The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 05, No. 31, May, 1860

Feeling her desolation, wild, melancholy, forsaken songs rose thereon from that frightful aerie,—weeping, wailing tunes, that sob among the people from age to age, and overflow with otherwise unexpressed sadness,—all rude, mournful ballads,—old tearful strains, that Shakspeare heard the vagrants sing, and that rise and fall like the wind and tide,—sailor-songs, to be heard only in lone mid-watches beneath the moon and stars,—ghastly rhyming romances, such as that famous one of the "Lady Margaret," when

 
"She slipped on her gown of green
A piece below the knee,—
And 'twas all a long, cold winter's night
A dead corse followed she."
 

Still the beast lay with closed eyes, yet never relaxing his grasp. Once a half-whine of enjoyment escaped him,—he fawned his fearful head upon her; once he scored her cheek with his tongue: savage caresses that hurt like wounds. How weary she was! and yet how terribly awake! How fuller and fuller of dismay grew the knowledge that she was only prolonging her anguish and playing with death! How appalling the thought that with her voice ceased her existence! Yet she could not sing forever; her throat was dry and hard; her very breath was a pain; her mouth was hotter than any desert-worn pilgrim's;—if she could but drop upon her burning tongue one atom of the ice that glittered about her!—but both of her arms were pinioned in the giant's vice. She remembered the winding-sheet, and for the first time in her life shivered with spiritual fear. Was it hers? She asked herself, as she sang, what sins she had committed, what life she had led, to find her punishment so soon and in these pangs,—and then she sought eagerly for some reason why her husband was not up and abroad to find her. He failed her,—her one sole hope in life; and without being aware of it, her voice forsook the songs of suffering and sorrow for old Covenanting hymns,—hymns with which her mother had lulled her, which the class-leader pitched in the chimney-corners,—grand and sweet Methodist hymns, brimming with melody and with all fantastic involutions of tune to suit that ecstatic worship,—hymns full of the beauty of holiness, steadfast, relying, sanctified by the salvation they had lent to those in worse extremity than hers,—for they had found themselves in the grasp of hell, while she was but in the jaws of death. Out of this strange music, peculiar to one character of faith, and than which there is none more beautiful in its degree nor owning a more potent sway of sound, her voice soared into the glorified chants of churches. What to her was death by cold or famine or wild beasts? "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him," she sang. High and clear through the frore fair night, the level moonbeams splintering in the wood, the scarce glints of stars in the shadowy roof of branches, these sacred anthems rose,—rose as a hope from despair, as some snowy spray of flower-bells from blackest mould. Was she not in God's hands? Did not the world swing at His will? If this were in His great plan of providence, was it not best, and should she not accept it?

"He is the Lord our God; His judgments are in all the earth."

Oh, sublime faith of our fathers, where utter self-sacrifice alone was true love, the fragrance of whose unrequired subjection was pleasant as that of golden censers swung in purple-vapored chancels!

Never ceasing in the rhythm of her thoughts, articulated in music as they thronged, the memory of her first communion flashed over her. Again she was in that distant place on that sweet spring morning. Again the congregation rustled out, and the few remained, and she trembled to find herself among them.

How well she remembered the devout, quiet faces; too accustomed to the sacred feast to glow with their inner joy! how well the snowy linen at the altar, the silver vessels slowly and silently shifting! and as the cup approached and passed, how the sense of delicious perfume stole in and heightened the transport of her prayer, and she had seemed, looking up through the windows where the sky soared blue in constant freshness, to feel all heaven's balms dripping from the portals, and to scent the lilies of eternal peace! Perhaps another would not have felt so much ecstasy as satisfaction on that occasion; but it is a true, if a later disciple, who has said, "The Lord bestoweth his blessings there, where he findeth the vessels empty."—"And does it need the walls of a church to renew my communion?" she asked. "Does not every moment stand a temple four-square to God? And in that morning, with its buoyant sunlight, was I any dearer to the Heart of the World than now?" "My beloved is mine, and I am his," she sang over and over again, with all varied inflection and profuse tune. How gently all the winter-wrapt things bent toward her then! into what relation with her had they grown! how this common dependence was the spell of their intimacy! how at one with Nature had she become! how all the night and the silence and the forest seemed to hold its breath, and to send its soul up to God in her singing! It was no longer despondency, that singing. It was neither prayer nor petition. She had left imploring, "How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord?" "Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death!" "For in death there is no remembrance of thee";—with countless other such fragments of supplication. She cried rather, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me";—and lingered, and repeated, and sang again, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness."

