Old Virginia and her neighbours

SOCIETY IN THE OLD DOMINION. 245Scientific, 225 ; Entertaining, etc., 650.^ Thismust have been one of the largest collections ofbooks made in the colonial period. That of thesecond Richard Lee, who died in 1715, containedabout 300 titles, among which we notice manymoreGreek and Latin writers than in AV^ormeley's^especially such names as Epictetus, Aristotle deAnima, Diogenes Laertius, Lucian, Heliodorus,Claudian, Arrian, and Orosius, besides such medi-£evalauthors as Albertus Magnus and LaurentiusValla.2Such libraries were of course exceptional. Inmost planters' houses you would probably havefound a few English classics, with perhaps " DonQuixote " and " Gil Bias," and an assortment ofbooks on divinity, manuals for magistrates, andhelps in farming. Virginia was not eminent as aliterary or bookish community. There was no newspaperuntil the establishment of the "VirginiaGazette " in 1736. As for schools, the Lords Commissionersof Plantations sent over a schools and'series of interrogatories to Sir William p^^^^^^^-Berkeley in 1671, and asked him, among otherthings, what provision was made for public instruction.His reply was characteristic ": I thank Godthere are no free schools nor printing, and I hopewe shall not have these hundred years ; for learninghas brought disobedience and heresy and sects intothe world, and printing has divulged them, andlibels against the best government. God keep usfrom both !" ^ Lord Culpeper seems to have been^ See Lyman Draper, in Virginia historical Register, iv. 87-90.2 William and Mary College Quarterly, iii. 247-249.^ Hening, ii. 517.