1795=1870.

John Pendleton Kennedy was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and received an excellent early education. He studied law, and was much in public life; he filled a large place in his native city as a man of culture and a public-spirited citizen. He served in the State Assembly and in Congress, and was Secretary of the Navy under President Fillmore when several important expeditions took place, that of Perry to Japan, of Lynch to Africa, of Kane to the North Pole. Kennedy Channel was named in his honor by Dr. Kane.

He made several trips to Europe and while in Paris became well acquainted with Thackeray. “The Virginians” was appearing as a serial, and the printers needed a new chapter. Thackeray said to Kennedy, “I wish you would write one for me.”—“Well,” said Kennedy, “so I will if you will give me the run of the story.” And he really wrote the fourth chapter of Vol. II., describing Warrington’s escape and return home through the region about the Cumberland, which he knew well.

He drew up the plan of the Peabody Institute, and was one of the Trustees; to it he bequeathed his library and manuscripts, the latter not to be published till 1900. He aided Poe in his early literary life and was always his friend. He died at Newport, whither he had gone for his health, and was buried in Green Mount Cemetery, Baltimore. See Life by Tuckerman.

WORKS.

Essays in Red Book, [a satirical journal edited by him and Peter Hoffman Cruse].
Swallow Barn, [novel of Virginia life].
Horse-Shoe Robinson, Tale of Tory Ascendancy in South Carolina.
Rob of the Bowl, a Legend of St. Inigoes.
Annals of Quodlibet, [political satires].
Memoirs of the late William Wirt.
Addresses, reports, &c. Mr. Kennedy’s writings were very popular during his life-time and deserve to be so still, for his three novels give graphic and excellent pictures of their times, and are true in their historical details, while his Memoirs of Wirt are quite as interesting. His “Cousin Lucretia’s” remedy for chills was actually used by his grandmother, Mrs. Pendleton of Virginia (see Tuckerman’s Life of Kennedy); and Horse-Shoe Robinson was a real hero of the Revolution whom Kennedy met in upper South Carolina, 1818.

A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN IN VIRGINIA.

(From Swallow Barn.)

The master of this lordly domain is Frank Meriwether. He is now in the meridian of life—somewhere about forty-five. Good cheer and an easy temper tell well upon him. The first has given him a comfortable, portly figure, and the latter a contemplative turn of mind, which inclines him to be lazy and philosophical.

He has some right to pride himself on his personal appearance, for he has a handsome face, with a dark blue eye and a fine intellectual brow. His head is growing scant of hair on the crown, which induces him to be somewhat particular in the management of his locks in that locality, and these are assuming a decided silvery hue.

It is pleasant to see him when he is going to ride to the Court House on business occasions. He is then apt to make his appearance in a coat of blue broad-cloth, astonishingly glossy, and with an unusual amount of plaited ruffle strutting through the folds of a Marseilles waistcoat. A worshipful finish is given to this costume by a large straw hat, lined with green silk. There is a magisterial fulness in his garments which betokens condition in the world, and a heavy bunch of seals, suspended by a chain of gold, jingles as he moves, pronouncing him a man of superfluities.

.....

I am told he keeps the peace as if he commanded a garrison, and administers justice like a Cadi.

He has some claim to supremacy in this last department; for during three years he smoked segars in a lawyer’s office in Richmond, which enabled him to obtain a bird’s-eye view of Blackstone and the Revised Code. Besides this, he was a member of a Law Debating Society, which ate oysters once a week in a cellar; and he wore, in accordance with the usage of the most prominent law-students of that day, six cravats, one over the other, and yellow-topped boots, by which he was recognized as a blood of the metropolis. Having in this way qualified himself to assert and maintain his rights, he came to his estate, upon his arrival at age, a very model of landed gentlemen. Since that time his avocations have had a certain literary tincture; for having settled himself down as a married man, and got rid of his superfluous foppery, he rambled with wonderful assiduity through a wilderness of romances, poems, and dissertations, which are now collected in his library, and, with their battered blue covers, present a lively type of an army of continentals at the close of the war, or a hospital of invalids. These have all at last given way to the newspapers—a miscellaneous study very attractive and engrossing to country gentlemen. This line of study has rendered Meriwether a most perilous antagonist in the matter of legislative proceedings.

A landed proprietor, with a good house and a host of servants, is naturally a hospitable man. A guest is one of his daily wants. A friendly face is a necessary of life, without which the heart is apt to starve, or a luxury without which it grows parsimonious. Men who are isolated from society by distance, feel these wants by an instinct, and are grateful for an opportunity to relieve them. In Meriwether the sentiment goes beyond this. It has, besides, something dialectic in it. His house is open to everybody, as freely almost as an inn. But to see him when he has had the good fortune to pick up an intelligent, educated gentleman, and particularly one who listens well!—a respectable, assentatious stranger!—All the better if he has been in the Legislature, and better still, if in Congress. Such a person caught within the purlieus of Swallow Barn, may set down one week’s entertainment as certain—inevitable, and as many more as he likes, the more the merrier. He will know something of the quality of Meriwether’s rhetoric before he is gone.