Then she thought of the Great Deliverance, when he drew her up out of many waters, and the flashing old psalm pealed forth triumphantly:—

 
"The Lord descended from above,
and bow'd the heavens hie;
And underneath his feet he cast
the darknesse of the skie.
On cherubs and on cherubins
full royally he road:
And on the wings of all the winds
came flying all abroad."
 

She forgot how recently, and with what a strange pity for her own shapeless form that was to be, she had quaintly sung,—

 
"Oh, lovely appearance of death!
What sight upon earth is so fair?
Not all the gay pageants that breathe
Can with a dead body compare!"
 

She remembered instead,—"In thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore"; and, "God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me"; "He will swallow up death in victory." Not once now did she say, "Lord, how long wilt thou look on? rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling from the lions"—for she knew that "the young lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God." "O Lord, thou preservest man and beast!" she said.

She had no comfort or consolation in this season, such as sustained the Christian martyrs in the amphitheatre. She was not dying for her faith; there were no palms in heaven for her to wave; but how many a time had she declared,—"I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness!" And as the broad rays here and there broke through the dense covert of shade and lay in rivers of lustre on crystal sheathing and frozen fretting of trunk and limb and on the great spaces of refraction, they builded up visibly that house, the shining city on the hill, and singing, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the sides of the North, the city of the Great King," her vision climbed to that higher picture where the angel shows the dazzling thing, the holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, with its splendid battlements and gates of pearls, and its foundations, the eleventh a jacinth, the twelfth an amethyst,—with its great white throne, and the rainbow round about it, in sight like unto an emerald:—"And there shall be no night there,—for the Lord God giveth them light," she sang.

What whisper of dawn now rustled through the wilderness? How the night was passing! And still the beast crouched upon the bough, changing only the posture of his head, that again he might command her with those charmed eyes;—half their fire was gone; she could almost have released herself from his custody; yet, had she stirred, no one knows what malevolent instinct might have dominated anew. But of that she did not dream; long ago stripped of any expectation, she was experiencing in her divine rapture how mystically true it is that "he that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."

Slow clarion cries now wound from the distance as the cocks caught the intelligence of day and reechoed it faintly from farm to farm,—sleepy sentinels of night, sounding the foe's invasion, and translating that dim intuition to ringing notes of warning. Still she chanted on. A remote crash of brushwood told of some other beast on his depredations, or some night-belated traveller groping his way through the narrow path. Still she chanted on. The far, faint echoes of the chanticleers died into distance,—the crashing of the branches grew nearer. No wild beast that, but a man's step,—a man's form in the moonlight, stalwart and strong,—on one arm slept a little child, in the other hand he held his gun. Still she chanted on.

Perhaps, when her husband last looked forth, he was half ashamed to find what a fear he felt for her. He knew she would never leave the child so long but for some direst need,—and yet he may have laughed at himself, as he lifted and wrapped it with awkward care, and, loading his gun and strapping on his horn, opened the door again and closed it behind him, going out and plunging into the darkness and dangers of the forest. He was more singularly alarmed than he would have been willing to acknowledge; as he had sat with his bow hovering over the strings, he had half believed to hear her voice mingling gayly with the instrument, till he paused and listened if she were not about to lift the latch and enter. As he drew nearer the heart of the forest, that intimation of melody seemed to grow more actual, to take body and breath, to come and go on long swells and ebbs of the night-breeze, to increase with tune and words, till a strange, shrill singing grew ever clearer, and, as he stepped into an open space of moonbeams, far up in the branches, rocked by the wind, and singing, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace," he saw his wife,—his wife,—but, great God in heaven! how? Some mad exclamation escaped him, but without diverting her. The child knew the singing voice, though never heard before in that unearthly key, and turned toward it through the veiling dreams. With a celerity almost instantaneous, it lay, in the twinkling of an eye, on the ground at the father's feet, while his gun was raised to his shoulder and levelled at the monster covering his wife with shaggy form and flaming gaze,—his wife so ghastly white, so rigid, so stained with blood, her eyes so fixedly bent above, and her lips, that had indurated into the chiselled pallor of marble, parted only with that flood of solemn song.

