were any deserters from his ships; while his mansion in Philadelphia was always open to extend hospitality to all.

Throughout his life Barry was a practical Catholic, and as he died without children, he bequeathed a good part of his worldly possessions to the Catholic Orphan Asylum of Philadelphia, in which city he was buried in the old cemetery of St. Mary's church. It is a crowded God's acre. Only a glimpse of its tombstones may be had from the street, and factories and workshops look down upon it. But loyal hearts have renewed Barry's time-worn monument, and placed on it the following inscription:

Sacred to the memory of Commodore John Barry, Father of the American Navy. Let the Christian Patriot and Soldier, who visits these mansions of the dead, view this monument with respect and veneration: beneath it rest the remains of John Barry, who was born in county Wexford, Ireland, in the year 1745. America was the object of his patriotism and the aim of his usefulness and ambition. At the beginning of the Revolutionary War he held the commission of Captain in the then limited navy of the colonies. His achievements in battle, and his renowned naval tactics, merited for him the position of Commodore, and to be justly regarded as the Father of the American Navy. He fought often, and bled in the cause of freedom: but his deeds of valor did not diminish in him the virtues which adorned his private life. He was eminently gentle, kind, just, and charitable, and no less beloved by his family and friends, than by his grateful country Firm in the faith and practice of the Roman Catholic Church, he departed this life on the 13th day of September, 1803, in the 59th year of his age. In grateful remembrance, a few of his countrymen, members of St. Mary's Church, and others, have contributed toward this second monument. Erected July 1, 1876.

REQUIESCAT IN PACE.

And now, before we close, let us say that Commodore Barry's favorite ship was the "Alliance," and that after the Revolutionary War she was sold and turned into an East Indiaman. One foggy night in November, while returning home from a long voyage, she ran upon an island in the Dela

ware.

And there she remained, and there, long years afterward, her wreck was to be seen; and from a small piece of it Sarah, Barry's widow, made a tea-caddy.

One might almost believe that the good old ship had tried to lay her timbers as near as she could to 'the gallant sailor who had done such deeds of glory on her deck.

Let us not forget the "Alliance," and let us keep green the memory of him whose flag she hoisted in our struggle for Independence.

THE FIRST EPIC OF OUR COUNTRY.

BY THE POET CONQUISTADOR OF NEW MEXICO, CAPTAIN GASPAR DE VILLAGRÁ.

IT may be a question in the minds of some whether in this essay I purpose to address the literary with a criticism on a poem, or whether it is my intention to depict some portion of our history, a topic, apparently, more germane to the objects of this Society. Yet, if I seek to lead the members into the flowery meads of Parnassus, I am only going back to the primitive days. The earliest historical accounts were chanted by poets, not read as dull prose. The book of Job, perhaps the oldest we possess, is a poem: Homer preserves histories of events unwritten in prose, the glories of his tribe are sung in the tent of the Arab sheik, as Druids chanted those of the Celt; and we look to the Edda and the strains of the Minnesinger for many details of event and life that the prim historian ne'er consigned to any enduring form of record.

In English we have ballads, some of merit, a few graphic in their pictures of events, but amid the mass of rubbish there were but few to be culled by the lover of literature, and none, we may say, to be treasured by the historian. On this side of the Atlantic the Muse of History and the Muse of Poesy were alike niggardly to our pioneers. The attempts at ballad writing were even beneath the hymn standard, and that was bad enough. The ballads gathered by Dr. Griswold and others are absurdly curious; indeed, it was only where ridicule could be brought to bear that any writer of real ability lent himself to the task of embodying some odd episode, as André did in his "Cow Chase," and Hopkinson in his "Battle of the Kegs."

Our historians do not quote historical ballads in serious history. In Spanish literature it is different. There the narra tive poem has always held a recognized position, and works of greater or less merit have come down to us, some maintaining to this day their early reputation. A melodious language easily lent itself to poetical numbers; the long struggle with the Moors called forth all knightly traits and exalted ideas, perhaps often to an extravagant point. The soldier, like Manrique, solaced his hours of inaction by chanting in verse the deeds of his ancestors or his commander. When the New World opened to the warriors of the peninsula a wide untrodden field for high emprize, strange in all its natural features, its inhabitants, its grandeur, where all was redolent of romance, the Spanish knight came with lyre and lance. Narrative poems were written in many forms, and under every possible circumstance. Some were perpetuated by the press, but an immense number still remain in manuscript, and are known to few but the literary or historic antiquarian. The highest of the poems, the only one recognized as a classic, is the Araucana of Alonso de Ercilla y Zuñiga, the work of an officer who recounted in metre the wars of the Spaniards against the unconquerable Indians of Southern Chili, a theme which inspired also the Arauca Domado of Pedro de Oña printed at Lima in 1596, and the Puren Indómito of Alvarez de Toledo, printed only in our day, but cited as an authority by historians of Chili more than two hundred and fifty years ago.

Spain thus brought to the New World her soldier narrative poets, whose rhymed chronicles the historian cannot overlook or despise, though his literary brother may treat them with scant courtesy.

Although only our southern frontier was embraced in the Spanish territory, it has its historic poems. I have seen one in print on the overthrow of the French in Florida by Menendez, probably sung as a ballad in the streets of Spanish cities; another of great length, but unpublished as yet, on the

capture of Bishop Altamirano by a French pirate, his ransom and the overthrow of the Corsair; a curious poem of the last century on the seizure of Bishop Morel, at Havana, by Lord Albemarle, and his deportation to Florida. But of all, the most curious and by far the most important is the little volume I hold in my hand:

"Historia de la Nueva Mexico. Poema Epico del Capitan Gaspar de Villagrá. En Alcala de Henares, por Luis Martinez Grade, 1610."-"The History of New Mexico. An Epic Poem by Captain Gaspar de Villagrá. Published at Alcala de Henares, by Luis Martinez Grade, 1610."

Written and printed before Henry Hudson had made widely known our beautiful harbor as it appeared to his eyes; before the self-exiled Separatists in Holland had formed any project of settling in America, this little work stands in the collection of New Mexico books between the Roman Relation of Montoya, 1603, and the Memorial of Benavides, 1630.

It is a poem in 34 cantos, covering, independent of the preliminary matter, 287 leaves. We cannot claim for it brilliant invention, rich poetical description, or ingenious fancy; for one of the censors of the work, Master Espinel, while admitting the correctness of the rhythm, yet, with almost brutal frankness, tells the plain, unvarnished truth on this score.

"The History of New Mexico, an heroic poem by Captain Gaspar de Villagrá, contains nothing against faith and morals, it rather exalts and elevates it, to behold such a number of souls brought to Catholic truth, and the crown of Spain, with such immense toil by our Spanish race. The verse is correct (numeroso-like Pope 'he lisped in numbers,') and although devoid of inventions and the flowers of poesy (from its being a consecutive and true history), the variety of such new and extraordinary events will please and inspire people of all conditions-some to imitate, others to esteem them, and therefore it is good that it should go into the hands of all. Madrid, December 9, 1609."

But though the censor thus cruelly disappoints us at the