one.

did, nor even a vague rumor to that effect. And there never has been The supposition originated wholly and entirely in the wild Puritan imagination of Mr. Neil. Long before the recent discovery he could throw an X ray into anything-even brick and mortar-and find a Puritan in it. They would have been arrant fools to have been guilty of any such folly. They would have been compelled to have crossed two large streams, and to have traveled from ten to fifteen miles to attend church. There was a church much nearer to them than The Old Brick Church. Its exact location I do not know. It is spoken of in the deeds of the Hills and the Bakers in 1674 and in 1680. The character of the church we can easily infer from the fact that Mr. Hening tells us that in 1642 Mr. Faulkner was in charge of it; and the colonial records inform us that in 1680 Senate Document, 1874, extra) the Rev. Robert Parks was in charge of it; and that the Rev. Robert Housden was in charge of that other church in the lower parish, which the Puritans did not build. We can also infer the character of the church from the fact that Henry Baker and the Rev. Alexander Forbes were the trustees of the charity of Mrs. Silvester Hill, under her will of October 7, 1706.

In a vestry-book of the Upper Parish, now before me, beginning in 1724, on the first page is the name of the Rev. Alexander Forbes, minister of the church in this Upper Parish. It also, at that time, had a chapel. The only church I have ever known in this Upper Parish is "The Old Bay Church," a large, fine, brick church, about a mile from Burwell's Bay and four miles from Smithfield—convenient to this section, and about half way between the Rocks and Lawn's creek. I do not know when it was built; it was built prior to 1724. It never had any Puritan services in it so far as I can learn. And if good, amiable, kind-hearted, forgetting, and forgiving John Hammond (for whom I love to say a kind word) is any authority, it is not likely to have had any in it as early as 1635. He came to this county in that year, and lived here until 1653-4. In 1656, in his Leah and Rachel (Force's Tracts, Vol. III), he said of the times which we are considering, that Virginia was "whol for monarchy."

If there were ever any Puritans in this county they were very few, and left no impression upon it.

I doubt very much if Richard Bennett had any Puritan sympathies until after he obtained his patent and went to Nansemond to reside. He was one of the Burgesses of this county in 1629, and participated in making all of the laws of that session. He was a justice of the peace in 1631, also in 1632; was a member of the Council of Sir Francis West in 1639-40, and therefore a member of the General Assembly of that year, and a member of the Council of Sir William Berkley in 1642, and until after October, 1646. (I Hening.) If he manifested his Puritanism in any manner prior to 1642, it is unknown and unrecorded. If he, or any of the colonists, on the Edward Bennett plantation from

1621 to 1637 were Puritans, the State of Virginia did not, in any manner, molest or trouble them. The absence of complaint shows either that they were not here, or that if here they were treated with that kindness and forbearance that has always characterized the cavalier.

R. S. THOMAS.

(TO BE CONCLUDED.)

LEE OF VIRGINIA. By Edmund Jennings Lee, M. D. Philadelphia, 1895.

Though Lee of Virginia" was published more than a year ago, and has already become a standard Virginia genealogy, it is by no means too late to call our readers' attention to its merits.

As the family of Lee has, perhaps, produced more distinguished men than any other in Virginia, it is fitting that its history should be preserved in the most elaborate and best of our publications on individual families. Even to those to whom genealogy is most distasteful and tiresome reading, the history of the Lees is to some extent familiar, simply from the fact that their pedigree is history and not merely genealogy. From the first landing of Richard Lee, about 1640, until the present day, the family has rarely lacked sons to render service to their country, and to make the name widely known or illustrious. Founded in Virginia by a gentleman of worth and estate, who held some of the highest offices in the colonial government, the family gave to colonial Virginia one governor, four members of the Council and twelve members of the House of Burgesses; in the colony of Maryland, two Councillors and three members of the Assembly; to the Revolution, four members of the Convention of 1776 which organized the State of Virginia, two signers of the Declaration of Independence, the three other eminent brothers, Thomas Ludwell, William and Arthur Lee, and the foremost cavalry officer of the war, "Light Horse Harry." To the civil service of the United States the family has furnished one attorney-general and several members of Congress; to the State of Virginia, two governors; to the State of Maryland, a governor; and to the Confederate States, the illustrious commander of its armies, three major-generals, and one brigadier-general, while at the present time the Virginian who is most widely known, and whose brave and untiring efforts in defense of the rights of American citizens have secured the applause of the whole nation, is a Lee, the Consul-General to Cuba.

