to day assume a whimsical importance in the lives of men accustomed to grapple with legal difficulties, or to solve great problems of statesmanship, or to watch the movements of the mighty tides of trade. And it is among the men of action, who go to watering places for relief from the cares of business, and among their families, that the most agreeable Springs society is to be found. There is a freshness and piquancy, apart altogether from their superior culture, in their conversation which is wanting to the gossip of the merely fashionable, who only seek to renew at the Springs the dissipations of the town winter. At Berkeley, the company was of the former character, the representatives chiefly of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, with some others from more distant States. Thrown together in the same circle, they became easily acquainted, and though the company changed as the season wore on, by the going of some and the coming of others, the three or four hundred guests formed a temporary society from which all exclusiveness and formality were banished, and in which the only ambition was to see which should add most to the common enjoyment. Shut up, too, in the mountains, aloof from desk and ledger and court-room and household duties, what cared they for the world beyond, though the electric current, for the first time flashing through the sunless depths of ocean, set the wires vibrating with the news of imperial fêtes and royal progresses and negotiations of treaties with the great ancient despotism of China beneath the beams of the morning star! The world, as the fugitives shall find it when they return from their mountain summer seclusion, is not the same world they left two months ago, it has taken an immense step forward; the age they live in

this live, throbbing age Which brawls, cheats, maddens, calculates, aspires,

And spends more passion, more heroic heat Betwixt the mirrors of its drawing-rooms Than Roland with his knights, at Roncesvalles,

has grown suddenly older by a century and now may rightly claim its epos. Memorable month, indeed, which, whiled away by many on jocund mountain tops in bathing and dancing, and celebrated by Emperor

Louis Napoleon among his docks and ships and guns at Cherbourg, has seen England and America united by another tie, and all the world admitted to fraternity with the long isolated followers of Confucius!

And this recognition of passing events brings us back to our editorial duties as rapidly as we were brought back by railway and steamer, whirling along by Harpers' Ferry, between its mountain ramparts. and the bright waters of the Shenandoah which flow by the poet's grave, the poet of Florence Vane, and through Washington, lying asleep in its summer vacation, and past hallowed Mount Vernon, signalled by the tolling bell, and across field and farm, to our sanctum in Richmond, where again we greet the editor's chair, vacant for a time, and once more hold communion with our loved contributors, the tender-hearted "Amie," and "Mabel," the gifted and mu sical, and our Southern Minnesinger "Adrian Beaufain," rich in delicate fancies, and humourous "Mozis Addums," and the pleasant "Rambler in Virginia," and resume our delightful relations with you, oh most indulgent reader, whose summer, we trust, has run by as gladly as our own.

We are indebted to the author, the Rev. C. W. Howard of Georgia, for a copy of an Address delivered by him before the Mnemosynean Society of the Cassville Female College, Commencement Day, July 21st, 1858. The following passage, which occurs near the conclusion, demands quotation as a worthy tribute to the fair ladies who are engaged in the Mount Vernon

cause

"It is a fitting close of these illustrations to refer briefly and with delicacy to the great event recently achieved by her who' is, by common accord, the Southern Matron.

"It had long been our nation's desire to secure the grave of Washington. The dif ficulties in accomplishing this purpose seemed to be insuperable. That which man could not do, woman has done. Impelled by a noble ardor this brave daughter of South Carolina, determined to effect the seeming impossibility. There are few things impossible to a determined woman. The difficulties have disappeared. Her success has been triumphant. The grave

of the Father of his people will be the property of the people. No stranger shall desecrate it. It will never pass from the

great family of Americans. With solemn eloquence, voiceless yet ceaseless as the flow of the Potomac, it shall rebuke those insane men, who with worse than Ephesian fury, under cover of liberty, would fire the temple of liberty. It shall tell them that he who was first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen,' was an accursed slaveholder.' It shall remind them that they cannot malign their brethren of the South, without in one and the same breath, parricides as they are, reviling the memory of the illustrious dead.