I do not know if it were the mother-instinct that for a moment lowered her eyes,—those eyes, so lately riveted on heaven, now suddenly seeing all life-long bliss possible. A thrill of joy pierced and shivered through her like a weapon, her voice trembled in its course, her glance lost its steady strength, fever-flushes chased each other over her face, yet she never once ceased chanting. She was quite aware, that, if her husband shot now, the ball must pierce her body before reaching any vital part of the beast,—and yet better that death, by his hand, than the other. But this her husband also knew, and he remained motionless, just covering the creature with the sight. He dared not fire, lest some wound not mortal should break the spell exercised by her voice, and the beast, enraged with pain, should rend her in atoms; moreover, the light was too uncertain for his aim. So he waited. Now and then he examined his gun to see if the damp were injuring its charge, now and then he wiped the great drops from his forehead. Again the cocks crowed with the passing hour,—the last time they were heard on that night. Cheerful home sound then, how full of safety and all comfort and rest it seemed! what sweet morning incidents of sparkling fire and sunshine, of gay household bustle, shining dresser, and cooing baby, of steaming cattle in the yard, and brimming milk-pails at the door! what pleasant voices! what laughter! what security! and here–

Now, as she sang on in the slow, endless, infinite moments, the fervent vision of God's peace was gone. Just as the grave had lost its sting, she was snatched back again into the arms of earthly hope. In vain she tried to sing, "There remaineth a rest for the people of God,"—her eyes trembled on her husband's, and she could think only of him, and of the child, and of happiness that yet might be, but with what a dreadful gulf of doubt between! She shuddered now in the suspense; all calm forsook her; she was tortured with dissolving heats or frozen with icy blasts; her face contracted, growing small and pinched; her voice was hoarse and sharp,—every tone cut like a knife,—the notes became heavy to lift,—withheld by some hostile pressure,—impossible. One gasp, a convulsive effort, and there was silence,—she had lost her voice.

The beast made a sluggish movement,—stretched and fawned like one awaking,—then, as if he would have yet more of the enchantment, stirred her slightly with his muzzle. As he did so, a sidelong hint of the man standing below with the raised gun smote him; he sprung round furiously, and, seizing his prey, was about to leap into some unknown airy den of the topmost branches now waving to the slow dawn. The late moon had rounded through the sky so that her gleam at last fell full upon the bough with fairy frosting; the wintry morning light did not yet penetrate the gloom. The woman, suspended in mid-air an instant, cast only one agonized glance beneath,—but across and through it, ere the lids could fall, shot a withering sheet of flame,—a rifle-crack, half heard, was lost in the terrible yell of desperation that bounded after it and filled her ears with savage echoes, and in the wide arc of some eternal descent she was falling;—but the beast fell under her. I think that the moment following must have been too sacred for us, and perhaps the three have no special interest again till they issue from the shadows of the wilderness upon the white hills that skirt their home. The father carries the child hushed again into slumber; the mother follows with no such feeble step as might be anticipated,—and as they slowly climb the steep under the clear gray sky and the paling morning star, she stops to gather a spray of the red-rose berries or a feathery tuft of dead grasses for the chimney-piece of the log-house, or a handful of brown ones for the child's play,—and of these quiet, happy folk you would scarcely dream how lately they had stolen from under the banner and encampment of the great King Death. The husband proceeds a step or two in advance; the wife lingers over a singular foot-print in the snow, stoops and examines it, then looks up with a hurried word. Her husband stands alone on the hill, his arms folded across the babe, his gun fallen,—stands defined against the pallid sky like a bronze. What is there in their home, lying below and yellowing in the light, to fix him with such a stare? She springs to his side. There is no home there. The log-house, the barns, the neighboring farms, the fences, are all blotted out and mingled in one smoking ruin. Desolation and death were indeed there, and beneficence and life in the forest. Tomahawk and scalping-knife, descending during that night, had left behind them only this work of their accomplished hatred and one subtle foot-print in the snow.

For the rest,—the world was all before them, where to choose.