A family with such a history deserves a full and carefully prepared record, and the difficult task has been well done by Dr. Lee. He begins his book with brief sketches of ten prominent families of the name Lee in England, and shows that while the ancestry of Colonel Richard Lee, the immigrant, has not yet been traced, the almost absolute certainty that he was descended from the Lees of Coton, in Shropshire. None of

the family ever claimed any other descent, and Dr. Lee has entirely disproved the gratuitous claims of other descent set forth by other people. In this connection he quotes an interesting statement by John Gibbon, an acquaintance of Richard Lee, who says that after the death of Charles I, Colonel Lee went to Brussells, surrendered Governor Berkeley's commission and obtained a new one. This is doubtless the origin of the tradition that after his father's death a delegation was sent to Charles II to invite him to take refuge in the colony. It is certain that Charles issued a new commission to Governor and Council in 1650, and it may be true that he was told that in case of failure of other resources he could find safety in the loyal Old Dominion.

In connection with the first Richard Lee, the author mentions that a Hugh Lee lived in Northumberland county 1650-54. This Hugh Lee was a merchant in extensive business, shipping tobacco to Europe, and his wife, Hannah, seems to have assisted actively in his commercial operations.

In a note on page 56 it is stated that Richard Bennett, of Virginia, is said to have been a brother of Henry Bennett, Earl of Arlington. This is a mistake, due to a misinformed newspaper writer. Thomas Ludwell, Secretary of Virginia, who knew Richard Bennett well, stated in one of his letters to the Earl of Arlington that Major-General Richard Bennett bore the same arms as his lordship, “and is, I believe, of your lordship's family," language he, of course, would not have used if they were brothers.

Dr. Lee gives a very full, careful and accurate account of the various branches of the Stratford line of Lees. In many instances heretofore unpublished letters and documents were printed, and of the more noted members of the family lengthy biographical sketches are given, and throughout (as indeed in the whole book) the utmost diligence has been used to obtain original and authoritative proofs of statements made. In the branches of the family at "Cobb's Hall" and "Ditchley," in Virginia and in Maryland, the same painstaking care and minute research has been used, but in regard to many members of these lines there remains but little evidence, and therefore, they are necessarily left, in some respects, incomplete. The system used in preparing the genealogy is good, and there is an excellent index.

In examining this work, of which much more might be said in praise than our space will permit, a few addenda et corrigenda were noted. The Corbin book-plate (page 84) does not bear as stated (page 88) the arms of Corbin quartering Tayloe, but quartering Lane, for Jane Lane, wife of Gawin Corbin. To the information given as to Mrs. Hannah Lee, wife of President Thomas Lee (page 124), it may be added that the Gentleman's Magazine for 1750 contains an elegy in verse to her Memory, p. 129. Philip Ludwell, who was born in 1717, could not, of course, have been Speaker of the House of Burgesses in 1695. Mrs. Lucy

Paradise, whose name appears on page 129, is with her husband, John Paradise, Esq., frequently mentioned in Boswell, and in Fanny Burney's (and Madam D'Arblay's) series of diaries. She is still remembered in the local tradition of Williamsburg, Va., as “Madam Paradise," and the dining table, at which Johnson and other eminent friends of her husband often sat, is preserved.

