in ancient times used for chariot-racing, boxing and wrestling. One of the principal markets is now held in it, particularly on Wednesday. Every Saturday and Sunday in August, this square is inundated with water from the fountain, that the people may refresh themselves by riding or walking about in it, which they do in great numbers. Formerly this diversion of paddling in the water, used to be protracted through the night, accompanied by musick and refreshments, but in consequence of the disorders which sometimes arose, the water has for many years been drawn off at dark.”

As the name and genius of an artist are naturally associated with his works, it may not be uninteresting to take a glance at the biography of Bernini. He was born at Naples in 1598, and during his childhood discovered marks of that genius which so much distinguished him afterward. At the tender age of eight years, he executed a head in marble equal in symmetry and finish to the productions of many professed sculptors. This induced his parents, aided by influential friends, to place him under the care of Ladrona, an artist of some eminence at Florence. Bernini was not long in outstripping his tutor, and at the age of eighteen he executed an Apollo and Daphne in so superiour a style, that it was believed he would yet rival the best masters of the ancient Grecian school. But this was one of the best productions of his life, it being so near perfection, that it seemed scarcely perceptible of improvement. His fame soon spread throughout Europe, and it having reached England, Charles I. sent him three portraits of himself in different positions, painted by Van Dyke, and desired Bernini to execute a bust therefrom. The sculptor finished the commission to admiration, and so delighted was the English monarch with the bust, that he drew a ring from his finger worth six thousand crowns, and sent it to the sculptor that it might "adorn the hand that could achieve such wonders."

Bernini died at Rome, at the age of eighty-two years, having won for himself a great amount of wealth and honours. Like Michael Angelo, he was at once a sculptor, painter and architect, and his contemporaries placed him upon the same elevation with that great man. He was patronised by Popes Urban VIII., Alexander VII., and Innocent X.; and was invited to France by Louis XIV. Rome still exhibits many of his works in sculpture and archiB. J. L.

Lecture,

AN HISTORICAL SKETCH

OF THE NATCHEZ, OR DISTRICT OF NATCHEZ,
IN THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI; FROM 1763 TO 1798.
BY MANN BUTLER.

(Continued from last No.)

THIS season witnessed a calamity, which rarely attended the white settlements in Natchez; it was a massacre of a party of whites, thirty in number, on

the Big Black, by some Indians. These ferocious
inroads of savage warfare, which stain our frontier
story so deeply with blood, were happily more un-
common in the Southwest, at the period of our re-
marks, and even subsequently, than on any other
portion of our borders. The year 1782 was render-
ed particularly miserable, by the general failure of
the crops; there was, moreover, a dreadful hydro-
phobia, which prevailed among the foxes, almost to
their extirpation. Many cattle bitten by them died;
but fortunately no human beings among the whites;
although some Indians were said to have perished
by this most agonizing phrensy. The spring of 1783
brought Col. James Green, an emigrant from Ten-
nessee. This gentleman had a short engagement
with the Indians, at the Suck, in the Tennessee
river; but gallantly repelled them with his swivels.
The scarcity of grain in the Natchez, compelled
Col. Green to procure supplies for his family from
This gen
the French planters on the river coast.
tleman had the misfortune to render himself odious
to the Spanish government, by acting as a commis-
sioner for the state of Georgia, to demand the de-
livery of that portion of her chartered and treaty
limits lying north of the 31st degree of north latitude.
Such a bold part for a Spanish subject, or at least a
resident under the Spanish government, excited un-
appeasable suspicion; which only waited for the
first decent pretext, to wreak vengeance on the
American spirit of Col. Green. The demand of
Georgia was, as might reasonably be expected,
laughed at by the Spaniards though civily declined.
Georgia has, at all times, been too distinguished by
flaming pretensions and acts of singular, if not ty-
rannical temerity. Her daring commissioner was
confined by the Spanish government, and shortly
after died.

Some time in 1782 the first two flat boats, loaded with flour, and owned by persons of the name of Tomlinson and Hyzen, arrived from the upper waters, at Natchez. The cargo consisting of eight hundred or one thousand barrels, was all bought by the government at $40 per barrel.