* * * * *

URANIA

 
Hast thou forgotten whose thou art?
To what high service consecrate?
I gave thee not a noble heart
To wed with such ignoble fate.
 
 
I found thee where the laurels grow
Around the lonely Delphian shrine;
There, where the sacred fountains flow,
I found thee, and I made thee mine.
 
 
I gave thy soul to agony,
And strange unsatisfied desire,
That thou mightst dearer be to me,
And worthier of thy burning lyre.
 
 
O child, thy fate had made thee God,
To thee such powers divine were given;
The paths of fire thou mightst have trod
Had led thee to the stars of heaven.
 
 
And those who in the early dawn
Of beauty sat and sang of day,
Deep in their twilight shades withdrawn,
Had heard thy coming far away,—
 
 
With haunting music sweet and strange,
And airs ambrosial blown before,
Vague breathings of the floral change
That glorifies the hills of yore:
 
 
Had felt the joy those only find
Who in their secret souls have known
The mystery of the poet mind
That through all beauty feels its own:
 
 
Had felt the God within them rise
To meet thy radiant soul divine;
Had searched with their prophetic eyes
The midnight luminous of thine.
 
 
So fondly did Urania deem!
So proudly did she prophesy!
Oh, ruin of a noble dream
She thought too glorious to die!
 
 
Nor knew thy passionate songs of yore
Were as a promise unfulfilled,—
A stately portal set before
The palace thou shall never build!
 
 
For is it come to this, at last?
And thou forever must remain
A godlike statue, formed and cast
In marble attitude of pain,—
 
 
Proud lips that in their scorn are mute,
And haunting eyes of anguished love,
One hand that grasps a silent lute,
And one convulsèd hand above
 
 
That will not strike? Ah, scorn and shame!
Shame for the apostate unforgiven,
Beholding an unconquered fame
In undiscovered fields of heaven!
 
 
For Beauty not by one alone
In her completeness is revealed:
The smiles and tears her face hath shown
To thee from others are concealed.
 
 
Men see not in the midnight sky
All miracles she worketh there:
It is the blindness of the eye
That paints its darkness on the air.
 
 
Two friends who wander by the shore
Look not upon the selfsame seas,
Hearing two voices in the roar,
Because of different memories.
 
 
For him whose love the sea hath drowned,
It moans the music of his wrong;
For him whose life with love is crowned,
It breaks upon the beach in song.
 
 
So dreaming not another's dream,
But still interpreting thine own,
By woodland wild and quiet stream
Thou wanderest in the world alone.
 
 
Then what thou slayest none can save:
Silent and dark oblivion rolls
Over the glory in the grave
Of fierce and suicidal souls.
 
 
From that dark wave no pleading ghost
With pointing hand shall ever rise,
To say,—The world hath treasure lost,
And here the buried treasure lies!
 
 
Beware, and yet beware! my fear
Unfolds a vision in the gloom
Of Beauty borne upon her bier,
And Darkness crouching in the tomb.
 
 
Beware, and yet beware! her end
Is thine; or else, her shadowy hearse
Beside, thy spirit shall descend
The vast sepulchral universe,
 
 
And, with the passion that remains
In desolated hearts, implore
The spectre sitting bound in chains
To yield what he shall not restore:—
 
 
The mystery whose soul divine
Breathed love, and only love, on thee;
Which better far had not been thine,
Than, having been, to cease to be.
 

MARY SOMERVILLE

There have been in every age a few women of genius who have become the successful rivals of man in the paths which they have severally chosen. Three instances are of our time. Mrs. Browning is called a poet even by poets; the artists admit that Rosa Bonheur is a painter; and the mathematicians accord to Mary Somerville a high rank among themselves.

"In pure mathematics," said Humboldt, "Mrs. Somerville is strong." Of no other woman of the age could the remark have been made; and this would probably be true, were the walks of science as marked by the feminine footprint as are those of literature. To read mathematical works is an easy task; the formula can be learned and their meaning apprehended: to read the most profound of them, with such appreciation that one stands side by side with the great minds who originated them, requires a higher order of intellect; and far-reaching indeed is that which, pondering in the study on a few phenomena known by observation, develops the theory of worlds, traces back for ages their history, and sketches the outline of their future destiny.

