and blending of the colors, the fidelity to | The patrician went to the place indicated, nature, the graceful disposition of the accompanied by a procession of priests, flowers and insects, and above all, the minuteness of every patient stroke. Though only minor decorations, they are absolutely perfect in every smallest detail. When we get among the offices for the saints, the Breviary becomes a perfect treasure-house of old legends. The muchtempted St. Anthony is surrounded by all the various monsters that never ceased to torment him throughout his earthly pilgrimage. Winged demons are clawing about his head, giving a distressed look to the mild countenance of the venerable saint. Below, in the border, the demons appear in the form of wolves and lions, striving to terrify him from the path of holiness. and found the plan of the building, as he had seen it in his vision, traced out by a light fall of snow. The church thus built, and dedicated to Our Lady of the Snow, is now known as Santa Maria Maggiore, one of Rome's great basilicas. In the miniature Our Lady of the Snow is a fragile, delicate figure, more ethereal than the Madonnas of Flemish painters are apt to be. She is clothed in a robe of pale blue, bordered with gold, and holds the Holy Child in her arms. She is seated in the midst of a meadow dotted with flowers, while in the distance may be seen the procession of priests pausing in the midst of the snow. St. Jerome, in his solitude, intent on the study of the Scriptures, is a striking figure, by Memling. Though worn to emaciation by his fasting, he wears an air of lofty dignity. His dress is rich in color and texture, and at his feet lies the red St. George on a white horse is thrusting his spear into the dragon's mouth, while the Princess Cleodolinda, kneeling on one side, with arms thrown up, looks on with an expression of anxiety and distress on her countenance. St. James Major is gal-hat of a cardinal. lantly charging, at the head of the Spanish army, against their enemies the Moors. The beautiful old legend of St. Christopher has an appropriate illustration by Memling. The office of St. Martha, sister of Lazarus, has a charming illustration of the saint, who was "cumbered with much serving." A graceful figure in a neat and dainty kitchen, she holds a skillet in one hand, while in the other she has a book, on which she is very intent-whether a cookery book or a book of devotion there is nothing to indicate. The kettle boils merrily over the fire; the bright dishes are ranged against the wall; a cat is playing on the floor. The hearth is clean and well brushed, and the open door of the kitchen shows another room beyond, equally pleasant. St. Martha has certainly served to some purpose, for her own dress and person are as daintily attractive as the kitchen which is her kingdom. To Memling is also ascribed the charming miniature appropriated to the office of Our Lady of the Snow. A Roman patrician of great wealth, wishing to employ his vast possessions to the honor of the Virgin, had a vision, in which the Virgin appeared to him, and told him to build a church in her honor on Mount Esquiline, in the place where he should find the plan of the temple traced out in snow fallen from heaven in the height of summer. The office of St. Luke, the "beloved physician" and legendary artist, is the occasion of another of Memling's charming miniatures. He is seated at his easel painting a picture of the Virgin, with the ox, his attribute, behind his chair. The border of this picture is especially beautiful. The gauzy wings of the dragon-fly at the bottom are marvellously painted. St. Martin dividing his cloak with the beggar makes a pleasing illustration, and as a fitting pendant St. Elizabeth is represented on the next page giving aid to the poor. St. Cecilia, with her harp, in a flowery meadow, and St. Catherine in the midst of the doctors of Alexandria, follow. A full page is devoted to the calm, strong figure of St. Barbara, who is seated on the ground reading. Her face is beautiful, her attitude graceful and noble. In the background her martyrdom is represented as taking place near the tower with which she is always associated. Though there are many more pictures in the book, they are inferior to this, and St. Barbara makes a fitting close to so beautiful and noble a collection. When we have made ourselves familiar with the contents of the Breviary, we can no longer wonder that its guardians look at it as a priceless treasure, and are like dragons to those who would grasp with profane hand at their "apples of gold in pictures of silver." another centre street, Fairfax, flanked by Royal Street on one side and the river on the other. Anxious as the young surveyor George Washington was to perfect himself in his art, it is impossible to believe that this plan was made by his relatives and friends without his familiarity. The lots of the new town were sold on the 