The will of Henry Lee (page 135), dated 1746, is one of the earliest notices of the Warm Springs, in Frederick, now Berkeley county. William Aylett, father of the wife of Thomas Ludwell Lee (pages 170, 172), was not, "probably, of Prince William county." He was of Westmoreland county; and though no published account identifies him, the Westmoreland Records show clearly who he was. There is on record a marriage settlement between William Aylett, Jr., son of William Aylett, of King William county, Gent., and Miss Ann, daughter of Henry Ashton, of Westmoreland, Gent., by which Henry Ashton gives, as a portion, the land where he lives (1,000 acres), called Nominy Flats, 1,004 acres in the forks of Nominy, 15 slaves, 40 cattle, and 40 hogs, and also promises to leave his daughter 5 other negroes. The deed is dated in 1724 or 1725, and states that the marriage had taken place. The will of William Aylett was dated March 29, and proved in Westmoreland, August 28, 1744; his legatees are his daughters, Elizabeth and Anne, the issue of his first marriage with Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel Henry Ashton; and Anne [sic] and Mary, his daughters by his present wife, Elizabeth. Refers to his father, William Aylett, of King William, deceased, and to the fact that he (William, Jr.) was heir to his brother, John Aylett, and the said John's children, all also deceased; and makes certain reversionary bequests to his brothers, Philip and Benjamin Aylett. William Aylett was a member of the House of Burgesses from Westmoreland in 1736. His daughters, Elizabeth, married William Booth; Anne (the elder), married Augustine Washington; Anne (the younger, born 1738), married Richard Henry Lee, and Mary married Thomas Ludwell Lee.

In addition to his main work of tracing the history of the Lees, the author has given brief, but carefully prepared, notices of the families of Allerton, Armistead, Ashton, Aylett, Bedinger, Beverley, Bland, Bolling, Carroll, Carter, Chambers, Corbin, Custis, Fairfax, Fitzhugh, Gardner, Grymes, Hanson, Jenings, Jones, Ludwell, Marshall, Mason, Page, Randolph, Shepherd, Shippen, Tabb, Taylor, Turberville, Washington, and others of note. These contain a collection of data, in compact, intelligible form, for which the genealogical investigator, if forced to look for elsewhere, would have to make a very wide and comprehensive search. They add much to the value of the book.

"Lee of Virginia," is a large, beautifully printed volume of 586 pages, and is handsomely illustrated with thirty portraits, including the emigrant, and members of almost every successive generation; twenty

engravings of coats of arms of Virginia and Maryland families, all derived from authentic sources, and various other illustrations of interest. The book is a worthy memorial to a most distinguished family, and one that not only its members, but all who take an interest in men who have done so much good service to their country, will feel a pride in.

THE LOWER NORFOLK COUNTY VIRGINIA ANTIQUARY. No. I, Parts I, II, III, IV. Edited by Edward W. James, Richmond, Va. The first volume of the Antiquary is completed with the publication of part IV, which has appended a full index to the four parts. The promise of unusual excellence indicated by Part I, has been amply fulfilled, the whole number exhibiting the remarkable taste and discrimination which distinguish that Part as well as Mr. James' contributions to the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, and the William and Mary Historical Quarterly.

We hardly know where else there is to be found in the compass represented by the Antiquary, as so far published, so much matter of the highest importance, throwing light on the condition of Virginia in the Colonial age, and this matter is marked by great variety. An enumeration of some of the leading articles will show this: "The Land and Slave owners, Princess Anne county, 1771, 1772, 1773, 1774;" "Election of Vestrymen, Norfolk county, 1761;""The Norfolk Academy;" "Newton-Washington Letters;" "Princess Ann County Committee of Safety, 1775;" "James Silk Buckingham;" "Witchcraft in Virginia;” “Vestrymen of Elizabeth River Parish;" Processioners of Land, Princess Anne County, 1779;" "The Church in Lower Norfolk County;" "Going to Church Armed;" "Lower Norfolk County Libraries;" "Public School in Princess Anne County, in 1736;""Peyton Randolph.”

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The work which Mr. James is doing in the publication of this valuable periodical, entitles him to the grateful appreciation of every person who is interested in the history of Virginia. We predict that it will give his name a high degree of honor and distinction among all who in the future will direct their attention to the conditions prevailing in Colonial times. The Antiquary presents a great mass of information, which otherwise would be, for all practical purposes, inaccessible to the general run of students. We sincerely hope that this meritorious magazine will expand into many volumes, and that its careful and discriminating editor has many years before him for the continuation of his useful, instructive and interesting labors.

THE LIFE OF CHARLES CARROLL, OF CARROLLTON, by the author of the Life of George Mason, will be published by the Putnams, of New York, in a limited edition of 750 copies, within the coming year. It will