The monotony of provincial existence was now broken by the amusement of horse racing, introduced by the Tennesseans into the district. These races were run, or in jocky phrase came off, at St. Catharine's Creek, in the neighbourhood of Natchez. So keen was the passion for the sport, that females, as well as males, attended these backwoods or scrub races, quite as eagerly as the fashionables of more refined times, parade on the course to witness the feats of Arabian fleetness. Nor was the suspicion absent, that the retail of spirituous liquors, at these races, was participated in by the Spanish commandant. The military guard always attended these tempting scenes of publick enjoyment, for the provident purpose of committing any disturbers of the peace of his Catholick Majesty, to the calaboose Matters went on smoothly with an idle people; they had no motive to work beyond the easy supply of immediate necessaries. When these were obtained by the light labour necessary, in a fruitful soil and a genial climate, what but lethargy or violence was to be expected in an energetick people of high capa

Father to Mrs. Matilda Carpenter, of Port Gibson, and grandfather to Abram A. Green, Esq., of Grand Gulf, Miss.

ancestors."

city, hoodwinked and obstructed by an arbitrary, | the Americans, in their too frequent difficulties with jealous and anti-commercial government? Ameri- the Spanish government. Had a riot been produced cans of the present day, "who are so much used to in a drunken frolick, had a Spanish soldier been inthe free untrammelled exertion of all the energies sulted, possibly unceremoniously knocked down by which God has so bountifully given them, cannot one of our violent countrymen, Major Minor must well imagine, how luxuriant soils, beneficent cli-be sent for. Major Minor could get the offender out mates, the facilities of the ocean, and rivers second of the dreadful calaboose. Many were the poor but to the ocean, can all be lavished upon man, with fellows saved from months' close and sickening imout his improving them. Yet such is the melancholy prisonment by the friendly sympathy of this gentlefact which has attended all the colonies planted on man who never better deserved the high confidence this continent by the Europeans, except our British he enjoyed with the Spanish government, than in Indeed these colonies were not al- ameliorating its rigid police in its operation upon the together free from the mischief of metropolitan in- irregularities of our bold and boisterous countrymen. terference, though so much more so, than the colo- Hundreds thus relieved, blessed, says Smith, the nial establishments of the neighbouring powers. name of Minor. Natchez was almost the only point "Monopoly of trade, the curse of over-government, where the distant woodman of Kentucky and Tenand the arbitrary authority of any adventurer nessee after the toils of a thousand miles' perilous "clothed in a little brief authority," have thwarted navigation, in frail and in artificial flat-boats, found a the bounty of God, and kept a country a desert, market for the produce of their hard labours. Pent which Divine Goodness had capacitated for an up for weeks after weeks, in their unwieldy craft, on Eden." Such was the languishing condition of the the constant look out for Indian attacks, at the period Natchez, under the lazy, unenterprising and arbi- of our notice, or some other of the formidable dantrary Spaniards. Thus, if a man got involved in a gers of the river, enduring a thousand nameless lawsuit, the weaker and poorer party was almost privations and hardships, what wonder that the certain to be defeated. At least the administration weary boatman should too freely indulge in some of justice, rapid as it was, and destitute of all our relaxation, at the termination of his worst dangers! "law's delay," was violently suspected by the peo-Such was the state of things which for so many ple. Presents and entertainments to the powerful years rendered the western boatmen, at other places officers of government, left but feeble confidence of beside Natchez, a violent and disorderly class of justice, in the minds of the poor and the humble. men. They are a class of interiour seamen or solNor is there a more blighting state of government, diers, just liberated from duty. At New Orleans, than that in which justice between man and man, for many years, Kentucky was synonymous with riot between rich and poor, between weak and powerful, is without certainty and confidence. There is The vigorous cultivation of tobacco now introduno more abundant source or bad blood and bitter ced many settlers; and the products of their labour passions, than the heart-burnings produced by such freely commanded foreign merchandise and negroes. an exasperating state of things. The dastardly spir-But the jealousy of the Spanish government now beit of even slaves is disturbed by injustice; it reaches gan to take fire, at the free emigration from the westthe hearts of the otherwise callous. What then ern parts of the United States, encouraged by this must have been the feelings of the American set- prosperity. Some of these emigrants from Tennestlers under Spanish justice? Not that our people see were refused permission to remain in the counare to be considered as a very orderly and subordi- try, although they had relations already there. The nate one, even under their own free and light system most that could be obtained from this paternal governof government; but how much less so, under a rule of ment, even with offers of security for good behairon ? Violaters of the police or of the higher law, viour of the emigrants, was, permission to apply to were constantly provoked, or imagined themselves the governour at New Orleans. In one instance, a so, to flee to the states or the Indians, rather than man by the name of Case, took his nephew, a late abide the suspected administration of Spanish law. emigrant, through the wilderness from Natchez to The year 1783 began to be distinguished by Baton Rouge. It was the first time the attempt had more active industry among the people. This was been made by a white man. Having arrived at Baton produced by a demand for tobacco on the part of the Rouge, Case left his relation to prosecute the plain Spanish government. A commercial market brought route, along the river bank, to New Orleans; while its accompaniment-flocks of merchants and mehe himself returned home, marking the way, or chanicks. Where a demand for man's labour pre- blazing it, as the woodsmen call it, through the wilsents itself, whether on the mountain top or the sub-derness, for his nephew to follow. This circumstance terranean mine; in sickness or danger; there man will follow it. It has been the story of the human race in all ages of its existence.