Then again, it is very pleasant to see Frank’s kind and considerate bearing towards his servants and dependents. His slaves appreciate this, and hold him in most affectionate reverence, and, therefore, are not only contented, but happy under his dominion.

HIS WIFE.

Whilst Frank Meriwether amuses himself with his quiddities, and floats through life upon the current of his humor, his dame, my excellent cousin Lucretia, takes charge of the household affairs, as one who has a reputation to stake upon her administration. She has made it a perfect science, and great is her fame in the dispensation thereof!

Those who visited Swallow Barn will long remember the morning stir, of which the murmurs arose even unto the chambers, and fell upon the ears of the sleepers; the dry-rubbing of floors, and even the waxing of the same until they were like ice;—and the grinding of coffee-mills;—and the gibber of ducks and chickens and turkeys; and all the multitudinous concert of homely sounds. And then, her breakfasts! I do not wish to be counted extravagant, but a small regiment might march in upon her without disappointment, and I would put them for excellence and variety against anything that ever was served upon platter. Moreover, all things go like clock-work. She rises with the lark, and infuses an early vigor into the whole household. And yet, she is a thin woman to look upon, and a feeble; with a sallow complexion, and a pair of animated black eyes which impart a portion of fire to a countenance otherwise demure from the paths worn across it, in the frequent travel of a low-country ague. But, although her life has been somewhat saddened by such visitations, my cousin is too spirited a woman to give up to them; for she is therapeutical, and considers herself a full match for any reasonable tertian in the world. Indeed, I have sometimes thought that she took more pride in her leechcraft than becomes a Christian woman; she is even a little vain-glorious. For, to say nothing of her skill in compounding simples, she has occasionally brought down upon her head the sober remonstrances of her husband, by her pertinacious faith in the efficacy of certain spells in cases of intermittent. But there is no reasoning against her experience. She can enumerate the cases—“and men may say what they choose about its being contrary to reason, and all that;—it is their way! But seeing is believing—nine scoops of water in the hollow of the hand, from the sycamore spring, for three mornings, before sunrise, and a cup of strong coffee with lemon-juice, will break an ague, try it when you will.” In short, as Frank says, “Lucretia will die in that creed.”

I am occasionally up early enough to be witness to her morning regimen, which, to my mind, is rather tyrannically enforced against the youngsters of her numerous family, both white and black. She is in the habit of preparing some death-routing decoction for them, in a small pitcher, and administering it to the whole squadron in succession, who severally swallow the dose with a most ineffectual effort at repudiation, and gallop off, with faces all rue and wormwood.

Everything at Swallow Barn, that falls within the superintendence of my cousin Lucretia is a pattern of industry. In fact, I consider her the very priestess of the American system, for, with her, the protection of manufactures is even more a passion than a principle. Every here and there, over the estate, may be seen, rising in humble guise above the shrubbery, the rude chimney of a log cabin, where all the livelong day, the plaintive moaning of the spinning-wheel rises fitfully upon the breeze, like the fancied notes of a hobgoblin, as they are sometimes imitated in the stories with which we frighten children. In these laboratories the negro women are employed in preparing yarn for the loom, from which is produced not only a comfortable supply of winter clothing for the working people, but some excellent carpets for the house.

It is refreshing to behold how affectionately vain our good hostess is of Frank, and what deference she shows to him in all matters, except those that belong to the home department; for there she is confessedly and without appeal, the paramount power. It seems to be a dogma with her, that he is the very “first man in Virginia,” an expression which in this region has grown into an emphatic provincialism. Frank, in return, is a devout admirer of her accomplishments, and although he does not pretend to have an ear for music, he is in raptures at her skill on the harpsichord, when she plays at night for the children to dance; and he sometimes sets her to singing “The Twins of Latona,” and “Old Towler,” and “The Rose-Tree in Full Bearing” (she does not study the modern music), for the entertainment of his company. On these occasions, he stands by the instrument, and nods his head, as if he comprehended the airs.

HOW HORSE-SHOE AND ANDREW CAPTURED FIVE MEN.

