WORKS.
Essays in Red Book, Swallow Barn, [novel of Virginia life].
Horse-Shoe Robinson, Tale of Tory Ascendancy in South Carolina.
Rob of the Bowl, a Legend of St. Inigoes.
Annals of Quodlibet, [political satires].
Memoirs of the late William Wirt.
Addresses, reports, &c.
Mr. Kennedy’s writings were very popular during his life-time and deserve to be so still, for his three novels give graphic and excellent pictures of their times, and are true in their historical details, while his Memoirs of Wirt are quite as interesting. His “Cousin Lucretia’s” remedy for chills was actually used by his grandmother, Mrs. Pendleton of Virginia (see Tuckerman’s Life of Kennedy); and Horse-Shoe Robinson was a real hero of the Revolution whom Kennedy met in upper South Carolina, 1818.
A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN IN VIRGINIA.
(From Swallow Barn.)
The master of this lordly domain is Frank Meriwether. He is now in the meridian of life—somewhere about forty-five. Good cheer and an easy temper tell well upon him. The first has given him a comfortable, portly figure, and the latter a contemplative turn of mind, which inclines him to be lazy and philosophical.
He has some right to pride himself on his personal appearance, for he has a handsome face, with a dark blue eye and a fine intellectual brow. His head is growing scant of hair on the crown, which induces him to be somewhat particular in the management of his locks in that locality, and these are assuming a decided silvery hue.
It is pleasant to see him when he is going to ride to the Court House on business occasions. He is then apt to make his appearance in a coat of blue broad-cloth, astonishingly glossy, and with an unusual amount of plaited ruffle strutting through the folds of a Marseilles waistcoat. A worshipful finish is given to this costume by a large straw hat, lined with green silk. There is a magisterial fulness in his garments which betokens condition in the world, and a heavy bunch of seals, suspended by a chain of gold, jingles as he moves, pronouncing him a man of superfluities.
. . . . .
I am told he keeps the peace as if he commanded a garrison, and administers justice like a Cadi.