a

The next year (1784,) Stephen Minor,† (mentioned on a former occasion in this sketch and now advanced to the rank of major,) was sent to Natchez. The command of this distinguished officer was endeared to his countrymen by his readiness to aid

*Oration on Independence, July 4th, 1837, delivered at Port Gibson, Frankfort, Ky.

Husband to the widow Minor, and father to Wm. J. Minor, President of the Agricultural Bank of Natchez.

and battle.

of discovering a new road to the capital, is said to have had great influence with the governour, in permitting its traveller to remain in the country. The uncle afterward received a $100 or $150 for opening the route, which was then much travelled. One is forcibly reminded of the policy of the Spanish jealousy, by the late seizure of Texas by American emigrants. Some years after this time elapsed, without presenting any thing to attract the notice of our curious chronicler. In 1787, Governour Gayoso was appointed governour of the Natchez. This gentleman may be familiar to western readers as the same officer, who, in 1795, was appointed by Govern

NATURAL HISTORY.

THE JAY AND BLUE-JAY.

In some respects the jay stands nearly in the same relation to the magpie that the carrion crow does to the rook. It is a woodland bird, never found in open and treeless places, and very seldom near houses. In the woods it chooses the thickest shades; and though its chatter is often heard, it is less frequently seen than almost any other bird of the same size and equally numerous. It occurs in all parts of the British islands where there is cover for it, and has an original name both in Welsh and Galick, both of which have the same meaning, 66 Wood-screecher," or "wood-screamer ;" and some systematists have made it the type of a separate genus, under the name Garrulus.

our Carondelet to negociate a commercial agreement with Judge Sebastian, of Kentucky, for the exclusive benefit of Kentucky trade. (See Butler's Kentucky, p. 245.) To this officer is owing the establishment of the present city of Natchez, above the hill. He purchased the ground of Major Minor, in 1788, for the use of the king of Spain and his subjects, at $2000.* This is the commencement, of what may be very properly termed, American Natchez; in contradiction to the obscurer tenements, too notoriously known as Natchez under the hill. It were vain to expatiate on this noble and beautiful city of the mountain bluffs of the Mississippi; the beauties of its commanding situation must be visited to be appreciated. Under the beneficent dominion of our great republick, in the middle of the great cotton region of the United States, and on the banks of the Mississippi river, what destiny is too brilliant for this capital of the south? Yet with all profuse of its haunts. Its mean dimensions may be taken The jay varies a good deal in size with the nature promise of the present times, it was long before at about a foot in length, eighteen or nineteen inches Natchez enjoyed a brick chimney; wood, as through-in the stretch of the wings, and about seven or eight out the early times of western history, was the perishable and dangerous substitute. The Spanish The bill of the jay is dusky, the legs brown, and government did at length erect an hospital for the use the irides of a glistening pearl gray, which gives of the troops and a chapel for the Roman Catholick sharp and irritable expression to the eye. The head worship, near the centre of the city. There was is whitish, with black streaks, and the feathers on likewise a fort built below the hill, now however the top of the head are loose, and form a crest engulfed in the river, which has made such a pro- which is erectible at pleasure. The body is wine digious encroachment on the Natchez side and even buff, or a mixture of yellow, red, and brown, so on its mountain banks. Notwithstanding the bigotry melted into each other, that the whole effect is not of the Spanish government, notorious even in Cath- easily described. The lesser coverts of the wings olick Europe, Protestant ministers of the gospel

iards.