(From Horse-Shoe Robinson, a Tale of the Tory Ascendancy in S.C.[11])

[Mistress Ramsay speaking to Horse-Shoe Robinson:]

“Who should come in this morning, just after my husband had cleverly got away on his horse, but a young cock-a-whoop ensign, that belongs to Ninety-Six, and four great Scotchmen with him, all in red coats; they had been out thieving, I warrant, and were now going home again. And who but they! Here they were, swaggering all about my house—and calling for this—and calling for that—as if they owned the fee-simple of every thing on the plantation. And it made my blood rise, Mr. Horse-Shoe, to see them run out in the yard, and catch up my chickens and ducks, and kill as many as they could string about them—and I not daring to say a word: though I did give them a piece of my mind, too.”

“Who is at home with you?” inquired the sergeant eagerly.

“Nobody but my youngest boy, Andrew,” answered the dame. “And then, the filthy, toping rioters—” she continued, exalting her voice.

“What arms have you in the house?” asked Robinson, without heeding the dame’s rising anger.

“We have a rifle, and a horseman’s pistol that belongs to John.—They must call for drink, too, and turn my house, of a Sunday morning, into a tavern.”

State House, Columbia, S.C. “They took the route towards Ninety-Six, you said, Mistress Ramsay?”

“Yes,—they went straight forward upon the road. But, look you, Mr. Horse-Shoe, you’re not thinking of going after them?”

“Isn’t there an old field, about a mile from this, on that road?” inquired the sergeant, still intent upon his own thoughts.

“There is,” replied the dame; “with the old school-house upon it.”

“A lop-sided, rickety log-cabin in the middle of the field. Am I right, good woman?”

“Yes.”

“And nobody lives in it? It has no door to it?”

“There ha’n’t been anybody in it these seven years.”

“I know the place very well,” said the sergeant, very thoughtfully; “there is woods just on this side of it.”

“That’s true,” replied the dame; “but what is it you are thinking about, Mr. Robinson?”

“How long before this rain began was it that they quitted this house?”

“Not above fifteen minutes.”

“Mistress Ramsay, bring me the rifle and pistol both—and the powder-horn and bullets.”

“As you say, Mr. Horse-Shoe,” answered the dame, as she turned round to leave the room; “but I am sure I can’t suspicion what you mean to do.”

In a few moments the woman returned with the weapons, and gave them to the sergeant.

“Where is Andy?” asked Horse-Shoe.

The hostess went to the door and called her son, and, almost immediately afterwards, a sturdy boy of about twelve or fourteen years of age entered the apartment, his clothes dripping with rain. He modestly and shyly seated himself on a chair near the door, with his soaked hat flapping down over a face full of freckles and not less rife with the expression of an open, dauntless hardihood of character.

“How would you like a scrummage, Andy, with them Scotchmen that stole your mother’s chickens this morning?” asked Horse-Shoe.

“I’m agreed,” replied the boy, “if you will tell me what to do.”......

Horse-Shoe now loaded the fire-arms, and having slung the pouch across his body, he put the pistol into the hands of the boy; then shouldering his rifle, he and his young ally left the room. Even on this occasion, serious as it might be deemed, the sergeant did not depart without giving some manifestation of that lightheartedness which no difficulties ever seemed to have the power to conquer. He thrust his head back into the room, after he had crossed the threshold, and said with an encouraging laugh, “Andy and me will teach them, Mistress Ramsay, Pat’s point of war—we will surround the ragamuffins.”

“Now, Andy, my lad,” said Horse-Shoe, after he had mounted Captain Peter, “you must get up behind me.....” .... By the time that his instructions were fully impressed upon the boy, our adventurous forlorn hope, as it may fitly be called, had arrived at the place which Horse-Shoe Robinson had designated for the commencement of active operations. They had a clear view of the old field, and it afforded them a strong assurance that the enemy was exactly where they wished him to be, when they discovered smoke arising from the chimney of the hovel. Andrew was soon posted behind a tree, and Robinson only tarried a moment to make the boy repeat the signals agreed on, in order to ascertain that he had them correctly in his memory. Being satisfied from this experiment that the intelligence of his young companion might be depended upon, he galloped across the intervening space, and, in a few seconds, abruptly reined up his steed, in the very doorway of the hut. The party within was gathered around a fire at the further end, and, in the corner near the door, were four muskets thrown together against the wall. To spring from his saddle and thrust himself one pace inside of the door, was a movement which the sergeant executed in an instant, shouting at the same time—

“Halt! File off right and left to both sides of the house, and wait orders. I demand the surrender of all here,” he said, as he planted himself between the party and their weapons. “I will shoot down the first man who budges a foot.”

“Leap to your arms,” cried the young officer who commanded the little party inside of the house. “Why do you stand?”

“I don’t want to do you or your men any harm, young man,” said Robinson, as he brought his rifle to a level, “but, by my father’s son, I will not leave one of you to be put upon a muster-roll if you raise a hand at this moment.”