13th of July, 1749. Among the purchasers were Lawrence Washington, John Carlyle, Adam Stephen, afterward a sub ington's generals in the Revolutionary army, and John Champe, father of Sergeant-major Champe, of Lee's legion, who feigned desertion in the hope of capturing the traitor Arnold. The bids were made in Spanish pistoles. The lots, one-quarter acre each, sold at from $15 to $250 each. Young Washington had no money to spare to buy town lots; but he owned some land opposite Fredericksburg, and was already earning a doubloon a day by surveying the wild lands of Lord Fairfax. Almost as soon as this survey was com John Alexander, who in 1669 paid six thousand pounds of tobacco for nine miles of river-shore nearly opposite what is now the District of Columbia. Just after this purchase, Washington's great-grandfather had led from the settled lands near the mouth of the Potomac a troop of militia to punish the Dogne Indians for the murder of Robert Hen, a herdsman, near what is now Mount Vernon. He became enraptured with these magnificent hills, and soon included them in a patent of seven thousand acres. Over sixty years after-altern under Braddock, and one of Washward this tract descended to Lawrence Washington, George's elder brother, who married a daughter of Colonel William Fairfax, of Belvoir, the county lieutenant, and became neighbor to his father-in-law by settling at Mount Vernon. Hither came young George Washington, fresh from school. Having failed to be a midshipman, he was becoming a land surveyor a profession not so opposite as might seem; for in mathematical methods the pursuits are identical, and the survey of a wild country is, in peril and adventure, not unlike a voyage at sea. Into Belha-pleted, he was commissioned major in the ven young George Washington rode every day. Tradition says that he came ten times during one week, each time upon a different horse, every one an animal that would have delighted General Grant. In those days the fine rider of a fine horse readily won his way to the popular heart. The lad had borrowed in turn all the best horses of the country-side, and he managed each with such skill and grace that thereafter his future was made in the village. The family circle at Belvoir and Mount Vernon included, besides the visitor, Lord Fairfax, Baron of Cameron, Colonel William Fairfax, his son George William Fairfax, his sons-in-law Lawrence Washington and John Carlyle, and William Ramsay, a cousin of the Washingtons. These gentlemen united with the Alexanders, who owned the Belhaven land, and some village traders, and established a town at Belhaven warehouse, designed as a practical matter to make money, and as a matter of taste to honor at the same time the royal family of England and the Fairfax family of America. The new town took shape with its streets at right angles. One centre street, Cameron, flanked south by King, Prince, and Duke streets, and north by Queen, Princess, and Duchess streets, and these streets crossed by Colonial militia, and appointed adjutant of the frontier district, with head-quarters at Alexandria. From this centre he organized the militia of the frontier counties, selected drill-masters for the officers, attended and regulated musters, and on this limited field first developed that mastery of detail and talent for organization which, twenty-five years later, organized on Boston heights a crude militia into a Continental army. There lingers yet in the traditions of the town the dim figure of a tall, wiry, sunburned young man, always on horseback, of "bitter" will, and yet of great popularity; not a personal magnetism that attracted individual men, but a dominating power that won men in mass by giving every one assurance of safety under his lead. He took, it is said, much interest in the wells then being dug, and predicted that mines of iron would be found near the town--a prediction never verified. turned to Alexandria, after his perilous commander. Shoes and hats cost the solmission across the wilderness to deliver diers treble their value. Governor Dinwiddie's message to the French commander at Fort Duquesne, he On the 2d of April, 1754, Alexandria's little army of one hundred and fifty men gathered into the military service all these | made a dress parade at the Market Square, Jacobite soldiers that he could find. Under the training of these soldiers the town was kept busy, and very soon its grassy streets were made bare, as day by day they felt the slovenly gait of raw recruits changed into the measured tread of trained soldiers. Washington's quartermaster's department gave him the most trouble. Governor Dinwiddie's favorite contractors defied him. The army frauds of the late war seem to have been only colossal growths of germs like those that then grew up in the path of the young and then, with Washington (just twentytwo) at their head, marched off into the wilderness, with their faces turned