Montague Letters" for each member of the Society, and read the following letter:

HON. SAMUEL A. GREEN, Librarian, and the Officers and Members of the Massachusetts Historical Society:

GENTLEMEN, - Eighteen years ago, you did me the honor to enroll my name as a Corresponding Member of your influential Society: I expressed my thanks and high appreciation of your action at the time, but I have felt ever since, that I should like to make a more tangible acknowledgment of the distinction conferred upon me.

The people of our respective States were then much divided in opinion and conduct, and I therefore awaited a more propitious season, hoping that with the passing years there would ensue a mutual moderation of extreme views, and that a more favourable opportunity might present itself.

It seems to me such a period has been reached. The recent public utterances of your distinguished President, marked by liberality of view, and conciliatory in tone, have already elicited reciprocal responses from different parts of the South-land. He has recently been received in Charleston as an honored guest, and I have concluded that the time is opportune to gratify my earlier purpose.

These promising occurrences emphasize the truth of the poet's lines,"The thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the Suns." History is always repeating itself. In the first half of the last century, it was the habit to denounce the Tories of the Revolution in very harsh terms! They certainly had embittered the contest in our State, creating a civil war condition; yet at the end General Francis Marion, Dr. Ramsay the historian, and many prominent citizens voted against the confiscation of their property, on the ground that they were to live with us as neighbours, and that strife should then cease, with the advent of peace!

So in the address before the South Carolina Historical Society in 1858 our great citizen, the late James Louis Petigru, gave expression to this truthful and beautifully phrased thought. Mr. Bancroft, the historian, was present as a guest.

"Zeal in behalf of our country and our country's friends is commendable, and patriotism deservedly ranks among the highest virtues. But even virtue may be pushed to excess, and the narrow patriotism that fosters an overweening vanity, and is blind to all merit except its own, stands in need of the correction of reason! It is not true that all the virtue of the country was in the Whig camp in the Revolution."

Within the last two decades a statue to Cromwell has been erected in London by permission of the House of Commons! and in our country, in the same period, a trending is visible in the direction of

recognizing in General R. E. Lee a distinguished American citizen and soldier, although a Virginian! Under these changed and promising conditions of amity and good will Massachusetts and South Carolina, recognized leaders in the "old thirteen," might well become exemplars to all our States, now destined not only to live under one Government, but with a future of unrivalled promise. It would seem the part of wisdom and patriotism for each to become very tolerant.

"Be to each other's virtues very kind:

Be to each other's faults a little blind."

In this spirit I have prepared a special edition of the MoultrieMontague correspondence, 1781, which recalls that far-off past of duty and patriotism, and some related matters, for the use of the members of your ancient and useful Society. These copies will come to you enveloped and ready for the mail.

I have culled from my Library some historical material, enough to make a folio volume, of rare and interesting records relating to our State, much of which will be new in text and illustration. The volume bears the simple title SOUTH CAROLINA.

I mention specially an original printed copy of the Act of Parliament, making South Carolina a Royal Colony 1719-75, and a facsimile copy of "The South-Carolina Gazette" of date June 13, 1775, containing the Mecklenburg Declaration of May 31, 1775, as first published copied from the original newspaper in the Charleston Library Society's large and invaluable collection of early Carolina newspapers. I esteem it equally a privilege and pleasure to make these gifts, and with all good wishes for the future of your Society, I remain Yours very respectfully,

Wм. A. COURTENAY.

NEWRY, S. C., June 28, 1904.

Dr. Green also read the following communication from Mr. CHARLES H. HART, a Corresponding Member:

Some Notes concerning John Norman, Engraver.

I have read with more than common interest Dr. Green's "Remarks on the Boston Magazine . . . and John Norman, Engraver," made before the Society at its meeting, May 12, and think that I can add some notes of importance relative to Norman.

It seems not to have been known to Dr. Green that John Norman was an engraver and publisher in Philadelphia before he worked in Boston. Whether or not he was a native of Philadelphia I do not know, as I have been able to trace him only

through his plates and publications. In my recent "Catalogue of the Engraved Portraits of Washington," published by the Grolier Club, New York, there will be found recorded no less than six plates bearing Norman's name, while two others, without his name, I ascribe to his hand. Those bearing his name are Hart 42, 43, 44, 57, 288, and 761; and those ascribed by me are Hart 41 and 45. Hart 57 will be found in the "Boston Magazine," for April, 1784. He had two partnerships in Philadelphia: "Walters & Norman," 1779, and "Norman & Bedwell," 1780.

