We have read Mr. Paulding's Life of Washington with a degree of interest seldom excited in us by the perusal of any book whatever. We are convinced by a deliberate examination of the design, manner, and rich material of the work, that, as it grows in age, it will grow in the estimation of our countrymen, and, finally, will not fail to take a deeper hold upon the public mind, and upon the public affections, than any work upon the same subject, or of a similar nature, which has been yet written—or, possibly, which may be written hereafter. Indeed, we cannot perceive the necessity of any thing farther upon the great theme of Washington. Mr. Paulding has completely and most beautifully filled the vacuum which the works of Marshall and Sparks have left open. He has painted the boy, the man, the husband, and the Christian. He has introduced us to the private affections, aspirations, and charities of that hero whose affections of all affections were the most serene, whose aspirations the most God-like, and whose charities the most gentle and pure. He has taken us abroad with the patriot-farmer in his rambles about his homestead. He has seated us in his study and shown us the warrior-Christian in unobtrusive communion with his God. He has done all this too, and more, in a simple and quiet manner, in a manner peculiarly his own, and which mainly because it is his own, cannot fail to be exceedingly effective. Yet it is very possible that the public may, for many years to come, overlook the rare merits of a work whose want of arrogant assumption is so little in keeping with the usages of the day, and whose striking simplicity and naiveté of manner give, to a cursory examination, so little evidence of the labor of composition. We have no fears, however, for the future. Such books as these before us, go down to posterity like rich wines, with a certainty of being more valued as they go. They force themselves with the gradual but rapidly accumulating power of strong wedges into the hearts and understandings of a community.
From the preface we learn, that shortly after the conclusion of the late war, Mr. Paulding resided for several years in the city of Washington, and that his situation bringing him into familiar intercourse with "many respectable and some distinguished persons" who had been associated with the Father of his Country, the idea was then first conceived of writing a Life of that great man which should more directly appeal to the popular feeling of the land, than any one previously attempted. With this intent, he lost no opportunity of acquiring information, from all authentic sources within his reach, of the private life, habits and peculiarities of his subject. We learn too that the work thus early proposed was never banished from the mind of the author. The original intention, however, was subsequently modified, with a view of adapting the book to the use of schools, and "generally to that class of readers who have neither the means of purchasing, nor the leisure to read a larger and more expensive publication." Much of the information concerning the domestic life of Washington was derived immediately from his cotemporaries, and from the "present most estimable lady who is now in possession of Mount Vernon." In detailing the events of the Revolution, the author has principally consulted the public and private letters of Washington.
The rich abundance of those delightful anecdotes and memorials of the private man which render a book of this nature invaluable—an abundance which has hardly more delighted than astonished us—is the prevailing feature of Mr. Paulding's Washington. We proceed, without apology, to copy for the benefit of our readers such as most immediately present themselves.
Although it is of little consequence who were the distant ancestors of a man who, by common consent, is hailed as the Father of his Country, yet any particulars concerning his family cannot but be a subject of curiosity. In all my general reading I have only chanced to meet with the name of Washington three or four times in the early history and literature of England. In the diary of Elias Ashmole, founder of the Ashmolean Museum, are the following entries:—
"June 12th, 1645. I entered on my command as comptroller of the ordnance."
"June 18th. I received my commission from Colonel Washington."
Hume, in his account of the siege of Bristol, has the following passage:—"One party led by Lord Grandison was beaten off and its commander himself mortally wounded. Another, conducted by Colonel Bellasis, met with a like fate. But Washington, with a less party, finding a place in the curtain weaker than the rest, broke in, and quickly made room for the horse to follow." This was in 1643. Five years afterwards, that deluded monarch, Charles I., suffered the just consequences of his offences against the majesty of the people of England, and from that time the cause of royalty appeared desperate. The more distinguished and obnoxious adherents of the Stuarts exiled themselves in foreign lands, and the date of the supposed arrival of the first Washington in Virginia, accords well with the supposition that he may have been the same person mentioned by Ashmole and Hume. In an old collection of poetry, by Sir John Menzies2 and others, there is a fine copy of verses to the memory of Mr. Washington, page to the king, who died in Spain. In the year 1640, William Legge, Earl of Dartmouth, married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Washington. But the name and family of Washington are now extinct in the land of our forefathers. When General Washington was about making his will, he caused inquiries to be instituted, being desirous to leave some memorial to all his relations. The result was a conviction that none of the family existed in that country. But the topic is rather curious than important. The subject of this biography could receive little additional dignity through a descent from the most illustrious families of Christendom. He stands alone in the pure atmosphere of his own glory. He derived no title to honors from his ancestry, and left no child but his country to inherit his fame.
2 Perhaps Mennes—Ed.
The house in which Washington was born stood about half a mile from the junction of Pope's Creek with the Potomac, and was either burned or pulled down long previous to the revolution. A few scanty relics alone remain to mark the spot which will ever be sacred in the eyes of posterity. A clump of old decayed fig trees, probably coeval with the mansion, yet exists; a number of vines, and shrubs, and flowers still reproduce themselves every year as if to mark its site, and flourish among the hallowed ruins; and a stone, placed there by Mr. George Washington Custis, bears the simple inscription, "Here, on the 11th of February," (O.S.) "1732, George Washington was born."
The spot is of the deepest interest, not only from its associations, but its natural beauties. It commands a view of the Maryland shore of the Potomac, one of the most majestic of rivers, and of its course for many miles towards Chesapeake Bay. An aged gentleman, still living in the neighborhood, remembers the house in which Washington was born. It was a low pitched, single-storied, frame building, with four rooms on the first floor and an enormous chimney at each end on the outside. This was the style of the better sort of houses in those days, and they are still occasionally seen in the old settlements of Virginia.