"Let no Pantheon of departed worth,' no royal St. Denis, no stately Westminster Abbey, no massive Egyptian Pyramid, be built upon this sacred spot. Let the American Eagle, as he circles in the blue ether above, and turns his glance from the sun downward to earth, find no vaulted roof or turret square to hide from him the tomb of his hero, and ever and again 'renewing his youth' by looking on the trust committed to him, with tireless wing and sleepless eye, and bold, defiant heart, he shall keep his ærial vigil, at once a sentinel to warn against impending danger, and a defender to swoop upon the advancing foe.

"Let no inferior mould be mingled with the ashes of Washington. Alone in history, let him the peerless one, rest there, alone in his glory. And thus in all time when the young pilgrim of liberty shall visit this Mecca of the West,' his eye shall be bewildered by no lesser light, his ear confused by no inferior names, his memory call up no other images, and from the grave of Washington he shall draw an unmixed inspiration of lofty deeds.

"All honor to the Southern Matron and her two distinguished coadjutors, daughters both of Georgia and ornaments of the State. Let their names be cherished among us. Let their bright example be held up to our young maidens, as an illustration of the great results which may be achieved by the unconquerable energy of woman."

✔ As a pendant to the long and interesting sketch of the late Philip Pendleton Cooke, published in the June number of the Messenger, we give a place in our "Table" to the following letter from Mr. J. Hunt, Jr., of Ohio, to the Editors of the Home Journal, on the origin of the song of "Florence Vane"

"Banks of the Ohio, July 15, 1858. "MESSRS. EDITORS,-In your issue of the 19th ultimo, you have spoken in a highly commendable manner-as have many of the first critics of America-of the produc

tions of the late PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE and quoted his renowned lyric, entitled FLORENCE VANE. Now then, it may not, perhaps, prove uninteresting to you, and the readers of the Home Journal, to learn

the origin of the poem. If you feel inclined to give me a hearing, I am willing, and will feel more, if possible, than pleased, to tell it you, just as I received it from Mr. Cooke himself, a few months previous to his decease. In order, therefore, to a perfect understanding of the matter, you must permit me to make a few-well, I will call them prefatory remarks-and make them, too, in my own simple way of expression. So, take a seat and peruse.

"In one of the letters which I received from Edgar A. Poe, during his connection with the Broadway Journal, touching the peculiar beauties of American literature, Mr. Poe cited to me, more than once, the pathos embodied in this same Florence Vane; and, as a matter of course, commendation coming from one who, at that time, stood at the head of his class in the school of prose and poetry, I turned my attention to the article, and committed it to memory at the same time I formed the resolution that, if I were ever blessed with another daughter, to name her in honor of the poem. Well, time passed on, and to sum the whole in brief, the wished-for child appeared, and we named her Florence Vane. Soon after the event, I wrote to Mr. Cooke, making mention of the circumstance, and solicited of him the favor to furnish me, for the child's remembrance in after years, a copy of the same, in his own hand writing. After some four or five weeks of anxiety, I received the following well-worded epistle. Without detaining you with longer comments of my own, I will copy the letter entire. None but a mind of the highest order of cultivation could produce so simple, and withal so timely a literary gem:

"Vineyard, near Millwood,
Clarke County, Va.,
SEPTEMBER 13, 1849.

"J. Hunt, Jr.: My Dear Sir,-I received your complimentary letter two days ago. Winchester is not now, and has not been for years, my post-office. I happened to see your letter on the advertised list in a Winchester paper, otherwise, perhaps, it would never have reached me.

"You compliment me very gracefully, in calling your little girl after the heroine of my verses. If I never happen to be near enough to manifest a substantial interest in her welfare, she has, at least, secured one advantage, that of a very pretty name. But stranger things have happened than our becoming, one day, well known to each other. I may, one of these days, kiss

little Florence Vane, for her own sweet looks, pretty name, and your graceful kind

ness.

I send a copy of the poem in my own hand-writing, as you request. It was written many years ago, and, as you have guessed, without labor. It has been often published in a more enduring form-in Griswold's American Poets, Morris's American Poets, the Book of Pearls, and finally in a volume of my poems, issued by Cary and Hart, two years since. This issue of Cary and Hart is called Froissart's Ballads and other Poems.' I have never understood the reason of the hold which so slight a work as Florence Vane has taken upon the public.

