a lie, but Weems was not thus handicapped.

Under a mass of silly moralizing, he nearly buried the real Washington,
giving us instead a priggish, punk youth, and a Madame Tussaud, full-dress
general, with a wax-works manner and a wooden dignity.

Happily, we have now come to a time when such authors as Mason L. Weems
and John S.C. Abbott are no longer accepted as final authorities. We do
not discard them, but, like Samuel Pepys, they are retained that they may
contribute to the gaiety of nations.

Various violent efforts have been made in days agone to show that
Washington was of "a noble line"--as if the natural nobility of the man
needed a reason--forgetful that we are all sons of God, and it doth not
yet appear what we shall be. But Burke's "Peerage" lends no light, and the
careful, unprejudiced, patient search of recent years finds only the blood
of the common people.

Washington himself said that in his opinion the history of his ancestors
"was of small moment and a subject to which, I confess, I have paid little
attention."

He had a bookplate and he had also a coat of arms on his carriage-door.
The Reverend Mr. Weems has described Washington's bookplate thus: "Argent,
two bar gules in chief, three mullets of the second. Crest, a raven with
wings, indorsed proper, issuing out of a ducal coronet, or."

* * * * *

Mary Ball was the second wife of Augustine Washington. In his will the