In such places dwelt the Virginian planters, surrounded by their families and slaves, and in a solitude broken only by the infrequent and eagerly welcomed stranger, by their duties as vestrymen and magistrates, or by the annual pilgrimage to Williamsburg in search of society, or to sit in the House of Burgesses.  They were occupied by the care of their plantations, which involved a good deal of riding in the open air, but which was at best an easy and indolent pursuit made light by slave labor and trained overseers.  As a result the planters 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 stimulate the love of knowledge.  The women fared even worse, for they could not go to Europe or to William and Mary’s, so that after exhausting the teaching capacity of the parson they settled down to a round of household duties and to the cares of a multitude of slaves, working much harder and more steadily than their lords and masters ever thought of doing.

The only general form of intellectual exertion was that of governing.  The planters managed local affairs through the vestries, and ruled Virginia in the House of Burgesses.  To this work they paid strict attention, and, after the fashion of their race, did it very well and very efficiently.  They were an extremely competent body whenever they made up their minds to do anything; but they liked the life and habits of Squire Western, and saw no reason for adopting any others until it was necessary.