Pioneers of the Old South, page 149 by Mary Johnston
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iterature of the Colonial South is like the leaves of Vallombrosa for multitude. Here may be indicated some volumes useful in any general survey.
VIRGINIA
Hakluyt's "Principal Voyages." 12 vols. (Hakluyt Society. Extra Series, 1905-1907.) "The Prose Epic of the modern English nation."
"Purchas, His Pilgrims." 20 vols. (Hakluyt Society, Extra Series, 1905-1907.)
Hening's "Statutes at Large," published in 1823, is an eminently valuable collection of the laws of colonial Virginia, beginning with the Assembly of 1619. Hening's own quotation from Priestley, "The Laws of a country are necessarily connected with everything belonging to the people of it: so that a thorough knowledge of them and of their progress would inform us of everything that was most useful to be known," indicates the range and weight of his thirteen volumes.
William Stith's "The History of the Discovery and First Settlement of Virginia" (1747) gives some valuable documents and a picture of the first years at Jamestown.
Alexander Brown's "Genesis of the United States", 2 vols. (1890), is a very valuable work, giving historical manuscripts and tracts. Less valuable is his "First Republic in America" (1898), in which the author attempts to weave his material into a historical narrative.
Philip A. Bruce's "Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century", 2 vols. (1896), is a highly interesting and exhaustive survey. The same author has written "Social Life of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century" (1907) and "Institutional History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century", 2 vols. (1910).
John Fiske's "Virginia and Her Neighbors," 2 vols. (1897), and John E. Cooke's Virginia (American Commonwealth Series, 1883) are written in lighter vein than the foregoing histories and possess much literary distinction.
On Captain John Smith there are writings innumerable. Some writers give credence to Smith's own narratives, while others do not. John Fiske accepts the narratives as history, and Edwa