long and illustrious career is an evidence of the far-reaching influence of Germany on American life.

Nor has the German influence been confined to academic circles. Here and there throughout the South there are most interesting German settlements, notably those in western Texas. Olmsted observed in 1857 that half of the population of western Texas was German. They brought to that state not only industry and a sane mode of living-often in contrast with the slip-shod methods of slaveholders-but a feeling for culture and especially for music that seemed totally at variance with their surroundings. When Sidney Lanier visited San Antonio in quest of health in 1873, he found some musicians who had no little to do with fixing his decision to devote himself to a musical career. The picture he gives in one of his letters suggests a most unusual phenomenon in Southern life. He went one night to the Maënnerchor where he found seventeen Germans seated at the singing table. "Long neck bottles of Rhine wine were opened and tasted, great pipes and cigars were all afire; the leader, Herr Thielepape an old man with long, white beard and moustache, formerly mayor of the city-rapped his tuning fork vigorously, gave the chords by rapid arpeggios of his voice (a wonderful wild, high tenor, such as thou wouldst dream that the old wealth harpers have, wherewith to sing songs that would cut against the fierce sea glass), and off they all swung into such a noble old German full voiced lied, that imperious tears rushed into my eyes. And soI all the time worshiping-with these great chords we drove through the evening until twelve

o'clock."

Spanish and French Influences in the South.

Lanier was impressed, also, with the striking beauty of San Antonio, and especially with the reminders of Spanish rule and tradition. It goes almost without saying that the most picturesque of all Southern cities is New Orleans, and that the resistance of her social life to the ideals of American civilization has been most persistent. Her very isolation, as well as her long domination by Spanish and French influences, has kept her out from the currents of American life. For this very reason her Spanish architecture and her French customs and traditions have been among the most potent illustrations of European influence in the South. Miss Grace King, in her charming book, New Orleans; The Place and the People, compares the city to "a Parisian who came two centuries ago to the banks of Mississippi-partly out of curiosity for the new world, partly out of ennui for the old, and who, 'ma foi,' as she would say with a shrug of her shoulders, has never cared to return to her mother country." It is needless to attempt here a description of the place or even a suggestion of the wealth of romance that has fascinated all who have ever come within the sphere of her influence. Charles Dudley Warner has characterized New Orleans as "the most cosmopolitan of provincial cities; its comparative isolation has secured the development of provincial traits and manners, has preserved the individuality of the many races that give it color, morals and character, while its close relation to France and the constant influx of Northern men of business and affairs have given it the air of a metropolis." The Creoles gave the tone to New Orleans; "and it was the French culture, the French view of life that was diffused. French

was a study and a possession, not a fashionable accomplishment."

The native literature of New Orleans, despite the patient work of scholars, is not yet the possession of the American people, but Lafcadio Hearn and George W. Cable have done much to interpret the romance of this city. Much of the fineness of the latter's remarkable stories must be attributed to his early environment, while the direction of the former's life was determined in no small degree by his twelve years' stay in a city where he could feel the charm of a people that still retained the characteristics of childhood. Hearn said in one of his recently published letters: "Now I am with the Latins; I live in a Latin city; I seldom hear the English tongue except when I enter the office for a few brief hours. I see beauty all around mea strange, tropical, intoxicating beauty. I consider it my artistic duty to let myself be absorbed into this new life, and study its forms and color and passion. This is a land of magical moons and of witches and of war locks; and were I to tell you all that I have seen and heard in these years, in this enchanted City of Dreams, you would verily deem me mad." And again he says, speaking of a house in the Creole quarter, "I do not believe one could find anything more picturesque outside of Venice or Florence."

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*

When New Orleans, already feeling the impress of modern civilization, shall have come into its full possibilities as the result of the opening of the Panama Canal, she will occupy a far more commanding place in the life and culture of this country than she has. For the very reason that her unique civilization has its foundation in European rather than in American culture, she will prove a striking contrast

to much that is monotonous and even sterile in American life.

And, indeed, when all the influences that have been suggested in connection with Southern communities and commonwealths have been freed from the limitations of the past-limitations due to solidarity and to provincialism-the republic will be the richer. The arrested development of the past may prove a blessing in disguise; the reaction against some of the excesses of modernity may be healthily aided by a section which has such a rich inheritance of romance, chivalry and culture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Adams, Herbert B.: Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia; Bisland, Elizabeth: Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn; Cable, George W.: Old Creole Days; Curtis, W. E.: The True Thomas Jefferson; King, Grace: New Orleans: The Place and the People; Lodge, Henry Cabot: English Colonies in America; Ravenel: Charleston: The Place and the People; Rhodes, James Ford: History of the United States, 1850-77; Thackeray, W M.: The Virginians; Trent, W. P.: English Culture in Virginia; Wister, Owen: Lady Baltimore; The Writings of William Byrd (ed. by John Spencer Bassett).

EDWIN MIMS,

Professor of English Literature, Trinity College; editor South Atlantic Quarterly.

CHAPTER V.

THE ARISTOCRACY OF THE NORTHERN

NECK.

The Settlement of the Northern Neck.

HAT section of Virginia which is watered and bounded by the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers and known as the Northern Neck is one of the most interesting communities in the entire South. Within the com

pass of its few counties there arose during the Eighteenth century a number of important families which produced great popular leaders and great statesmen. Here it was that Washington, Mason and Monroe were born; here resided the great family of the Lees, and here many leading spirits of colonial and revolutionary Virginia had their homes. Almost without exception these men were the product of the same period and were born in the same social circle; their antecedents were practically the same; they were brought up with the same social and political ideals; they had much in common. If such a community and such a society could produce men of so great eminence, that community and that society are worthy of examination.

Although the Northern Neck was visited by Smith and by other early adventurers, it was not settled until after 1640, when it became the home of certain immigrants from Kent Island. These early planters were speedily reinforced by merchants, attracted by the deep-flowing rivers and by other facilities for trade. Despite Indian wars and the temporary closing of the Neck to settlers by a treaty with the Indians, these merchants and planters multiplied and prospered. One finds mention of Col. Richard Lee, George Mason, the Balls, the Popes and John Washington before 1660, but one looks in vain for the other famous names of the community. It appears that two generations of settlers lived, flourished and died before the real aristocracy of the Neck arrived. This fact, which is to be observed elsewhere in Virginia, remains one of the mysteries of early American colonization.

The "Cavalier Immigration," which took place during the Commonwealth period in England, is generally supposed to have exercised a potential influ