ounces in weight.

were occasionally permitted to preach. Mr. Smith are pale bay; the greater coverts are marked with The secondary recalled an Episcopal minister, who enjoyed this traces of black and rich blue. privilege; and it may be recollected, that a Baptist quills next the body are bay, with black tips, the next two are entirely black, and the remaining ones minister figured in the insurrection against the Span-are black, tinged with blue, and having white on their outer necks, near the base. The rump and The introduction of Kentucky tobacco into New tail coverts, both upper and under, are white, and Orleans, in consequence of an agreement for that the tail feathers black. These birds, though they purpose between Governour Miro and General James Wilkinson began to be felt as an interference in the keep in the cover of the woods, are very active and limited market of the province. This contract which very voracious. They are omnivorous,consuming great. limited market of the province. This contract which quantities of nuts, mast, wild cherries, peas, and other: was entered into for the joint benefit of both parties, products of the wood and its vicinity; they are also forms the nucleus of various surmises and intrigues great robbers of the nests of smaller birds, and they in the history of Kentucky, and in the life of Gene-sometimes kill and eat the birds themselves, and ral Wilkinson. It was a fruitful source of vexa- also mice, and the larger insects. They are in fact: tion, if not of injustice to the latter officer. Many always prying about in the warm season, and very frauds were however alleged against the Natchez often eating. It is usually said that they are in the planters in the preparation of their tobacco for mar- habit of hoarding their vegetable food against the ket. Even blocks of wood covered with tobacco season of want; and it may be true, for there are a leaves and suckers were said to have been sold as good many more birds which form magazines than merchantable tobacco. The inspection at New Orwe are usually in the habit of giving credit for beleans was so lax or corrupt, that scarcely a carrating so provident. But, in the case of the jay, this of tobacco was refused. This commercial interfer- is not easily established by actual observation, as it ence of a distant portion of a foreign confederacy is by no means easy to see what they do; and though with the infant trade of the Natchez, must have been between 1788 and 1789. It is the eighth of August, 1788, that Governour Miro's permit to General Wilkinson is dated, at New Orleans, for introducing" the productions" of Kentucky into that port.

they are found making free with a store, it cannot,
on account of their habits, be thence inferred that
this store is their own. In confinement they do con
ceal their surplus provisions, but they at the same
time pilfer and hide substances which can be of no

use to them as food; so that no certain conclusion
can thence be drawn of what they may do in a state
of nature; and magpies and jackdaws both hoard
and steal when in a domesticated state, and yet we
do not hear of their stores of provisions being met
In winter,
with when they are in the wild state.
too, at least in the colder parts of the country, jays

