HOPLE'S BOOK OF BIGGRAPHY.

GENTRAL WASHINGTON AT HOME.

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PEOPLE'S BOOK OF BIOGRAPHY.

GENERAL WASHINGTON AT HOME.

GENERAL WASHINGTON stood six feet three in his slippers, and, in the prime of his life was rather slender than otherwise, but as straight as an arrow. His form was well-proportioned and evenly developed, so that he carried his tallness gracefully, and looked strikingly well on horseback. There has never been a more active, sinewy figure than his when he was a young man ; it was only in later life that his movements became slow and dignified. His wife was a plump, pretty little woman, very sprightly and gay in her young days, and quite as fond of having her own way as ladies usually are. She settled down into a good, plain, domestic wife, who looked sharply after her servants, and was seldom seen without her knitting-needles in full play. She was far from being what we should now call an educated woman. Scarcely any of the ladies of that day knew much more than to read their prayer-book and almanacs, and keep simple accounts. Mrs. Washington probably never read a book through in her life, and as to her spelling, - the less said of it the better.

Washington himself, before he became a public man, was a bad speller. People were not so particular then in such matters as they are now; and besides, there really was no settled system of spelling a hundred years ago. When the general wrote for a "rheam of paper," a beaver "hatt," a suit of "cloathis," and a pair of "sattin" shoes, there was no Webster unabridged to

keep people's spelling within bounds. Nor was he much of a reader of books. He read a little of the History of England now and then, and a paper from the Spectator occasionally on rainy days; but he had little literary taste. He was essentially an out-of-doors man, and few things were more disagreeable to him than confinement at the desk. There was nothing in his house which could be called a library; he had a few old-fashioned books, which he seldom disturbed and never read long at a time.

The general and his wife lived happily together, but it is evident that, like most heiresses, she was a little exacting, and it is highly probable that the great Washington was sometimes favored with a curtain lecture. The celebrated authoress, Miss Bremer, is our authority for this surmise. She relates that a gentleman once slept at Mount Vernon in the room next to that occupied by the master and mistress of the mansion; and when all the inmates were in bed, and the house was still, he overheard, through the thin partition, the voice of Mrs. Washington. He could not but listen, and it was a curtain-lecture which she was giving her lord. He had done something during the day which she thought ought to have been done differently, and she was giving him her opinion in somewhat animated and quite decided tones. The great man listened in silence till she had done, and then, without a remark upon the subject in hand, said:

"Now, good sleep to you, my dear."

What an example to husbands!

When Washington was appointed to command the revolutionary armies, it is plain from his letters home that one of his greatest objections to accepting the appointment was, the "uneasiness," as he termed it, that it would cause his wife to have him absent from home.

General Washington was a very rich man; his wife was very rich, and her three children were heirs to great wealth. He had a little principality to govern. Besides the farms about his own residence on the Potomac, with several hundred slaves upon them, he possessed wild lands in most of the best locations then known, as well as shares in several incorporated companies. He

derived an important part of his influence from the greatness of his wealth and the antiquity of his family, things which were then held in much more respect than they are now. Washington's estate was not worth more than three-quarters of a million dollars; but it gave him far more personal consequence in the country than ten times such a fortune could at present. The rich planter of that day, living as he did on a wide domain of his own, the owner of those who served him, riding about in his coach and six, and with no near neighbors to restrain, censure, or outshine him, was a kind of farmer-prince.

It was fortunate for Washington that he came to this wealth when his character was mature. Being a younger son, he had no expectations of wealth in his youth, and he was brought up in a very hardy, sensible manner, on an enormons farm, not a fourth part of which was cultivated. His father dying when he was eleven years old, he came directly under the influence of his mother, who was one of the women of whom people say, "There is no nonsense about her." She was a plain, illiterate, energetic, strong-willed lady, perfectly capable of conducting the affairs of a farm, and scorning the help of others. When she was advanced in years, her son-in-law offered to manage her business for her.

"You may keep the accounts, Fielding," was her reply, "for your eyesight is better than mine; but I can manage my affairs myself."

On another occasion General Washington asked her to come and live with him at Mount Vernon.

"I thank you, George," said she; "but I prefer being independent."

And so to the last she lived in her own plain farm-house, and superintended the culture of her own acres, not disdaining to labor with her own hands. When La Fayette visited her he found her at work in her garden, with her old sun-bonnet on, and she came in to see him, saying:

"I would not pay you so poor a compliment, marquis, as to stay to change my dress."

I have often thought that she must have resembled Betsey Trotwood, as drawn by Charles Dickens in David Copperfield,