quire it, being with the sincerest regard, dear sir, your most obedient and affectionate humble servant,

GO. WASHINGTON.

GEORGE MASON, Esq., Gunston Hall.

THE LATE COMMODORE WARRINGTON. Commodore Lewis Warrington, of the United States navy, was born in Williamsburg, in 1782, and after finishing his academic course at William & Mary College, entered the navy the 6th of January, 1800, and soon after joined the frigate Chesapeake, then lying at Norfolk. In this ship he remained on the West India station until May 1801, when he returned to the United States and joined the frigate President, under Commodore Dale, and soon blockaded Tripoli until 1802, when he again returned to the United States, and joined the frigate New-York, which sailed, and remained on the Mediterraenan station until 1803. On his return from the Mediterranean he was ordered to the Vixen, and again joined the squadron which had lately left, where he remained during the attack on the gun-boats and batteries of Tripoli, in which the Vixen always took part. In November, 1804, he was made acting lieutenant; and in July, 1805, he joined the brig Siren, a junior lieutenant. In March, 1806, he joined the Enterprise, as first lieutenant, and did not return to the United States until July, 1807-an absence of four years. After his return in 1807, he was ordered to the command of a gun-boat on the Norfolk station, then under the command of Commodore Decatur. This was a position calculated to damp the ardor of the young officer, as it was so far below several he had filled. He, however, maintained his

usual bearing for two years, when he was again ordered to the Siren as first lieutenant. On the return of this vessel from Europe, whither she went with dispatches, Lieut. Warrington was ordered to the Essex, as her first lieutenant, in September of the same year. In the Essex he cruised on the American coast, and again carried out dispatches for the government, returning in 1812. He was then ordered to the frigate Congress as her first lieutenant, and sailed, on the declaraton of war, with the squadron under Commodore Rogers, to intercept the British West India fleet, which was only avoided by the latter in consequence of a heavy fog, which continued for fourteen days. He remained in the Congress until 1813, when he became first lieutenant of the frigate United States, in which he remained until his promotion to the rank of master commandant, soon after which he took command of the sloopef-war Peacock. While cruising in the Peacock, in latitude 27 deg. 40 min., he encountered the British brig-ofwar, Epervier. His own letter to the Secretary of the Navy, descriptive of that encounter, is as follows:

AT SEA, APRIL 29, 1814.

SIR: I have the honor to inform you that we have this morning captured, after an action of forty-two minutes, his Britannic Majesty's brig Epervier, rating and mounting eighteen thirty-two pound carronades, with one hundred and twenty-eight men, of whom eleven were killed and fitteen wounded, according to the best information we could obtain. Among the latter is her first lieutenant, who has lost an arm, and received a severe splinter wound in the hip. Not a man in the Peacock was killed, and only two wounded, neither dangerously. The fate of the Epervier would have been decided in much less time, but for the circumstance of our fore-yard having been totally disabled by two round-shot in the starboard quarter, from her first broadside, which entirely deprived us of the use of our foretopsails, and compelled us to keep the ship large throughout the remainder of the action. This, with a few topmast

and topgallant backstays cut away, and a few shot through our sails, is the only injury the Peacock has sustained. Not a round-shot touched our hull, and our masts and spars are as sound as ever. When the enemy struck he had five feet of water in his hold; his maintopmast was over the side; his mainboom shot away; his foremast cut nearly away, and tottering; his forerigging and stays shot away; his bowsprit badly wounded, and forty-five shot holes in his hull, twenty of which were within a foot of his waterline, above and below. By great exertions we got her in sailing order just as night came on. In fifteen minutes after the enemy struck, the Peacock was ready for another action, in every respect, except the foreyard, which was sent down, fished, and we had the foresail set again in fortyfive minutes-such was the spirit and activity of our gallant crew. The Epervier had under convoy an English hermaphrodite brig, a Russian, and a Spanish ship, which all hauled their wind, and stood to the E. N. E. I had determined upon pursuing the former, but found that it would not be prudent to leave our prize in her then crippled state, and the more particularly so as we found she had on board one hundred and twenty thousand dollars in specie. Every officer, seaman, and marine did his duty, which is the highest compliment I can pay them.