are understood to be, for the greater part of their other coxcombs, makes himself still more conspicutime, in holes of trees, or other places of conceal-ous by his loquacity and the oddness of his tones ment, in a state nearly dormant. It is not supposed and gestures. The jay measures eleven inches in that they actually hybernate, but they are rarely seen length; the head is ornamented with a crest of light at that season when there are no leaves on the trees blue or purple feathers, which he can elevate or deto conceal them; and when they do make their ap- press at pleasure; a narrow line of black runs along pearance in winter, it is only on very mild days. the frontlet, rising on each side higher than the eye, When any danger appears, the jays set up a but not passing over it; back and upper part of the screaming, and as their chattering is loud, and they neck a fine light purple, in which the blue predomiall take up the note, they alarm the whole tenants of nates; a collar of black, proceeding from the hind the wood, and thus, by acting the part of sentinels, head, passes with a grateful curve down each side make some sort of return to other birds for the dep- of the neck to the upper part of the breast, where it redations which they commit on their nests. On forms a crescent; chin, cheeks, throat, and belly, some parts of the country they are partially migrant, white, the three former slightly tinged with blue; and where this is the case they partially flock, greater wing-coverts, a rich blue; exteriour sides though their flocks can hardly be called societies. of the primaries, light blue, those of the secondaIn Britain they are more stationary, generally remain-ries, a deep purple, except the three feathers next ing in the same places, and rearing two broods in the the body, which are of a splendid light blue; all course of the season. They choose the most close these, except the primaries, are beautifully barred and concealed part of the trees for their nests; and, with crescents of black, and tipt with white; the both for general habitation and nesting, they prefer interiour sides of the wing-feathers are dusky black; young woods, in which the trees are branched down tail long and cuneiform, composed of twelve feathers nearly to the ground, to those which have tall and of a glossy light blue, marked at half inches with clean boles. Rocks and jays may be found in the transverse curves of black, each feather being tipt same forest, but not in the same part of it. The with white, except the two middle ones, which nest is not so elaborate a structure as that of the deepen into a dark purple at the extremities. Breast magpie. It is broad, and rather firm, as well as and sides under the wings a dirty white, faintly carefully concealed; but it has no dome, and is shal-stained with purple; inside of the mouth, the tongue, low, and without any very soft matters in the lining. bill, legs, and claws, black; iris of the eye hazel. The eggs vary from four to seven, are smaller than those of the pigeon, of a greenish gray colour, with olive spots. The time of the incubation is understood to last about two weeks.

"The blue-jay is an almost universal inhabitant of the woods, frequenting the thickest settlements as well as the deepest recesses of the forest, where his squalling voice often alarms the deer, to the disWhen the jay has grown to maturity in the wild appointment and mortification of the hunter; one of state, it is very shy as well as cunning, and can whom informed me, he made it a point, in summer, hardly be reconciled to confinement by any means; to kill every jay he could meet with. In the charmbut when it is taken young, it is very easily tamed, ing season of spring, when every thicket pours forth and very docile, though even then it appears at harmony, the part performed by the jay always times to be very impatient of the confinement of the catches the ear. He appears to be among his felcage, against which it breaks its feathers, and often low-musicians what the trumpeter is in a band, some does itself more serious injury. But it articulates of his notes having no distant resemblance to the readily, can be taught a number of tricks, and there-tones of that instrument. These he has the faculty fore, in many parts of the world it is kept with much of changing through a great variety of modulations, attention. Its voice is flexible, and it is capable not according to the particular humour he happens to be only of articulating words, but of imitating the in. When disposed for ridicule, there is scarce a voices both of other birds and of several of the bird whose peculiarities of song he cannot tune his mammalia. For food it is of little value, as it is notes to. When engaged in the blandishments of both tough and of bad flavour; but on some parts of love, they resemble the soft chatterings of a duck, the continent it is eaten, after having undergone the and while he nestles among the thick branches of double culinary process of being first boiled and then the cedar, are scarce heard at a few paces' distance; roasted. Even if it were good, the labour of obtain- but he no sooner discovers your approach than he ing it in Britain would be far more than its value; sets up a sudden and vehement outcry, flying off, but on the continent it is more easily obtained; and and screaming with all his might, as if he called the though it is not in request for the table under its whole feathered tribes of the neighbourhood to witown name, it is said to be sometimes double-cooked, ness some outrageous usage he had received. When as above-mentioned, and then introduced as a thrush. he hops undisturbed among the high branches of the The blue jay of America (corvus cristatus) is a oak and hickory, they become soft and musical; and very beautful species, resembling, in many of its his call of the female a stranger would readily mishabits the common jay of Europe. It is very gene-take for the repeated screakings of an ungreased rally distributed over at least the more temperate wheelbarrow. All these he accompanies with variparts of North America; and we cannot bring ous nods, jerks, and other gesticulations, for which it so well before the reader as in the language of that prince of all ornithologists, Alexander Wilson.

"This elegant bird," says this eloquent child and worshipper of wild nature," which, as far as I can learn, is peculiar to North America, is distinguished as a sort of beau among the feathered tenants of our woods by the brilliancy of his dress; and like most

the whole tribe of jays are so remarkable, that with some other peculiarities they might have very well justified the great Swedish naturalist in forming them into a separate genus by themselves.

"The blue-jay builds a large nest, frequently in the cedar, sometimes on an apple-tree, lines it with dry fibrous roots, and lays five eggs of a dull olive