nial settlements, as to be afterwards induced to purchase that for himself, by receiving it as an equivalent for claims due to his father, admiral Penn."

Certainly, the great founder of our state does not seem to have possessed the violent propensities of his predecessors in regard to names, for it was with some difficulty that it got any at all. The fine appellations of Indians, Dutch, and Swedes, do not appear to have been thought of for a moment; and had it not been for king Charles himself, it is by no means improbable that we might still have been obliged to call on the legislature at Harrisburg (the same having been first instructed thereon by a legislative caucus), to christen the country which they rule so well.

"I chose," says William Penn, in a private letter to Robert Turner, "New Wales, being, as this, a pretty hilly country; but Penn, being Welsh for a head, -as Penmanmoire in Wales, and Penrith in Cumberland, and Penn in Buckinghamshire, the highest land in England,-they called this Pennsylvania, which is the high or head woodlands, for I proposed (when the Secretary, a Welchman, refused to have it called New Wales,) Sylvania, and they added Penn to it; and though I much opposed it, and went to the king to have it struck out and altered, he said, 'twas past, and would take it upon him; nor would twenty guineas move the under secretaries to vary the name,-for I feared least it should be looked on as a vanity in me, and not as a respect in the king, as it truly was, to my father, whom he often mentions with praise."

In regard to the name of the good city of Philadelphia, we cannot do better than give the pertinent remarks of our author himself, fully participating with him in all his philanthropic and fraternal sentiments.

"The very name of Philadelphia is impressive, as importing in its original Greek sense-brotherly love: thus giving to the original place the peculiarly characteristic trait of unity of interests and purposes, i. e. the City of brotherly love.' Long may its society constitute a brotherhood never to be broken,-clinging together in mutual interests and combined efforts for the general and enduring good! If it had in its origin that love among its members, which so distinguished the fraternal regard of Attalus and Eumenes, as to give the name of Philadelphia to the place honoured by their mutual attachment,—so may it also be blessed with the ancient church of its name, in ever having its civil and religious privileges inscribed in divine sanctions as free as hers, to wit: 'I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it !'"

After naming a new province, and the capital city thereof, the next things naturally are to build a prison and to make laws. Accordingly, we learn, that on the sixteenth of the eleventh month, 1682, William Clayton, one of the provincial council, was directed to build a cage against the next council day, of seven feet long by five feet broad:-why it was wanted "by the next council day," does not appear from any thing mentioned by our author, though certainly the very particular designation of the time would seem to indicate a mysterious cause, well worthy of his future inquiries. It is also to be noted, from the size and character of the edifice, that no attention whatever seems to have been paid to the separate confinement, and proper classification

of the prisoners, circumstances which it is well known are at the present day absolutely necessary. What in the world, too, they did in a building seven feet by five, for rooms to be washed in, to go to church in, and to read tracts in, we are utterly at a loss to conceive. Indeed, this primitive penitentiary did not long suit our philanthropic forefathers, for in three years we find that "they hired half of Patrick Robinson's house," which made so admirable a place of security and reform, that the high sheriff declared in court, "that if any escapes occurred, he would not blame the county for want of a jail, nor for the insufficiency of said house"-its security indeed may be well believed, for our author informs us that "it was made of four inch poplar plank, dovetailed at the corners ;" and doubtless reflecting on the thick stone walls which compose our present prisons, he aptly quotes "the saying of old Isaac Parrish to Judge M'Kean-times are changed indeed-formerly wood was sufficient for confinement; but now stone itself is no match for the rogues!" Ah! what would old Isaac Parrish have said, had he lived to see the turrets, the battlements, the arched corridors, the iron bedsteads, the feeding holes, the whispering galleries, and the watch-towers now destined to save the eastern district of Pennsylvania from a pickpocket or a highwayman?

The laws of our worthy forefathers bore the same proportion to those of our own times that their jails did. The first assembly, which met at Upland, sat three days, and passed one law! consisting of sixty-one subjects; and these subjects, how different from those which now puzzle the brains of statesmen !-one was "against the drinking of healths," another, "against spreaders of false news," and another, "against clamorous persons, scolders, and railers!"-and that the wise lessons they proclaimed and enforced might be instilled deeply in the minds of the people, these excellent laws were to be made up in the form of school-books, or of such tracts as those by which the "A. S. S. Union" now enlightens mankind, and read as occasional lessons in schools. Wisely does our author ask-"Ah! what would our boys think of our modern statute books, if read in lieu of Esop's Fables!"