I am, &c.,

L. WARRINGTON.

Capt. Warrington brought his prize safely home, and was received with great honor, because of his success in the encounter. In the early part of the year 1815, he sailed in the squadron under Commodore Decatur, for a cruise in the Indian Ocean. The Peacock and Hornet were obliged to separate in chasing, and did not again meet until they arrived at Tristan d'Acunha, the place appointed for rendezvous. After leaving that place, the Peacock met with a British line-of-battle ship, from which she escaped, and gained the Straits of Sunda, where she captured four vessels, one of which was a brig of fourteen guns, belonging to the East India Company's service. From this vessel Captain Warrington first heard of the ratification of peace. He then returned to the United States. While in command

of the Peacock, Capt. Warrington captured nineteen vessels, three of which were given up to prisoners, and sixteen destroyed.

Since the close of the war, Commodore Warrington has filled many responsible stations in the service for a long time, having been on shore-duty for twenty-eight years. He was appointed one of the Board of Naval Commissioners, and subsequently held the post of chief of the Bureau of Ordnance in the Navy Department, which post he held at the time of his death. His whole career of service extended through a period of more than fifty-one years, during all of which time he was greatly respected, and held as one of the most prominent officers of the United States navy. At the time of his death, which occurred at Washington, on the 12th of October last, (after a short but painful illness,) there was but one older officer in the service.-Inter. Mag.

OLD ENGLISH PLAYWRIGHTS.

The following passage from Heywood's "Hierarchie of Angels," (London, 1637,) which I find in Hone's Table Book, communicated by that dear lover of old English plays, Charles Lamb, is somewhat curious for "containing a string of names, all but that of Watson, his contemporary Dramatists; " and it may have a little additional interest for us Virginians, as furnishing a catalogue of the authors with whom we may suppose our early fathers of the colony, or some of them, were most familiar;—that is, if they could find time, amidst their planting and tending of their corn and tobacco, and other engagements, to read any thing. "The poet," says L., "is complaining, in a mood half serious, half comic, of the disrespect which poets in his own.

time met with from the world, compared with the honors paid them by antiquity. Then they could afford them three or four sonorous names, and at full length; as to Ovid, the addition of Publius Naso Sulmensis; to Seneca, that of Lucius Annæas Cordubensis; and the like. Now, says, he,

Our modern poets to that pass are driven,

Those names are curtail'd which they first had given;
And, as we wish'd to have their memories drown'd,
We scarcely can afford them half their sound.
Greene, who had in both Academies ta'en
Degree of Master, yet could never gain

To be call'd more than Robin; who, had he

Profest aught save the Muse, served, and been free
After a sev'n years prenticeship, might have
(With credit too) gone Robert to his grave.
Marlowe, renown'd for his rare art and wit,
Could ne'er attain beyond the name of Kit;
Although his Hero and Leander did
Merit addition rather. Famous Kid

Was call'd but Tom. Tom Watson, though he wrote
Able to make Apollo's self to dote

Upon his Muse; for all that he could strive,

Yet never could to his full name arrive.
Tom Nash (in his time of no small esteem,)
Could not a second syllable redeem.
Excellent Beaumont, in the foremost rank
Of the rarest wits, was never more than Frank.
Mellifluous Shakspeare, whose enchanting quill
Commanded mirth or passion, was but WILL:
And famous Jonson, though his learned pen
Be dipt in Castaly, is still but Ben.

Fletcher, and Webster, of that learned pack
None of the meanest, neither was but Jack;
Decker but Tom; nor May, nor Middleton;
And he's now but Jack Ford, that once were John.

"Possibly, " continues L., "our Poet was a little sore, that the contemptuous curtailment of their baptismal names was chiefly exercised upon his poetical brethren of the drama. We hear nothing about Sam Daniel, or Ned Spen