Both parties now stood, for a brief space, eyeing each other in fearful suspense, during which there was an expression of doubt and irresolution visible on the countenances of the soldiers, as they surveyed the broad proportions, and met the stern glance of the sergeant, whilst the delay, also, began to raise an apprehension in the mind of Robinson that his stratagem would be discovered.

“Shall I let loose upon them, Captain?” said Andrew Ramsay, now appearing, most unexpectedly to Robinson, at the door of the hut. “Come on, boys!” he shouted, as he turned his face towards the field. “Keep them outside of the door—stand fast,” cried the doughty sergeant, with admirable promptitude, in the new and sudden posture of his affairs caused by this opportune appearance of the boy. “Sir, you see that it’s not worth while fighting five to one; and I should be sorry to be the death of any of your brave fellows; so, take my advice, and surrender to the Continental Congress and this scrap of its army which I command.”

During this appeal the sergeant was ably seconded by the lad outside, who was calling out first on one name, and then on another, as if in the presence of a troop. The device succeeded, and the officer within, believing the forbearance of Robinson to be real, at length said:—

“Lower your rifle, sir. In the presence of a superior force, taken by surprise, and without arms, it is my duty to save bloodshed. With the promise of fair usage, and the rights of prisoners of war, I surrender this little foraging party under my command.”

“I’ll make the terms agreeable,” replied the sergeant. “Never doubt me, sir. Right hand file, advance, and receive the arms of the prisoners!”

“I’m here, captain,” said Andrew, in a conceited tone, as if it were a mere occasion of merriment; and the lad quickly entered the house and secured the weapons, retreating with them some paces from the door.

“Now, sir,” said Horse-Shoe to the Ensign, “your sword, and whatever else you mought have about you of the ammunitions of war!”

The officer delivered his sword and a pair of pocket pistols.

As Horse-Shoe received these tokens of victory, he asked, with a lambent smile, and what he intended to be an elegant and condescending composure, “Your name, sir, if I mought take the freedom?” “Ensign St. Jermyn, of his Majesty’s seventy-first regiment of light infantry.”

“Ensign, your sarvant,” added Horse-Shoe, still preserving this unusual exhibition of politeness. “You have defended your post like an old sodger, although you ha’n’t much beard on your chin; but, seeing you have given up, you shall be treated like a man who has done his duty. You will walk out now, and form yourselves in line at the door. I’ll engage my men shall do you no harm; they are of a marciful breed.”

When the little squad of prisoners submitted to this command, and came to the door, they were stricken with equal astonishment and mortification to find, in place of the detachment of cavalry which they expected to see, nothing but a man, a boy, and a horse. Their first emotions were expressed in curses, which were even succeeded by laughter from one or two of the number. There seemed to be a disposition on the part of some to resist the authority that now controlled them; and sundry glances were exchanged, which indicated a purpose to turn upon their captors. The sergeant no sooner perceived this, than he halted, raised his rifle to his breast, and at the same instant, gave Andrew Ramsay an order to retire a few paces, and to fire one of the captured pieces at the first man who opened his lips.

“By my hand,” he said, “if I find any trouble in taking you, all five, safe away from this here house, I will thin your numbers with your own muskets! And that’s as good as if I had sworn to it.”

“You have my word, sir,” said the Ensign. “Lead on.”

“By your leave, my pretty gentlemen, you will lead and I’ll follow,” replied Horse-Shoe. “It may be a new piece of drill to you; but the custom is to give the prisoners the post of honor.”

“As you please, sir,” answered the Ensign. “Where do you take us to?”

“You will march back by the road you came,” said the sergeant.

Finding the conqueror determined to execute summary martial law upon the first who should mutiny, the prisoners submitted, and marched in double file from the hut back towards Ramsay’s—Horse-Shoe, with Captain Peter’s bridle dangling over his arm, and his gallant young auxiliary Andrew, laden with double the burden of Robinson Crusoe (having all the fire-arms packed upon his shoulders), bringing up the rear. In this order victors and vanquished returned to David Ramsay’s.

“Well, I have brought you your ducks and chickens back, mistress,” said the sergeant, as he halted the prisoners at the door; “and, what’s more, I have brought home a young sodger that’s worth his weight in gold.”

“Heaven bless my child! my brave boy!” cried the mother, seizing the lad in her arms, and unheeding anything else in the present perturbation of her feelings. “I feared ill would come of it; but Heaven has preserved him. Did he behave handsomely, Mr. Robinson? But I am sure he did.”

“A little more venturesome, ma’am, than I wanted him to be,” replied Horse-Shoe; “but he did excellent service. These are his prisoners, Mistress Ramsay; I should never have got them if it hadn’t been for Andy. In these drumming and fifing times the babies suck in quarrel with their mother’s milk. Show me another boy in America that’s made more prisoners than there was men to fight them with, that’s all!”