had an abundance of spare time, which they devoted to cock-fighting,
horse-racing, fishing, shooting, and fox-hunting,--all, save the
first, wholesome and manly sports, but which did not demand any undue
mental strain. There is, indeed, no indication that the Virginians
had any great love for intellectual exertion. When the amiable
attorney-general of Charles II. said to the Virginian commissioners,
pleading the cause of learning and religion, "Damn your souls! grow
tobacco!" he uttered a precept which the mass of the planters seem to
have laid to heart. For fifty years there were no schools, and down to
the Revolution even the apologies bearing that honored name were
few, and the college was small and struggling. In some of the great
families, the eldest sons would be sent to England and to the great
universities: they would make the grand tour, play a part in the
fashionable society of London, and come back to their plantations fine
gentlemen and scholars. Such was Colonel Byrd, in the early part of
the eighteenth century, a friend of the Earl of Orrery, and the author
of certain amusing memoirs. Such at a later day was Arthur Lee,
doctor and diplomat, student and politician. But most of these young
gentlemen thus sent abroad to improve their minds and manners led a
life not materially different from that of our charming friend, Harry
Warrington, after his arrival in England.

The sons who stayed at home sometimes gathered a little learning from
the clergyman of the parish, or received a fair education at the
College of William and Mary, but very many did not have even so much
as this. There was not in truth much use for learning in managing a
plantation or raising horses, and men get along surprisingly well
without that which they do not need, especially if the acquisition
demands labor. The Virginian planter thought little and read less,
and there were no learned professions to hold out golden prizes and