and strives from thence in vain
To pull the abhorrëd food; now weeps amain,

And calls himself his son's unhappy tomb;

Then draws his sword, and through the guilty room
Pursues the sisters, who appear with wings

To cut the air; and so they did. One' sings
In woods; the other near the house remains,
And on her breast yet bears her murder's stains.
He, swift with grief and fury, in that space
His person changed. Long tufts of feathers grace
His shining crown; his sword a bill became ;
His face all armed; whom we a lapwing name."

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Immediately upon its publication the work attained in England a great celebrity, and during the seventeenth century passed through at least eight editions. The author lived on to a good old age, devoting himself not only to original poetry but to the translation of the Psalms and of other poetical books of the Bible; and at last died, beloved and honored, at Bexley Abbey, in Kent, in 1644. His fame did not pass away with his earthly life. Eigh

1 Philomela, the nightingale.

? Procne, the swallow.

3 Sandys's Ovid, 214, 215.

teen years afterward Thomas Fuller, in terms of affectionate praise, enrolled him among the worthies of England: "He most elegantly translated Ovid's Metamorphoses into English verse; so that as the soul of Aristotle was said to have transmigrated into Thomas Aquinas,

. Ovid's genius may seem to have passed into Master Sandys." He "was altogether as dexterous at inventing as translating; and his own poems as sprightful, vigorous, and masculine." John Dryden spoke of Sandys as "the best versifier of the former age," and is said to have declared that had Sandys finished the translation of Virgil which he had begun, he himself would not have attempted it after him. Pope, whose critical car for verse was most exacting, and whose praise was never easily won, said that he "liked extremely " Sandys's translation of Ovid.

1 Thomas Fuller, "Worthies of Eng." ed. 1840, III. 434.

? Works of Dryden, ed. 1779, XV. 14.

3 Spence, "Anecdotes," ed. 1820, 276.

CHAPTER IV.

VIRGINIA: ITS LITERATURE DURING THE REMAINDER OF THE FIRST PERIOD.

I. The establishment of Maryland upon the territory of Virginia-Maryland's slight literary record for this period blended with that of Virginia— Father Andrew White and his Latin narrative-John Hammond, the Anglo-American, studying the social problems of England-His solution of them in the word America-His book, "Leah and Rachel," and its origina! American flavor.

II.-George Alsop—His life in Maryland—His droll book about Maryland -Comic descriptions of the effects of his voyage-Vivid accounts of the country, of its productions.

III. Sketch of Bacon's rebellion in 1676--The heroic and capable qualities of Bacon-The anonymous manuscripts relating to the rebellion—Literary indications furnished by these writings-Descriptions of a beleaguered Indian fort-Of Bacon's conflicts with Berkeley-Of Bacon's military stratagem-Bacon's death-Noble poem upon his death.

IV. Review of the literary record of Virginia during this period-Its comparative barrenness-Explanation found in the personal traits of the founders of Virginia—And in their peculiar social organization-Resulting in inferior public prosperity-Especially in lack of schools and of intellectual stimulus-Sir William Berkeley's baneful influence-Printing prohibited in Virginia by the English government-Religious freedom prohibited by the people of Virginia—Literary development impossible under such conditions.

THE brilliant fact in the first period of the literary history of Virginia, contributed to it by the services of George Sandys, may awaken within us the expectation of finding there, as we pass onward in our researches, other facts of the same kind. But we shall scarcely find them. During the remaining years of the period that we are now studying, the intellectual life of the great colony found vent, if at all, chiefly in some other way than that of litera

ture.

I.

It was but a few years after the departure of George Sandys from Virginia that the Roman Catholic nobleman, Lord Baltimore, a favorite of King Charles, paying a visit to Virginia, and being fascinated by the loveliness and the opulence of nature there, obtained for his intended colony that choice portion of Virginia which lies north of the Potomac, and which Virginia parted with only after a jealous and reluctant pang that did not cease to ache for many a year afterward. Had the colony of Maryland, for the period now under view, any story of literary achievement for us to tell, it would be fitting to tell it in this place, in immediate connection with the early literary history of Virginia. The most of what was written during those years on either side of the Potomac, was in the form of angry pamphlets relating to their local feuds,1 or of homely histories of pioneer experience, or of mere letters about business, all being too crude and elemental to be of any interest to us in our present studies. The Jesuit priest, Father Andrew White, an accomplished man and a devout servant of his order, wrote in Latin an elegant account of the voyage of the first colonists to Maryland, and of “the manifold advantages and riches" of the new land to which he dedicated his life, and in which he hoped would "be sown not so much the seeds of grain and fruit trees as of religion and piety."4

In exploring this raw and savage time, we encounter one man, John Hammond, who became, in a small way,

1 See documents in " Virginia and Maryland," Force, Hist. Tracts, II. No. 12.

2 As Henry Fleet's "Journal," in Neill's "Founders of Md." 19-37; or, "A Relation of Md.," in Sabin's Reprints, No. 2.

Better ed.

"Relatio Itineris in Marylandum;" discovered in Rome in 1832; translated into Eng. and printed in Force, Hist. Tracts, IV. No. 12. in Maryland Hist. Soc. Collections, 1874.

White's "Relation," 4.

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