peated acts of kindness, and the generous encouragement that he has afforded me in the pursuits of science, have inspired his Obedient servant,

M. F. MAURY, Commander C.S. Navy.

To H.I.H. The Grand Duke Constantine,

Grand Admiral of Russia,

St. Petersburg.

ABOUT " NEW VIRGINIA"

MEXICO, September 23rd, 1865.

MY DEAR WIFE:-My heart is as big as a mountain and as heavy as lead. Your letter is so sad at leaving friends behind and going to a strange land. This is Saturday night. Perhaps you sailed to-day, for the line of steamers in which I wanted you to go sailed Saturday. I received ten days ago your letters up to the 14th. You were then just making up your mind to come here, and my letter telling you to go to England would take you so by surprise. The last mail brought me many letters from you and the children. I shut myself up, threw myself on the bed, and wept and read and wept and read all day long. 'Twas night before I got through them. Perhaps you'll feel better when you get to England. There you will not hear such constant discussions as to the wisdom of my course, and the propriety of your coming here; and that, I am sure, will be a great relief. Moreover, the sacrifice is for the benefit of our children. There they can go to good schools, and I can come and see you. If you stayed where you are, you could have neither; if you come here you must do without the schools. So you see you are in the path of duty, and the reflection that it is so will comfort and console you, I am sure.

Yesterday I received my appointment as Director of the Observatory here; and to-day my naturalization papers, which qualify me to hold office.

My salary is $5000 to commence with June last. Last night I submitted-by request-estimates for my staff and office. . . . Dick and family, I suppose, will sail from New York on the 8th, and be here about this time next month. I

shall strive to interest Dabney's friend, General Wilcox, also the Talcotts, in them, so that I may not leave them friendless in a strange land, when I come to see you; also Miss Scarlett, a nice lady, the daughter of the British Minister.

I came to our new house the day before yesterday, and am now housekeeping. It is a nice house. I have one-half of the upper storey, the Talcotts the other-or are to have. The houses here, you know, have no chimneys, and they have a large yard in the middle. My side of the parallelogram is nearly one hundred yards long. I have a very large parlour dining-room, kitchen, and six other rooms, two of which I shall use as an office when I am put in charge of immigration. The house is ready-furnished. This arrangement will make it cost me about $50 per month, leaving about $3000, which will be a smart allowance for you and the children for the year. I am by no means sanguine about my "New Virginia"; not but that there are plenty of people in the South who are dying to come. I know more about that than you do, for there are now about one hundred first-rate men, some of them with their families, from various parts of the South, looking for homes. Some of them have been sent by their neighbours and friends to look at the country and report. The Government is not yet prepared to offer them lands on any terms. We are not ready. Some of them have gone home in disgust, and the golden, precious moments are passing by. I am not yet in harness; but if I can't carry colonization, this is no place for me. And this the Emperor also understands, for I have told him I could not stay if immigration fails. At any rate, I now almost despair of seeing it well in motion before this time next year. But this will give me a long time with you and those precious children. I am so proud of them. Their praises, coming from the heart, are more than music to my ears. 'Tis joy and comfort to my heart. Bless their sweet hearts! Tell them to study and be good and true. "Brave," I know bears himself like our son, and a man. He is a noble boy. Hug him six times, and kiss him twenty for

me.

I have been entertaining visitors, and reading over again that sweet budget of letters-especially yours-all day. How I do wish I could take all care from you, and make you happy!

But, my dear sweet wife and noble mother of our noble children, what can I do more than I have done-and I am doing to show myself worthy of you and of them, and do homage to the great ambition that I have to deserve your and their praise and love? . . . . You know what brought me here. I did hope-and still hope to help to repair the ruin that was made of the most righteous cause and noble people that ever suffered the shipwreck of almost all that is dear. I may yet succeed in that. But I may fail, and if I do it will not be because I spared myself or forgot your happiness. It becomes me to try this to a conclusion; it becomes me to use whatever power for good I may have acquired in the world for the benefit of this people, who have suffered in the same cause with us, and who are so near and dear to us. Nay, my sweet companion and friend, it becomes me to be up and doing, especially while our good friends-Tremlett, Jansen, and others are so kindly exerting themselves on my account. How would it have done for me, instead of trying myself to do something, to have folded my arms-as Rutson and others suggested-until the Federal authorities would have permitted me to come back-to what? To poverty and misery; and that too while Tremlett was undergoing the fatigues and expense of that journey to Denmark, Sweden and Russia on my account!

No; rely upon it my sweet friend and partner, that in coming here I have done the wisest and best thing that under the circumstances, I could do.

[1841— ]

A

ROBERT ARMISTEAD STEWART

MONG that group of men and women of letters who have brought distinction to Richmond, Virginia, as the center of literary activity, William Gordon McCabe occupies a prominent place. He was born in Richmond, August 4, 1841. His father, the son of a distinguished officer of the Revolution, was a clergyman, noted not only in his profession, but also as an authority on Colonial history and as a poet of no mean talent. The Rev. Doctor McCabe's wife was Sophia Gordon Taylor, a great-granddaughter of George Taylor, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and on her mother's side descended from the Gordons of Earlston, Scotland.

The first ten years of young McCabe's life were passed in the ancient town of Smithfield, while his father was rector of the Episcopal church there; the next six he spent at Hampton. After a preparatory course, in which he distinguished himself above his fellows, and after serving a short apprenticeship as tutor, he entered the University of Virginia, in 1860. But his stay here was destined to be short, for the secession of Virginia was the signal for him, along with many of his fellow students, to hasten to the front in a student corps known as the "Southern Guards." He entered the army as a private, but because of his conspicuous prowess and devotion he was promoted through the various grades till the end of the war found him a captain of artillery. His career embraced the Peninsular Campaign, Chancellorsville, service at Charleston, with the gallant Pegram's artillery in the great battles of the Army of Northern Virginia, and, after Appomattox, he joined General Johnston in North Carolina in the vain hope of renewing the struggle.

In October, 1865, Captain McCabe founded in Petersburg, Virginia, the University School, with so vast an influence in shaping the character and ideals of the young gentry of Virginia as not inaptly to be compared to Rugby in its prime. For twenty-six years he labored in this chosen field, and found his reward in a noble body of highspirited, well-grounded youth who went from out his walls to win distinction in all walks of life. During this period of teaching McCabe had been active in many other ways. His fame as a Latinist was based on his profound studies in that language, as attested by his