80 Chronicles of the Cape Fear River

*

pieces descriptive of the vicinity where he dwelt. One was on
Masonboro Sound, and possessed great beauty, being remarkable
for its felicity of diction and thought and its graphic excellence.
‘The verses of this poet,” he adds, “were once greatly in vogue
in the neighborhood in which he selected a home and found
friends warm and steady; and there were but few gentlemen
who could not repeat from memory some passages from his pen.”

His works were first published by the American Magazine,
and later some were copied in the English magazines. His
American publishers gave the highest praise to his efforts and
were also much interested in proclaiming his father’s genius.
“Nature,” say they, ‘‘seems not to have designed the father for
a greater mathematician than the son for a poet.” In publish-
ing his Court of Fancy in 1762, they say: ‘What shall place
him high in the lists of poets is a poem of considerable length
called the Court of Fancy, in managing which he shines in all
the spirit of true creative poetry.”

His last publication, The Victory, which is designated as a
“nervous and noble song of triumph,” appeared in the Pennsyl-
vanua Gazette in 1763. The Prince of Parthia is regarded as
the first attempt in America at dramatic composition, and is
spoken of as “no inconsiderable effort towards one of the sub-
limest species of poetry, and no mean instance of the author’s
strong inherited genius.” Of his published writings his biog-
rapher says: “Upon the whole, I persuade myself that the
severest critic, looking over smaller matters, will allow these
writings of Mr. Godfrey to be aptly characterized in the follow-
ing lines from the Court of Fancy:

‘Bold Fancy’s hand th’ amazing pile uprears,
In every part stupendous skill appears;

In beautiful disorder, yet complete,

The structure shines irregularly great.’ ”

LIBRARIES ON THE CAPE FEAR.

It is to be much regretted that so few memorials of the social
and intellectual life of the old Cape Fear people have been pre-
served. They enjoyed the elegance that attends wealth and
they possessed libraries that bespeak culture.

When Edward Moseley was passing through Charleston in
1703, he was employed to make a catalogue of the library books
there; and, on locating in Albemarle, he at once began the col-

Permanent Settlement 81

*

lection of a library. Later, he presented a library to the town
of Edenton. When, about 1735, he removed to Rocky Point
and built Moseley Hall, he brought his library with him.

But perhaps superior to Moseley’s was the library of Eleazar
Allen, at Lilliput. The inventory of this collection of books has
been preserved. Made at his death, about 1749, it shows over
three hundred volumes in English and Latin, including the
standard works of that era—the classics, poetry, history, works
of fiction, as well as works of a religious nature; and, besides,
some fifty in French, not only histories, travels, poetry, and
fiction, but also French translations of the most celebrated Latin
authors. One finds in that atmosphere a culture unsurpassed
elsewhere in America.

The Hasells likewise had a good library; also Judge Maurice
Moore; and Gen. John Ashe had one he prized so highly that
he made special efforts to preserve it, but unfortunately it was
destroyed during the last year of the Revolutionary War.

While there were libraries at the homes of the gentlemen in
the country, at Wilmington there was the Cape Fear Library,
one volume of which, at least, has been preserved—a volume of
Shakespeare, with notes made by Archibald Maclaine, of Wil-
mington, a nephew of the historian Mosher, which are of un-
usual merit. Many of the Rocky Point books appear to have
been collected at Lillington Hall, and others have been preserved
in the Hasell collection. A part of the Hasell collection, em-
bracing books of Moseley printed before 1700, of Alexander
Lillington, and of others, has been placed in the State Library
at Raleigh.

COLONIAL GOVERNORS OF NORTH CAROLINA.

(Extracts from an address delivered by Mr. John Jay Blair before the North
Carolina Society of Colonial Dames at Brunswick, N. C.)

I have selected for my subject the governors who resided here
on the Cape Fear, with a view to the formulating of a connected
story of their respective administrations, together with a refer-
ence to events in the province which are of sufficient importance
to have any bearing upon its life. 7

On the 25th of February, 1731, Burrington, who had just
arrived in the colony, took the oath of office before the Council,
assembled at Edenton.

Probably the fairest estimate of Burrington is that given by

6

pean ek A a oO el aA RNa ate ae 8 Et