toward the Ohio River. In August the remnant came back from the campaign. They had been forced to capitulate to the French at Fort Necessity on the previous 4th of July, but had marched out with the honors of war. They went into barracks at the new court-house, in the market, for the growing village had just been fixed upon as the county seat of Fairfax County. The "coats of sleazy cloth, and waistcoats of indifferent flannel," of which Washing- many days, as he expressed it, "slaving ton complained, may well stand as an early definition of modern "shoddy." Provisions were abundant, but store-houses few, and he advised that the overplus be sent to the West Indies, and exchanged for rum, which could be re-exchanged for military equipments and clothing. While Washington rested, awaiting orders, in Alexandria, after this campaign, an election for a Fairfax County delegate to the House of Burgesses took place. Of course Washington supported his friend George William Fairfax. The opposing candidate was Colonel Elzey. How Washington's partisanship led to an encounter with wiry little Payne, who knocked him down on the market square; how an election riot was imminent; how the troops rushed from their barracks in the courthouse, and might have furnished an early example of the necessity or of the danger of troops at the polls," had not Washington calmed them; how he did not challenge Colonel Payne, as expected, but invited the colonel to take a glass of wine with him—a proceeding which, if the wine then was as full of drugs as it is now, was far more dangerous to both parties than the ordinary duel-all this has been told by that delightful gossip Parson Weems. Washington was not then twenty-three, and his conduct in this matter shows how solid was the nobility of his character. When he declined a resort to the "code" he was still under the cloud of having surrendered Fort Necessity, his reputation was suffering unfavorable comment from the only newspaper in the colony, and forces like those which in the Conway-Gates cabal subsequently sought to ruin him were at work. That, under these surroundings, he did not-that he never did, at any period of his lifedeem such a resort necessary, ought long ago to have banished this remnant of barbarism from the customs of his native State. The cabals against him were successful. Soon news came that filled the town with rage. Sixteen new companies were to be raised, but the regimental organization was to be abolished, and Colonel Washington would be compelled to go down to a captain's rank, and serve perhaps under his own subalterns. Traditions of the indignation of the town are still current. The first strands of loyalty snapped. Washington, who had spent dangerously for a shadow of pay through rocks, woods, and mountains," resigned at once, and when he was urged to continue in service with his full commission, he replied, sharply, "If you think me capable of holding a commission which has neither rank nor emolument, you must believe me more empty than the commission itself." This was probably the most trying period of Washington's life. Braddock brought Washington from retirement. By tendering him a position as aide-de-camp, all questions of rank were waived. On the 3d of April, 1755, Commodore Keppel's frigates, the Nightingale and the Sea-Horse, with sixteen transports, landed the Forty-fourth and Forty-eighth British regiments at Alexandria. Both regiments wore the red coats that afterward became so hateful to American eyes, but the facings of the Forty-fourth were yellow, and those of the Forty-eighth buff. Spontoons were carried as well as swords by the minor officers; but Braddock directed that these antique weapons be left behind in store at Alexandria, and muskets taken instead. The spontoons remained in town, and were carried instead of billies by the town watchmen until the summer of 1861, when the provost guard of a Michigan regiment ordered the watchmen to go home and watch no more until the Union should be restored. Again were the spontoons superseded by muskets, and they have never come into use since. Washington was ill of chills and fever when Braddock reached Alexandria. He sent his "compliments and excuses," and Braddock, in reply, regretted his illness, and gave him liberty to join the expedition whenever his convenience permitted. He did not join until some weeks afterward. As soon as Braddock arrived he accepted the hospitalities of Colonel John Carlyle, and made head-quarters at Carlyle's house, built two years before of Portland stone brought from the Isle of Wight by vessels coming to Alexandria for tobacco, just as General Butler has recently built his mansion on Capitol Hill of stone brought as ballast from New England by vessels coming for coal. The half-built town became for a while the metropolis of the British empire in America. Soldiers and statesmen flocked in; expresses came and went; artisans were |