Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· INTELLECTUAL LIFE IN THE COLONIAL SOUTH '
perhaps as chaplain, and he knew and comments upon many of the
prominent of his time.178 Often referred to, his journal remains largely
unpublished. About the same period John Blair (1687-1771) of Wil­
liamsburg was noting in his diary many of the well-known Virginians and
what they were doing during the year 175 I. He also comments on meteo­
rology, his own social activity, slaves, politics, and the college. He kept his
recorded notes in a copy of the Virginia Almanac of the year.179 Another
brief but long-famous memoir is The Journal of Major George Wash­
ington .
.. (Williamsburg, 1754), a straightforward record of the young
officer's errand on behalf of Governor Dinwiddie to the Commandant of
the French on the Ohio. It moves swiftly, includes elaborate Indian
speeches and some of the European replies, and gives a vivid account of
the hardships of the journey back to Williamsburg. There are also the
four volumes of his general diaries I748-1799 published in 1925.18 0
William Byrd's diaries and the complete or nearly complete forms of
his "Histories" and "Journey to the Land of Eden" and "A Progress to the
Mines" are of course the most literarily and historically valuable of
southern colonial memoirs. The four "public" works-the two "His­
tories" and "A Progress" and "Journey"-have already been commented
upon for their social and belletristic significance. The diaries, discovered
within the past half-century and written in an eighteenth-century short­
hand, have been noticed briefly above primarily for their humorous
quality, but the extant sections for I709-1712, 17I7-1721, and 1739-
I74I are somewhat more than comic.
The range of political and social and personal life covered is rich and
varied, offering us the most nearly complete picture of the life of the
largescale planter of the golden age. One learns about gardens, houses,
servants, dances, the author's reading and diet and exercise. Though Byrd
reveals very little of his inmost thoughts or indication of an introspective
mind, he comes nearer to lowering his guard in his essay on himself and
in a few of his letters than anywhere else. But as a colorful portrayal of
the surfaces of daily life these writings are perhaps more detailed than
Sewall's or possibly any other such writing in colonial America.
Alongside them must stand in quality, though of a very different kind,
the diary kept by the Reverend Samuel Davies for I753-1755, includ­
ing his journey from Virginia to Princeton to Great Britain and back
again. The devout Calvinist begins not with facts of mundane matter but
of his deity : "Gratitude to the God of my Mercies constrains me to own
Myself the favourite Child of Divine Providence." Then he turns to his
problem-whether to undertake the voyage in search of funds for the
infant College of New-Jersey (Princeton ). From the first page the Pres­
byterian searches himself for motives and for a conviction of his duty.