The earliest date I have found Norman in Philadelphia is 1775, in which year he engraved a plate for "The Prussian Evolutions in Actual Engagements," by Thomas Hanson. The next year he produced the "Death of Warren," as a frontispiece to a drama, ascribed to Hugh Henry Brackenridge, and entitled "The Battle of Bunker Hill," Philadelphia, Robert Bell, 1776. The design for this plate was by "N. G.," whoever he may have been. This plate Dr. Justin Winsor, in his "Critical History " (VI. 198 n.), says "is held to be the earliest engraving in British America by a native artist.” This is surely an unaccountable slip, with Hurd, Revere, and Copley at his elbow, to say nothing of our ignorance as to the birthplace of Norman,

In 1779 Norman engraved a frontispiece and twenty-eight folding plates for a "Treatise on Artillery," by John Muller, which he dedicated to Washington and Knox; and the following year he engraved and published a sheet, "Philadelphia Almanack for the Year of our Lord 1780," with a portrait of Washington (Hart, 42) at the head. In 1781 he engraved the title and music for "The Psalm-singer's Amusement," which was published in Boston. We may therefore safely ascribe the time of Norman's removal from Philadelphia to Boston as 1780-81.

Norman's best known plate is a portrait of Washington (Hart, 43) from an original picture in possession of his Excellency Governor Hancock, which, with a companion portrait of Mrs. Washington, was "Published by John Coles, Boston, March 26th, 1782." Until within a score of years there was

1 Is the present whereabouts known of this original portrait of Washington, that belonged to John Hancock? It was painted by Charles Willson Peale, and would be a most desirable find. Peale likewise painted a miniature of Hancock, which also would be a valuable acquisition.

but one impression known of this plate, which was owned by Mr. Charles Folsom, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since then several prints have been found; but so highly are they prized that a pair of the prints sold at the Carson sale in Philadelphia, January 21, 1904, for $540. Norman's most important and largest engraving that I know, measuring 29.2 by 20.8, engraved on two plates, was after Trumbull's picture of "The Battle of Bunkers Hill"; and his best plate that I have seen was a whole-length portrait of Washington (Hart, 288), after Stuart's Lansdowne picture, measuring 19.3 by 13.2. though Norman engraved quite a number of plates, his prints, for some unaccountable reason, as the printing press multiplied impressions, are all exceedingly scarce; of some of them only single impressions being known. I hope other members may be able to add to what Dr. Green and I have told of this early American engraver.

Al

A few days ago my excellent and long-time friend, Professor Wuarin of the University of Geneva, returning from the World's Congress at St. Louis, put in my hands a brief announcement of the proposed monument to Calvinistic Reformers to be erected at Geneva in 1909. This official statement is as follows:

-

Looking forward to the fourth Centennial of the birth of Calvin, a provisional committee of Genevese citizens has been created to consider the possibility of erecting a monument at Geneva in 1909 commemorative of the Calvinistic Reform. In view of the international character which ought to be given to such a memorial, so that it may be as widespread as possible, and so that the proposed monument may take a dignified place alongside that of the statue of Luther at Worms, the provisional committee is anxious to secure the contingent support of persons interested in the project, in France, in Holland, in Hungary, and in all Anglo-Saxon countries.

The plan as described to me by Professor Wuarin is to erect a monument in which the principal figures shall be Calvin, Beza, and John Knox, but which shall also include subsidiary figures or reliefs of other great Calvinistic divines. It is impossible for a New Englander not to conceive the hope that among that body of disciples and disseminators of the doctrines of the great Genevan might be included our own Jonathan Edwards, who in the rigidity of his doctrines and the benignity of his private life much resembled his prototype. At any rate, it seems suitable that a movement to commemorate John Calvin, the spiritual and political father of New England theocracy, should be known in the Massachusetts Historical Society; and that when the general world committee is formed, some members of that Society should co-operate.

Mr. WILLIAM W. GOODWIN, in some amusing remarks, inquired whether there is any authority for the statement alluded to by the President that Mary Chilton was the first person to land on Plymouth Rock.

Hon. DANIEL H. CHAMBERLAIN, speaking extemporaneously, and referring to the introductory remarks of the President, paid a brief tribute to the members, his personal friends, who had died during the two years and a half since he had been able to attend a meeting of the Society, and expressed his satisfaction at seeing in place of them others equally well known to him. As he proposed going abroad soon for the benefit of his health, he had come here to-day from the South at a good deal of trouble and inconvenience to meet with the Society once more before a long absence. He then spoke of the discussion which had followed the publication of his paper on "The Historical Conception of the United States Constitution," read before the Society in May, 1902, adding: "I am going to observe for the benefit of my friends, Professor Channing and Professor Hart, that there has just appeared a new school history of the United States by Professor Henry Alexander White, now of Columbia, South Carolina, formerly of Washington and Lee University. In the text of that book, at the appropriate place, Professor White says in substance,-I cannot give you the exact language, I can give you the substance, that it was undoubtedly the understanding of a great majority of the people of the United States