"Kiss your child for one whom, by your selection of a name for her, you have elevated to the dignity of a quasi godfather. I trust that she will live long, and be one day a cheerful and happy matron; and not die in her youth, like the Florence of the song, for the poetry of being covered with lilies and daisies.

Very truly, my dear sir, yours,

"P. P. COOKE.'

Our venerable friend, The Knickerbocker, has taken a new lease of life, and comes to us now exhibiting the taste and critical judgment of two Editors, Dr. Noyes have been associated with Clarke to do what Clarke did formerly so well by himself. Shall we say there is an improvement in the magazine? We will, at the risk of offending the Senior whose charming "Gossip" has long since become an "institution." We recognize among the contribu tors to the body of the work many new and most excellent hands, and in the September number, which has anticipated our own tardy appearance, we find an admirable letter on Life in Virginia," from the pen of G. P. R. James, Esq., which evinces the close and accurate observation of that accomplished writer. Apropos of our AngloAmerican novelist, whom, from the tender period of roundabouts, we have appreciated highly as a author, and have since learned, happy privilege, to esteem as a friend, it is with real regret that we look forward to his speedy departure for new fields of consular service, if we may be allowed that expression with regard to Venice, where there are no fields at all and

ister of Alumni with the Annual Catalogue and Circular" of this Institutiona remarkably neat and well executed pamphlet of nearly fifty pages. The "Historical Statistics," briefly set forth on the first two pages, are interesting and suggestive. They carry us back to anterevolutionary days, when the men of this frontier section of our State were wont to be educated, more by surrounding circumstances, than by academic appliances. We find the foundation of the Institution in old "Liberty Hall Academy," as far back as 1774. Its "Rector" for more than twenty years was the Rev. Wm. Graham, the pioneer of classical and mathematical education in the Great Valley. Of him a distinguished pupil* of his own says: "He possessed a mind formed for profound and accurate investigation. He had studied the Latin and Greek Classics with great care, and relished the beauties of those exquisite compositions. With those authors taught in the schools, he was familiar by long practice in teaching, and always insisted on the importance of classical literature, as the proper foundation of a liberal education., He had a strong inclination to the study of Natural Philosophy, and took pleasure in making experiments with such apparatus as he possessed; and he had procured for the Academy as good an one as was possessed by most of the Colleges. In these experiments much time was employed, on which inquisitive persons not connected with the Academy, were freely permitted to attend.

The science, however, which engaged his attention more than all others, except theology, was the PHILOSOPHY OF THE MIND. In this he took great delight, and to this devoted much time and attention." Thus we find him viewing the different departments of study as alike important to a complete academic course.

Soon after Mr. Graham had retired from its halls, having sacrificed the prime of his life, and to a great extent his pecuniary interest to the welfare of this institution, struggling to stand amid the trying times of the Revolution, and of

the first establishment of our government, it had the good fortune to receive from the "Father of his Country," a liberal donation, which Virginia had conferred upon him, but which he was unwilling to accept on his own account; yet he accepted it, that he might re-confer it as a still greater gift upon his native State, by using it in endowing one of her most promising institutions.

In this connection, we shall call attention to another interesting item in the history of this College. We copy from the "Triennial Register."

"The Cincinnati Society of Virginia was organized by the surviving Officers of the Revolution, soon after the close of the war. The objects of the society were:1. To perpetuate the bond of union which had kept them so firmly bound together during their long struggle for Independence; and 2. To raise, by individual contributions, a common fund, for the relief of such widows and orphans as had been left by any of their comrades, or might be left by themselves, in circumstances requiring pecuniary aid.

"After some years, it was thought expedient to dissolve the association. It was then found, that after providing for all remaining widows and orphans, there would be a large residuary fund still on hand. This fund they resolved, in imitation of their illustrious Commander-inChief, to add to the endowment of Washington College, under certain specified conditions. The college having accepted and fulfilled these conditions, is now in full possession of this donation, amounting at present to about $23,000.

"As a token of obligation to the Society of Cincinnati for their liberality, the College requires of the best scholar in every class of graduates an oration in honor of the Society. This is always a part of the annual commencement exercises."

The name of that Association is perpet uated in the title given to the professional chair of Mathematics.

We must not pass unnoticed another valuable donation, subsequently added to