The "facts and occurrences of the primitive settlement," mentioned by our author, are in full accordance with the simplicity of the times, as shown in the size of the jail, and the number and nature of the laws. A praiseworthy diligence in their collection and preservation has been displayed, and the careful manner in which the genealogy of many of the traditions is assured, guaranties the faith which it is so delightful to repose in them. Thus we have at length the history of "a silver tureen of Mrs. Deborah Morris, which was once a sugar box, supplied with the addition of handles," as it was told by "Mrs. Nancar

ro, who had herself taken soup out of that tureen." This history we should like to insert as an American counterpart to that of the celebrated Trojan sceptre, whose descent among the gods and heroes of Homeric times, forms so interesting an episode in the Iliad. It is, however, somewhat too long, and we shall merely add our grief to the author's, at the sacrilege which has been committed on so venerable a relic of the days of William Penn.

"This silver tureen," he informs us, "deservedly so interesting for its association of good thoughts, descended through her nephew, Samuel Morris, and thence to his son, Benjamin W. Morris, who, having moved away from Philadelphia, and from Philadelphia feelings it is presumed, so far lost sight of the words of the will, (which said, 'I hope and desire to keep them in the family,') that he has had it melted down to convert into some other vessels of more modern aspect! Should page of mine ever meet his eye, I could at least wish him to feel some portion of my regrets!"

Nor were the times of our ancestors wanting in deeds of romance, even among the staid followers of the proprietary himself. While Chesnut street was yet a forest, and Water street and Dock square were the scenes of incipient fashion-while belles, unversed in the mysteries of French bonnets and sleeves, deemed themselves sufficiently gay in the less brilliant, but perhaps not less elaborate costume of the Quaker sect-we learn from our author that Jersey was a Gretna Green, whither gallant swains and yielding damsels fled to more auspicious temples of Hymen. We have the history of an elopement a hundred and twenty years ago, which afforded an abundant topic for the gossip of our ancestors when they assembled at their fashionable tea-parties at five o'clock in the afternoon.

"Colonel Coxe, the grandfather of the late Tench Coxe, Esq. made an elopement in his youth with an heiress, Sarah Eckley, a Friend. What was singular in their case, was, that they were married in the woods in Jersey by fire light, by the chaplain of lord Cornbury, the then governor of New-Jersey. The meeting of the chaplain there seemed to have been accidental. The fact gave some scandal to the serious friends of her family. A letter of Margaret Preston, of 1707, which I have seen, thus describes her umbrage at the fact, saying: The news of Sarah Eckley's marriage is both sorrowful and surprising, with one colonel Coxe, a fine flaunting gentleman, said to be worth a great deal of money. His sister Trent was supposed to have promoted the match. Her other friends were ignorant of the match. It took place in the absence of her uncle and aunt Hill, between two and three in the morning, on the Jersey side, under a tree by fire light. They have since proselyted her."

ووو

The intercourse with the natives was at that early period on the most familar footing, and nothing more beautifully or clearly displays the success of William Penn's benevolent policy, than the harmony which subsisted between the Indians and settlers; not harmony alone, indeed, but that constant domestic and social communication which indicated an entire absence of fear or sense of danger on the one part, and that full and undoubting faith, that reliance on benevolent expressions, that sense of justice in all transactions, which certainly are not exhibited in the

history of these relations among the other colonies, nor were in this at a remoter period-even when an observance of the strict and absolute rights of the savages, as guarantied by the laws, was supposed and intended. We find in this volume, a scene taken from the narrative of Mrs. Preston, an aged lady, at whose wedding the proprietary himself, and many Indians, were present.

"William Penn, she used to say, was very sociable, and freely gave the Indians friendly advice. She described him as of short stature, but the handsomest, best looking, lively gentleman, she had ever seen. There was nothing like pride about him, but affable and friendly with the humblest in life.

"After their marriage they went to Wiccaco; her husband there made up frocks, trowsers and moccosins of deer skins, for the Swedes, &c. there; after a time, the little settlement was burnt out, by being surrounded by fire in the woods. They went then, on the invitation of friendly Indians, to Hollekonck, in Buckingham. Both her and her husband, Amos Preston, spoke Indian readily. She even served as interpreter at an Indian treaty at Hollekonck.