Caroline Herschel, the sister of Sir William, was doubtless gifted with much of the Herschel talent, and, under other circumstances, her mind might have turned to original research; but she belonged rather to the last century, and Hanover was not a region favorable to intellectual efforts in her sex. She lived the life of a simple-hearted, truth-loving woman; most worthy of the name she bore, she made notes for her brother, she swept the heavens and found comets for him, she computed and tabulated his observations; it seems never to have occurred to her to be other than the patient, helping sister of a truly great man.

Mrs. Somerville's life has been more individual. She is the daughter of Admiral Fairfax, and was born in Fifeshire, Scotland, December 26, 1780, in the house of her uncle, the father of her present husband.

The home training and the school education of the daughters of Great Britain are very unlike those of their American sisters. The manners and customs of the Old World change so slowly, that one can scarcely assent to a remark made by Sir John Herschel:—"The Englishman sticks to his old ways, but is not cemented to them." The Englishwoman submits to authority from her infancy; belonging to the middle class, she does not expect the higher education of the nobility; a woman, she is not supposed to desire to enter into the studies of her brothers. A governess, generally the daughter of a curate, who prefers this position to that of "companion" to a fine lady, is provided for her in her early years. If the choice be fortunate and the parents watchful, the young girl is thoroughly taught in a few branches of what are commonly considered feminine studies. She learns to read and to speak French; tutors are employed for music and drawing: every young lady above the rank of the tradesman's daughter plays well upon the piano; every one has her portfolio of drawings, in which sketches from Nature can always be found, and frequently the family portraits. The history of the country is considered a study suitable for girls; the Englishman expects that his daughter shall know something of the past, of which he is so justly proud.

But the more solid book-learning given to the girls of New England, even in the public schools, is known only to the daughters of the higher classes, and among them an instance like that of Lady Jane Grey could scarcely now be found. As the girls and boys are never taught in the same schools, no taste is aroused by the example of manly studies. An English girl is astonished to hear that an American girl passes a public examination, like her brothers, and with them competes for prizes; she doubts the truthfulness of some of the representations of life found in American novels; and so little is the freedom of manners understood, that the American traveller is frequently asked,—"Can it really be as Mrs. Stowe represents in America? Does a young lady really give a party herself?"

The difference that one would expect is found between the women of England or Scotland and the women of New England. The young Englishwoman is tasteful and elegant, mindful of all the proprieties and graces of social life; she speaks slowly and cautiously, and gives her opinions with great modesty. These are not at present the characteristics of the American girl.

Mary Fairfax passed through the usual routine. At fourteen she had read the books to be found in her father's house, including the few works on Navigation which were necessary to him in his profession. She had thus obtained an idea of the world of science, and it was dull to return to worsted-work for amusement. The needle, which has been the fetter of so many women, became, however, in her hand, magnetic, and pointed her to her destiny. She was in the habit of taking her work into her brother's study, and listening to his recitations; the revelations of Geometry were thus opened to her; she listened and worked for a time, until the desire to know more of this region of form and law, of harmony and of relations, became too strong to be resisted; the worsted was thrown aside, and she ventured to ask the tutor to instruct her. The honest man told her that he was no mathematician: he could lend her Euclid, but he could do no more.

The first great step was now taken; Euclid was quickly read; other books were borrowed from other friends; Bonnycastle's and Euler's Algebra were obtained, and she exulted in the use of those mystic symbols, x, y, and z. Her parents looked on with indifference; so that the music were not neglected and the governess reported well of her studies, they felt there was no harm in her amusing herself as she chose. When the days of the governess were over, the young lady "came out" in Edinburgh, and mingled much with the best society. This most picturesque city had long been the resort of the most gifted minds; men of literature and men of science made the charm of its winter life. Never was it more the gathering-place of intellect than in the early part of this century; but there was no room for a woman of genius, and the young girl's friends advised her to conceal her pursuits. Move as quietly, however, and as unobtrusively as she might in the brilliant circle, her genius was not without recognition. There was a word of encouragement from Professor Playfair. "Persevere in your study," said he; "it will be a source of happiness to you when all else fails; for it is the study of truth." She had a champion, too, in the dreaded critic, Jeffrey. "I am told," said a friend, writing to him, "that the ladies of Edinburgh are literary, and that one of them sets up as a blue-stocking and an astronomer." "The lady of whom you speak," replied Jeffrey, "may wear blue stockings, but her petticoats are so long that I have never seen them."

