she was unwilling to leave her children, or, as she expressed it, she felt "no particular call of Providence to venture both their parents in one bottom," and in all Mr. Stockton's letters, whether describing the royalties or such notable political figures as Chatham and Grenville, or in preparing for his wife a plan of Mr. Pope's gardens and grotto at Twickenham, there runs a thread of regret that one so fitted by taste and cultivation to appreciate Old World sights and sounds should not be enjoying them with him. After descanting upon the glories of the queen's birthnight ball, which was opened by some of the royalties and graced by the presence of the Duchesses of Bolton, Ancaster, Hamilton, and all the other famous beauties, he concludes, "But here I have done with the subject, for I had rather wander with you along the rivulets of Morven or Red Hill, and see the rural sports of the chaste little frogs, than again be at a birthnight ball." In another letter, Lucius speaks of his Emilia's poems, desiring her to send him some of the pieces he most admired, adding,

"I shall like much to have them to spell over for my amusement on my passage home." Although Mrs. Stockton was very modest about her effusions, and shrank from the notoriety of print, Mrs. Fergusson speaks of her, in one of her own poems, as the writer of many pleasing verses:

"Here flow the good Emilia's strains

In Morven's rural bowers."

One of Mrs. Stockton's daughters, Julia, married the distinguished Dr. Benjamin Rush, and another, Mary, became the wife of Andrew Hunter, of Virginia, who was publicly thanked by General Washington for his gallant service in the battle of Monmouth.

Elizabeth Fergusson did not write patriotic verses, as she was allied by birth and marriage with the Tory side of the question, being the grand-daughter of Lady Anne Keith,* second wife of Sir William

* Mrs. Fergusson was not the grand-daughter of Sir William Keith, as has been so often stated, but of his wife. By her first husband, Robert Diggs, Lady Keith had a daughter Anne, who married Dr. Thomas Graeme, of Philadelphia.

Keith, Penn's last deputy governor, and the wife of Hugh Fergusson, British Commissioner of Prisoners.

The story of Mrs. Fergusson having, in the early days of the Revolution, been a medium of communication between Governor Johnson and the American authorities, with a view to the bringing about of peace negotiations, is well known, and yet her part in the affair has never been thoroughly understood. She says that she "looked upon Governor Johnson as a friend to America who wished some person to step forth and act a mediatorial part, and suggest something to stop the effusion of blood which was likely to ensue if the war was carried on in full vigor." We can understand that Mrs. Fergusson's humanity, aside from any Tory proclivities, would naturally lead her to desire to bring about such a consummation; but that a woman of her mind and character should have allowed herself, with her eyes open, to engage in a transaction in which ten thousand guineas and a good post in the British government were offered to an American general in reward

for his services, is difficult to explain. We can do no better than accept Mrs. Fergusson's own interpretation of the matter, and conclude that she was ignorant of the grosser details of the transaction, and thought only of the desired result. "I own," she says in one place, “I find it hard, knowing the uncorruptness of my own heart, to be held out to the public as a tool to the commissioners. But the impression is now made, and it is too late to recall it." Much of the unpleasantness of the association of this affair with her name, Mrs. Fergusson was able to dispel later by her own narrative, prepared as a refutation of Governor Johnson's statements. The fact also that so patriotic a contemporary as Dr. Rush spoke with unqualified praise of the woman, as well as of the writer, leads us to believe that Mrs. Fergusson's motives were understood and respected by those who knew her best.

From this rather involved page of personal history it is pleasant to turn to an earlier phase of this woman's life, when, as

the young daughter of Dr. Thomas Graeme, she assisted her father and mother to dispense the charming hospitality that rendered Graeme Park* a favorite resort of the cultivated men and women of the day, or amid its lovely groves composed the verses that made her one of the foremost American poets of her time. Miss Graeme's tastes were distinctly literary. In addition to her original poems, she translated Telemachus into English verse, while of her prose writings Dr. Rush wrote that they indicated "strong marks of genius, taste, and knowledge. Nothing," he says, "that came from her pen was common;" to which a no less capable critic than Mr. Joshua Francis Fisher added his meed of praise.

Although Miss Graeme, under the pseudonyme of "Laura," sometimes indulged in elegiac strains, and, like most

* Graeme Park is in Montgomery County, about nineteen miles from Philadelphia; the land on which the house was built was originally owned by Samuel Carpenter. Dr. Thomas Graeme bought the estate from Sir William Keith.