"She said, at the news of Penn's arrival in the province, she had gone down from Neshamny creek (where she then lived) with others to get to see him; the Indians and Swedes also went along. They met with him at or near the present Philadelphia. The Indians, as well as the whites, had severally prepared the best entertainment the place and circumstances could admit. William Penn made himself endeared to the Indians by his marked condescension and acquiescence in their wishes. He walked with them, sat with them on the ground, and ate with them of their roasted acorns and homony. At this they expressed their great delight, and soon began to show how they could hop and jump; at which exhibition William Penn, to cap the climax, sprang up and beat them all! We are not prepared to credit such light gaiety in a sage governor and religious chief; but we have the positive assertion of a woman of truth, who said she saw it. There may have been very wise policy in the measure as an act of conciliation, worth more than a regiment of sharp-shooters. He was then sufficiently young for any agility; and we remember that one of the old journalists among the Friends speaks of him as having naturally an excess of levity of spirit for a grave minister. We give the fact, however, as we got it. It is by gathering up such facts of difficult belief, that we sometimes preserve the only means of unravelling at some later day, a still greater mystery. Sometimes an old song or legendary tale confirms the whole. A peasant's song prolongs the dubious tale!""

We may remark, that our author seems so well pleased with this story of the agility of William Penn, that he has recorded it twice at full length-a circumstance by no means limited to this one incident; for we find him, on several occasions, repeating facts, which, though doubtless worth the labour of collecting once, can scarcely be deemed of sufficient importance to be fixed in our recollections by reiterated perusal. A little attention on this point, might have somewhat diminished the seven hundred and forty pages which lie before us.

The residence of William Penn, is, of course, a subject of too much interest to be omitted, and in addition to one or two regular dissertations on the matter, it is introduced incidentally on various occasions. Those acquainted with the good city of Philadelphia, must doubtless have seen the low two story house of Mr. Doyle in Lætitia court, where (proh pudor!) the likeness of William Penn figures as the sign of a tavern, and points

out to the inquisitive, the abode of the patriarch in the primitive times. We think, however, that our author has effectually demolished all title (notwithstanding the sign) which that venerable mansion might have to the honour of being the dwelling of the proprietary. After the perusal of the chapter especially devoted to the subject, we must give our vote, with our author, in favour of the building next door. The feelings which that venerable edifice is calculated to excite in the breast of an admirer of antiquity, are best expressed in his words;—we should attempt in vain to rival them.

"It may possibly be deemed over-fanciful in me to express a wish to have this primitive house purchased by our Penn Association, and consecrated to future renown. I hope indeed the idea will yet generate in the breasts of some of my fellow members the real poetry of the subject. It is all intellectual; and has had its warrant (if required) in numerous precedents abroad. We may now see written upon Melancthon's house in Wirtenburg. Here lived and died Melancthon!' In the same city are still preserved 'Luther's room,' his chair, table, and stove; and at Eisleben is seen a small house, bought and preserved by the king of Prussia, inscribed, 'This is the house in which Luther was born.' Petrarch's house is not suffered to be altered. Such things, in every country, every intelligent traveller seeks out with avidity. Why, therefore, should we not retain for public exhibition the primitive house of Penn? Yea, whose foundation constituted the first cellar dug in Philadelphia!' To proper minds, the going into the alley and narrow court to find the hallowed spot (now so humble) should constitute its chiefest interest. It would be the actual contrast between the beginning and the progress of our city.

"Its exterior walls I would preserve with inviolate faithfulness; and within those walls (wherein space is ample, if partitions were removed) might be an appropriate and highly characteristic place of meeting for the ordinary business of the Penn Association and the Historical Society, and also for the exhibition of such paintings and relics as could now be obtained,-such as Penn's clock, his escritoir, writing table, &c. besides several articles to be had of some families, of curiously constructed furniture of the primitive days. The hint is thus given-will any now support the idea?”

In a similar strain of feeling, originality, and eloquence, we find him indulging, two pages after, when he comes to speak of "the slate-roof house," where the founder resided during his second visit to Philadelphia.

"To that house, therefore, humble, degenerated, and altered in aspect as it now is, we are to appropriate all our conceptions of Penn's employments, meditations, hopes, fears, &c. while acting as governor and proprietary among us. In those doors he went in and out-up and down those stairs he passed-in those chambers he reposed-in those parlours he dined or regaled his friends—through those garden grounds they sauntered. His wife, his daughter Lætitia, his family, and his servants, were there. In short, to those who can think and feel, the place is filled with local impressions.' Such a house should be rescued from its present forlorn neglect ; it ought to be bought and consecrated to some lasting memorial of its former character, by restoring its bastions and salient angles, &c. It would be to the character of such societies as the Historical and Penn Association, &c. to club their means to preserve it for their chambers, &c. as long as themselves and the city may endure! There is a moral influence in these measures that implies and effects much more in its influence on national action and feeling, than can reach the apprehension of superficial thinkers; who can only estimate its value by their conception of so much brick and mortar! It was