life of Washington and that of Lafayette. We all know how the former was bred in every manly activity, and in the very atmosphere of liberty in its best sense. He was developed evenly. On the other hand, Lafayette was schooled in all the prerequisites of an aristocrat, and when the swift change came, the balance-wheel was insufficient, and he narrowly escaped destruction. The story of Washington's boyhood, hatchet and all, is worthy of our respect. If he had gone to sea as a midshipman at the age of fourteen, when the proposition is said to have been seriously entertained, the beginnings of our country might have been founded on a very different basis. It was at a time when the successes of the English navy excited great enthusiasm, and it should be remembered that Washington's elder brother, Lawrence, served under Admiral Vernon against Carthagena. Mrs. Washington's brother, in London, dissuaded her from giving her consent to the departure of her boy, and the quaint print on opposite page illustrates the imaginary scene, although the most picturesque tradition would have had the young George wearing a midshipman's uniform instead of being dressed by the artist in the clothes of a man of fifty. George Washington Parke Custis says that the mother of Washington prepared him for the distinguished parts he was destined to perform by teaching him first to obey-thus he was the better prepared to command. She was high toned, with great will power, ruling her own household like a queen. She is said to have been of medium size, with a very pleasing countenance. Betty, the sister of Washington, who married Colonel Fielding Lewis, was a majestic-looking woman, and so strikingly like the "Father of his Country" that it was a matter of frolic for the young people to throw a cloak around her, and place a military hat upon her head. As remarked on another page of the current number of this maga zine, Howell Lewis, the eldest son of Mrs. Betty Washington Lewis, became a great favorite with our first President. In that connection, the letter on the following page in fac-simile, from Washington to his sister concerning this nephew, written in 1792 from Philadelphia, is exceedingly interesting.

It seems that Washington always reverted to the scenes of his early life with tender interest and special satisfaction. He was a soldier in his tastes and in his aspirations from his cradle. His favorite amusement in childhood was playing "soldier," and having a mimic war. We know how he could hunt foxes, and something of his genius for surveying, at the age of fifteen; he was but seventeen when he was commissioned surveyor of Culpeper County, in which work he was a singular success, considering his age. What he wrote about his experiences in the wilderness at that time

My dear Sister,

Philadelphia April 8th 1792.

If your son Hewell is living with you, and nerusefully empleyed in your Meniths with me, as a writer in my office if he is fit forit ) Invite aller himat the rate of three Lundred dollars a year, previded Le is diligent indischarging the duties of it from breakfast.

until disser to excepted..

This sum will be punctually paid him and Ian particular indéclaring beforehand what I require, and what he may expect, thal Here may be no disappointment, or false ex pectation on either side. He will live in th family in the same manner his brother Rebart If the offer is acceptable he must hold himself in readiness to come. on immediately upon my giving him Zorice.

I take it for granted that he writes afair Flexible Land, otherwise he would her answer my parpore; as it is for Record ing letters, and other papers Iwant him. That I may be abled to judge of his fetress let him acknowledge the receipt of this letter. with his car hard, and say whether Lewith accept the offer here made hem, orner. If he dias, & I find him qualified from the specimen he geas in his in his letter I wich immediately de:

sirahim to come on which he must do wrth =

out a moments delay, or Ishish be obliged to provide another instead of him. –

M. Washington writes with mech best wishes and love for you and you Iam - My dear sister

is and

Your most affect brother
Washington

[Fac-simile of the original, in possession of Mr. Howell Lewis Lovell, Covington,

Kentucky, the great-grandson of Mrs. Betty Washington Lewis.]

is pleasant reading now. For instance, on March 15, 1748, he records : "Worked hard till night and then returned. After supper we were lighted into a room, and I, not being so good a woodsman as the rest, stripped myself very orderly, and went into the bed, as they called it, when to my surprise I found it to be nothing but a little straw matted together, without a sheet or anything else, but only one threadbare blanket. I was

glad to get up and put on my clothes, and lie as my companions did. Had we not been very tired, I am sure we should not have slept much that night. I made a promise to sleep so no more, choosing rather to sleep in the open air before a fire." Doubtless these rough exposures, fatigues, and expedients were the very best preparation he could have had for military life in a new country. And they must have enlarged his ideas of the condition and geography of the earth. Long years afterward he writes to his step-grandson, Washington Parke Custis, while at Princeton College, on the subject of his studies and general education: "I do not hear you mention anything of geography or mathematics as parts of your study; both these are necessary branches of useful knowledge. Nor ought you to let your knowledge of the Latin language and grammatical rules escape you. And the French language is now so universal, and so necessary with foreigners, or in a foreign country, that I think you would be injudicious not to make yourself master of it."

His

Washington's rich fund of information was a marvel to those who knew him best, but these glimpses along the line of his life-journey explain much of the mystery, and reveal the fact that he cultivated the talent of observation on all occasions and possessed a most retentive memory. fondness for field-sports and horses, together with his natural industry in varied directions and his subsequent discipline, rounded his physical and mental faculties into great symmetry. And thus we find him on the 30th of April, 1789, standing in all the grandeur of his magnificent stature upon the highest pedestal of honor the world has ever known, surrounded by the contemporary greatness of the American continent, and solemnly making the promise which was to start the complex machinery of a government-a special creation-capable of holding forty-two republics in one solid and prosperous whole.

Martha I Lamb

THE DE PEYSTER PORTRAIT OF WASHINGTON

The full-length military portrait, cabinet size, owned by my deceased father, Frederick de Peyster, LL.D., president of the New York Historical Society, is an interesting souvenir, now for the first time engraved. It was originally presented by John Quincy Adams to Carlo Giuseppe Guglielmo Botta, of Italy, author of the "History of American Independence," and my father purchased it of the Botta family, with full credentials of authenticity, Professor Vincenzo Botta, of New York, being the guarantee of the correctness of its chain of title. This picture is now in my possession, with the correspondence establishing its historic associations. The painting is an oval, on copper, twenty-eight and three-quarters by twentyone and one-half inches in size. The figure of Washington is naturally drawn, standing beside a spirited dark-bay horse, with black mane and tail, holding his cocked hat in his left hand, which rests on the croup of the horse, while leaning with his right elbow on the chase of a cannon. The horse has what is known as a flag tail, which is so unusual that it is doubtless the representation of a favorite animal. On the left of the picture are tents and a group of continental soldiers, and on the right a cannon in battery, muzzle to the front; and in the lower right-hand corner is a rock with an inscription not very legible, but which appears to read, "Washington, President of the United States, chosen by 3,000,000 independent votes." In the right rear is a white building with a cupola, which may represent the original federal capital. The height of Washington's figure is fifteen inches, and the face is two and one-half inches long by one and three-quarters broad. The whole picture is very carefully painted. In order to preserve as accurately as possible the features of Washington, the figures and objects on either side of him are necessarily omitted in the engraving-which forms the frontispiece to the present number of this magazine. Peale painted an elaborate background for another portrait of Washington in uniform in 1784, of which he himself writes, "These figures seem to tell the story at first sight."