r manners, and plain in their appearance, they yet conceal
under this exterior a warm hospitality, and the stranger will much
sooner be turned away from the door of the "chivalry" than from that of
the German farmer. Seated by his blazing fire, with plenty of apples and
hard cider, the Dutchman of the Kanawha enjoys his condition with gusto,
and is contented with the limitations of his fence. We have seen one
within two miles of the great Natural Bridge who could not direct us to
that celebrated curiosity; his wife remarking, that "a great many people
passed that way to the hills, but for what she could not see: for her
part, give her a level country."

The first German settler who came to Virginia was one Jacob Stover, who
went there from Pennsylvania, and obtained a grant of five thousand
acres of land on the Shenandoah. Stover was very shrewd, and does not at
all justify the character we have ascribed to his race: there is a story
that casts a suspicion on his proper Teutonism. The story runs, that,
on his application to the colonial governor of Virginia for a grant of
land, he was refused, unless he could give satisfactory assurance that
he would have the land settled with the required number of families
within a given time. Being unable to do this, he went over to England,
and petitioned the King himself to direct the issuing of his grant; and
in order to insure success, had given human names to every horse, cow,
hog, and dog he owned, and which he represented as heads of families,
ready to settle the land. His Majesty, ignorant that the Williams,
Georges, and Susans seeking royal consideration were some squeaking
in pig-pens, others braying in the luxuriant meadows for which they
petitioned, issued the huge grant; and to-day there is serious reason
to suppose that many of the wealthiest and oldest families around
Winchester are enjoying their lands by virtue of titles given to
ancestral flocks and herds.

The condition of Virginia for the period immediately preceding the
Revolution was one which well merits the consideration of political
philosophers. For many years the extent of the territory of the Old
Dominion was undecided, no lines being fixed between that State and Ohio
and Pennsylvania. Virginia claimed a large part of both these States
as hers; and, indeed, there seems to be in that State an hereditary
unconsciousness of the limits of her dominion. The question of
jurisdiction superseded every other for t