t, and brought himself to
forbear and reason, and even to supplicate. His piety was genuine and
fervent, and diffused a sober dignity over his whole deportment.

He died in ignorance of the real grandeur of his discovery. What visions
of glory would have broken upon his mind could he have known that he had
indeed discovered a new continent! And how would his spirit have been
consoled, amidst the afflictions of age and the injustice of an
ungrateful king, could he have anticipated the empires which would arise
in the world he had discovered; and the nations, towns, and languages,
which were to revere and bless his name to the latest posterity!

* * * * *

Life of George Washington

This great historical biography was Washington Irving's
principal work. It was founded chiefly upon George
Washington's correspondence, which is preserved in manuscript
in the archives of the United States Government. Irving worked
at it intermittently for many years; and it was published in
successive sections during the last years of his life, 1855 to
1859, while he was living in retirement with his nieces at
Sunnyside, on the Hudson River.

The De Wessyngton family, of the county of Durham, in feudal times,
produced many men of mark in the field and in the cloister, and at a
later period the Washingtons were intrepid supporters of the unfortunate
House of Stuart. Compromised by this allegiance, two brothers, John and
Andrew, uncles of Sir Henry Washington, the gallant defender of
Worcester, emigrated to Virginia in 1657, and purchased lands in
Westmoreland County, by the River Potomac. John, who became military
leader of the Virginians against the Indians, was great-grandfather of
the illustrious George Washington.

George, born February 22, 1732, in a homestead on Bridges Creek, was the
eldest son of Mary Ball, second wife of Augustine Washington. Two
half-brothers, Lawrence and Augustine, survived from the first marriage;
and Mary had three other sons and two daughters. George received his
first education in an "old field school-house," taught by the parish
sexton; but the chief influences of his boyhood were the morality of his
home and the military ardour of the colonists against the Spanish and
the French. Lawrence, his eldest brother, had a captaincy in the
colonial regiment which fought for England in the West Indies, in 1740,
and the boy's whole mind