had already struck at the Company. He had suddenly issued a writ of quo warranto against them, and suppressed the meetings of the great courts. The writ was tried in the King's Bench, at Trinity term, 1624; decided by the King's judges, as all the world foresaw it would be, in favor of the King; and the London Company fell.

It was a heavy fall for the great party in England representing popular rights. In all London there had been no doubt at all what the issue meant. Royal prerogative and liberal ideas were in direct conflict; the decision of the judges was to decide which should rule in England, and the judges declared that the royal prerogative should rule. It was only twenty-five years afterwards, when the head of Charles I. went to the block, that the Royalists in the halls of the London Company in the year 1624 found what harvest had sprung up from the seed thus sown.

It was a very great corporation which thus fell, and was destroyed at one blow. Its stockholders were about a thousand in number, and embraced fifty noblemen, several hundred knights, and countless gentlemen, merchants, and citizens of the highest rank — the very flower of the kingdom. They had spent one hundred and fifty thousand pounds on Virginia, sent nine thousand colonists thither, and granted the colony free government. Thus America owes them a great debt; but the fact ought not to blind us to the further fact that, in the nature of things, their time had come. A stockcompany could not continue to rule a continent three thousand miles off. If we imagine such a company in London ruling the United States of to day, passing laws for its government, and issuing regulations for the con

duct of the most intimate affairs in America, we shall have an idea of the anomaly which such a state of things began to present in 1624. The Company, with such men as Edwin Sandys and Southampton at the head of it, no doubt realized that it was an anomaly, and hastened to provide for coming trouble by the gift of the Assembly to Virginia. With that very great gift, which drew upon its head the mortal díspleasure of the King, its career ended, and ended nobly.

The career of James was suddenly to end, too; he and the Company were to go together. He set about composing, with his own pen, a new code of laws for Virginia, but, in the midst of his work, death stopped him. He died in March, 1625, and Charles I. became King of England.

XXIII.

THE FIRST VIRGINIA AUTHORS.

THE books written by Virginians during the period of the Plantation demand notice. The literature of a country is a part of its history, since the printed thought moulds opinion; and these writings by the early adventurers have an importance of their own. They are the sole authorities for the first years of American history. What is not found in them remains unknown. Until the coming of the New England Pilgrims there is no American historic writing but that by Englishmen living in Virginia.

The writers are properly classed as Virginia authors, since the character of a book does not depend on the writer's birthplace. It depends much more on his environment. The men of the seventeenth century who

set out in search of adventures had a new experience as they came into the great Chesapeake Bay from the ocean. Right and left were wooded capes, thrusting their low cut-waters into the crawling foam; beyond was the "Mother of Waters," a sea of itself, and the mouths of great rivers descending from blue mountains; and going up the largest of these streams, between the tree-fringed shores, the new-comers saw at last the little group of reed-thatched huts called Jamestown.

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Virginia was a new land, and, coming to live in it, the English adventurer was forced to adapt himself to new conditions, which shaped the development of all his faculties. Every object fertilized and planted new ideas in his mind. He was face to face with nature in her freshest loveliness; with pathless woods, broad rivers, and long lines of blue mountains; with sunsets burning with a richer splendor than the sunsets of England, and storms of thunder and lightning such as were seldom either seen or heard in Europe." He was face to face with peril, too. This group of cabins on the banks of James River was the advance guard of civilization a sentinel posted on the look-out. It would not do for the little band of English to relax their vigilance. Human wolves were lurking around them, ready to spring upon them at any moment, and life was a hard struggle with disease and famine.

In the midst of such surroundings the characters of the adventurers grew robust and earnest, and their traits are reflected in their writings. They are such as might have been expected: rude and forcible compositions, without the polish and nice finish which are the results of a ripe civilization, but full of passion and a brusque vigor. The involved sentences often stumble, but the

thought is there, and not to be mistaken. The sharp phrases cling to the memory; for the writers have had no time to round their periods and dilute their meaning. Earnest men are seen scratching the quick pages in the huts at Jamestown. Their swords are lying beside them, and what they write is to go in the ships which will sail to-morrow for England. They must hurry and fold the sheets. They will be fortunate if the Indian war-whoop does not burst in suddenly, and terminate their literary occupations.

At the head of these vigorous writers stood John Smith. He was the author of the first books which gave Englishmen an idea of Virginia, and collected the detached narratives of his companions in the "General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles," covering the whole history of the colony to 1624. His works, with the dates of publication, were:

I. A True Relation of Virginia.

1608.

II. A Map of Virginia with a Description of the Country, Commodities, People, Government, Religion,

etc.

1612.

III. New England's Trials.

1620.

IV. The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles. 1624.

V. An Accidence or the Pathway to Experience necessary to all Young Seamen. 1625. A Sea Grammar.

1627.

VI. The True Travels, Adventures, and Observations of Captain John Smith in Europe, Asia, Afric, and America. 1630.

VII. Advertisements for the Inexperienced Planters of New England or Anywhere.

1631.

At the time of his death he was engaged on his "History of the Sea."

Sir

Smith's writings bear the impress of a man of large nature, and have the tone of the actor rather than the student. The soldier-author expresses his meaning in the directest manner, with a rugged force often, sometimes with humor, always honestly and without mincing his phrases. Many passages of his works are characterized by a noble and lofty eloquence, like his description of the causes of the rise and fall of the ancient monarchies, which he holds up as an example and warning to his contemporaries. But his books are nearly all narrative, except his "Sea Grammar" and the description of Virginia, and reflect the character of the writer, especially in the prefaces and dedications. More than once he explains why he has taken up his "rough pen," and apologizes for his "poor ragged lines." Robert Cotton and many others had requested him to write an account of his "fatal tragedies," which the playwrights had "racked at their pleasure." So he wrote "for the satisfaction of his friends and of all generous and well disposed readers," and meant to give his old comrades their just dues. "I cannot leave them unburied in the fields," he says, "whose lives begot me the title of a soldier; for as they were companions with me in my dangers, so shall they be partakers with me in this Tombe." Elsewhere he writes: "I have deeply hazarded myself in doing and suffering, and why should I stick to hazard my reputation in recording?... Let emulation and envy cease; I ever intended my actions should be upright."

The works of Smith, original and compiled, occupy a prominent place in the literature of his time. They were used by the historian Purchas and others as the basis of their own narratives, and are the most impor