Mrs. Somerville has been twice married. Her first husband, a gentleman of the name of Greig, regarded her pursuits as her parents had, simply with indifference. Dr. Somerville, her present husband, has taken the utmost pains to secure her time for her studies, and has himself relieved her from many household cares.

The simplicity of character which belonged to her in early life was not lost when her reputation became established. The Royal Society, whose doors do not open at every knock, admitted her to membership, and, by their order, her bust was sculptured by Chantrey, and now adorns the hall of the Society in Somerset House. During the sittings for this purpose, a lady, a friend of the sculptor, him to introduce her to Mrs. Somerville. Chantrey consented, and made a dinner-party for the purpose. The two ladies were placed side by side at table, and the benevolent artist rejoiced to perceive, from the flow of talk, that they were mutually pleased. The next day, to his astonishment, his friend called on him in a state of great indignation, believing herself the victim of a practical joke. "How could you do so?" said she. "You knew that I did not want to know that Mrs. Somerville; I wanted to know the astronomer: that lady talked of the theatre, the opera, and common things."

The anecdote so often told of Laplace's compliment is literally true. Mrs. Somerville dined with this great geometer in Paris. "I write books," said Laplace, "that no one can read. Only two women have ever read the 'Mécanique Céleste'; both are Scotch women: Mrs. Greig and yourself."

Upon the "Mécanique Céleste" Mrs. Somerville's greatest work is founded. "I simply translated Laplace's work," said she, "from algebra into common language." That is, she did what very few men and no other woman could do. It is of this work of Laplace that Bonaparte said, "I will give to it my first six months of leisure." The student who reads it by the aid of Dr. Bowditch's notes has little idea of the difficulties to be met in the original work. Even Dr. Bowditch himself said, "I never come across one of Laplace's 'Thus it plainly appears,' without feeling sure that I have got hours of hard study before me, to fill up the chasm and show how it plainly appears."

This "translation into common language" was undertaken at the request of Lord Brougham, who desired a mathematical work suited to the "Library of Useful Knowledge." The manuscript was submitted to Sir John Herschel, who expressed himself "delighted with it,—that it was a book for posterity, but quite above the class for which Lord Brougham's course was intended." It was published at once, and became the text-book for the students of Cambridge.

"The Connection of the Physical Sciences" and the "Physical Geography" are the later works of Mrs. Somerville. These volumes have probably been more read in our country than in Europe; for it is a common remark of the scientific writers of Great Britain, that their "readers are found in the United States." They contain vast collections of facts in all branches of Physical Science, connected together by the delicate web of Mrs. Somerville's own thought, showing an amount and variety of learning to be compared only to that of Humboldt.

Provided with an "open sesame" to her heart, in the shape of a letter from her old friend, Lady Herschel, we sought the acquaintance of Mrs. Somerville in the spring of 1858. She was at that time residing in Florence, and, sending the letter and a card to her by the servant, we awaited the reply in the large Florentine parlor, in the fireplace of which a wood-fire blazed, suggestive of English comfort,—a suggestion which in Italy rarely becomes a reality.

There was the usual delay; then a footstep came slowly through the outer room, and a very old man, exceedingly tall, with a red silk handkerchief around his head, entered, and introduced himself as Doctor Somerville. He is proud of his wife; a pardonable weakness in any man, especially so in the husband of Mary Somerville. He began at once to talk of her. "Mrs. Somerville," he said, "was much interested in the Americans, for she claimed a connection with the family of Washington. Washington's half-brother, Lawrence, married Anne Fairfax, who was of the Scotch family of that name. When Mrs. Somerville's father, as Lieutenant Fairfax, was ordered to America, General Washington wrote to him as a family relative, and invited him to his house. Lieutenant Fairfax applied to his commanding officer for leave to accept the invitation, and it was refused; they never met. Much to the regret of the Somervilles, the letter of Washington has been lost. The Fairfaxes of Virginia are of the same family, and occasionally some member of the American branch visits his Scotch cousins."