It was not a life that bred students, though it was a life that begot thoughtfulness and leadership in affairs. Those who fell in the way of getting them had not a few books upon their shelves, because they thought every gentleman should have such means of knowing what the world had said and done before his day. But they read only upon occasion, when the weather darkened, or long evenings dragged because there were no guests in the house. Not much systematic education was possible where the population was so dispersed and separate. A few country schools undertook what was absolutely necessary, and gave instruction in such practical branches as every man must know something of who was to take part in the management of private and public business. For the rest, those who chose could get the languages from private tutors, when they were to be had, and then go over sea to read at the universities, or to Williamsburg when at last the colony had its own college of William and Mary. More youths went from the Northern Neck to England for their education, no doubt, than from any other part of Virginia. The counties there were somewhat closer than the rest to the sea, bred more merchants and travellers, kept up a more intimate correspondence both by travel and by letter with Bristol and London and all the old English homes. And even those who stayed in Virginia had most of them the tradition of refinement, spoke the mother tongue purely and with a proper relish, and maintained themselves somehow, with perhaps an added touch of simplicity that was their own, in the practices of a cultivated race.
No one in Virginia thought that "becoming a mere scholar" was "a desirable education for a gentleman." He ought to "become acquainted with men and things rather than books." Books must serve only to deepen and widen the knowledge he should get by observation and a free intercourse with those about him. When Virginians wrote, therefore, you might look to find them using, not studied phrases, but a style that smacked fresh of all the free elements of good talk—not like scholars or professed students, but like gentlemen of leisure and cultivated men of affairs—with a subtle, not unpleasing flavor of egotism, and the racy directness of speech, withal, that men may use who are sure of their position. Such was the writing of Robert Beverley, whose History and Present State of Virginia, published in London in 1705, spoke at first hand and authoritatively of affairs of which the world had heard hitherto only by uncertain report. He did not write the manly book because he had a pricking ambition to be an author, but because he loved Virginia, and wished to give such an account of her affairs as would justify his pride in her. He came of an ancient English family, whose ample means were scarcely more considerable in Virginia than they had been in Beverley, in Yorkshire. He had himself been carefully educated in England, and had learned to feel very much at home there; but the attractions of the old home did not wean him from his love of the new, where he had been born—that quiet land where men dealt with one another so frankly, where Nature was so genial in all her moods, and men so without pretence. Official occupations gave him occasion while yet a very young man to handle familiarly the records of the colony, the intimate letters of its daily life, and he took a proud man's pleasure in extracting from them, and from the traditions of those who still carried much of the simple history in their own recollections of a stirring life, a frank and genial story of what had been done and seen in Virginia. And so his book became "the living testimony of a proud and generous Virginian"—too proud to conceal his opinions or withhold censure where it was merited, too generous not to set down very handsomely whatever was admirable and of good report in the life of his people. His own manly character, speaking out everywhere, as it does, in lively phrase and candid meaning, is itself evidence of the wholesome native air he so praises in Virginia.
He thought himself justified in loving a country where "plantations, orchards, and gardens constantly afford fragrant and delightful walks. In their woods and fields they have an unknown variety of vegetables and other rarities of nature to discover and observe. They have hunting, fishing, and fowling, with which they entertain themselves in a thousand ways. Here is the most good nature and hospitality practised in the world, both towards friends and strangers; but the worst of it is this generosity is attended now and then with a little too much intemperance. The neighborhood is at much the same distance as in the country in England, but with this advantage, that all the better sort of people have been abroad and seen the world, by which means they are free from that stiffness and formality which discover more civility than kindness. And besides, the goodness of the roads and the fairness of the weather bring people oftener together."
Of a like quality of genuineness and good breeding is the writing of Colonel William Byrd, the accomplished master of Westover, who was of the same generation. He may well have been the liveliest man in Virginia, so piquant and irrepressible is the humor that runs through almost every sentence he ever wrote. It must be he wrote for pastime. He never took the pains to publish anything. His manuscripts lay buried a hundred years or more in the decent sepulture of private possession ere they were printed, but were even then as quick as when they were written. Beverley had often a grave smile for what he recorded, or a quiet sarcasm of tone in the telling of it. "The militia are the only standing forces in Virginia," he says, very demurely, and "they are happy in the enjoyment of an everlasting peace." But Colonel Byrd is very merry, like a man of sense, not contriving the jest» but only letting it slip, revealing it; looks very shrewdly into things, and very wisely, too, but with an easy eye, a disengaged conscience, keeping tally of the score like one who attends but is not too deeply concerned. He was, in fact, very deeply engaged in all affairs of importance—no man more deeply or earnestly; but when he wrote 'twas not his chief business to speak of that. He was too much of a gentleman and too much of a wit to make grave boast of what he was doing.
No man born in Virginia had a greater property than he, a house more luxuriously appointed, or a part to play more princely; and no man knew the value of position and wealth and social consideration more appreciatively. His breeding had greatly quickened his perception of such things. He had had a long training abroad, had kept very noble company alike in England and on the Continent, had been called to the bar in the Middle Temple and chosen a Fellow of the Royal Society, and so had won his freedom of the world of letters and of affairs. Yet he had returned to Virginia, as all her sons did, with only an added zest to serve and enjoy her. Many designs for her development throve because of his interest and encouragement; he sought her advantage jealously in her Council, as her agent in England, as owner of great tracts of her fertile lands. 'Twas he who brought to her shores some of her best settlers, gave her promise of veritable towns at Richmond and Petersburg, fought arbitrary power wherever it showed itself in her government, and proved himself in every way " a true and worthy inheritor of the feelings and opinions of the old cavaliers of Virginia." But through all his busy life he carried himself like the handsome, fortunate man he was, with a touch of gayety, a gallant spirit of comradeship, a zest for good books, spirited men, and comely women—heartily, like a man who, along with honor, sought the right pleasures of the world.
Nothing daunted the spirits of this manly gentleman, not even rough work at the depths of the forest, upon the public business of determining the southern boundary-line of the colony, or upon the private business of seeing to his own distant properties in North Carolina. It gave him only the better chance to see the world; and he was never at a loss for something to do. There were stray books to be found even in the cabins of the remotest settlers; or, if not, there was the piquant literary gossip of those laughing times of Queen Anne, but just gone by, to rehearse and comment upon. Colonel Byrd was not at a loss to find interesting ways in which even a busy man might make shift to enjoy " the Carolina felicity of having nothing to do." A rough people lived upon that frontier in his day, who showed themselves very anxious to be put upon the southern side of the line; for, if taken into Virginia, " they must have submitted to some sort of order and government; whereas in North Carolina every one does what seems best in his own eyes." "They pay no tribute," he laughs, " either to God or to Caesar." It would not be amiss, he thinks, were the clergy in Virginia, once in two or three years—not to make the thing burdensome —to "take a turn among these gentiles." "'Twould look a little apostolical," he argues, with the characteristic twinkle in his eye, "and they might hope to be requited for it hereafter, if that be not thought too long to tarry for their reward." A stray parson was to be found once and again even at the depths of the forest— on the Virginian side—though to find his humble quarters you must needs thread "a path as narrow as that which leads to heaven, but much