The Lynch-Law Tree.

countenance general in the infant class. It is my belief that most infant resemblances are due to the imagination of the observers or the desire to compliment the parents. I once saw a babe which was the living image of the first Napoleon; and if it had been born about sixty years earlier, and had been put in a basket and left at his door over night, nothing would have convinced the jealous Josephine that her husband, instead of mounting barbed steeds to fright the souls of fearful adversaries, had not been capering nimbly in a lady's chamber to the lascivious

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pleasings of a lute, say in the apartment of Madame de Remusat, or the Duchesse d'Abrantes, or some other of the fool-women of the Empire. There can be no doubt that "heaven lies about us in our infancy." There would be as much sense in tracing a resemblance between the voice of the child and that of the putative father as between their faces, or rather more, in fact, — for the voice of infants is frequently more mature than the face. Such evidence is not good even prima facie.

THE LYNCH-LAW TREE. ON the lawn of one of the most charm ing and hospitable homes in southern Virginia stands the old walnut-tree on which lynch law was first administered. It bears the marks of extreme age, and is a pic turesque object in the landscape. A part of it is dead; but the rest is vig orous still, and bears its annual crop of nuts. It is not often the case in America that the home and lands of our ancestors are found to-day in possession of their descendants. So it is, however, with this interesting manor situated in a beautiful valley in Campbell County, Virginia, twenty miles south of Lynchburg. The valley is enclosed on three sides by fertile hills, and bounded on the south by tall and picturesque cliffs, at the foot of which flows the Staunton River, hurrying on to deliver its tribute waters to the Dan. Avoca is the poetic name by which the old Lynch place is now known, and was suggested by Moore's mel ody, " The Meeting of the Waters." It is singularly appropriate, since this rich and smiling valley where the Otter and Staunton Rivers meet, after winding downward by crags and peaks from their source in the 71

Blue Ridge, is truly another Vale of Avoca. The name was bestowed by a granddaughter of the Col. Charles Lynch of the Revolution. It is not generally known that the original lynch law never sentenced an offender to death, but only to be whipped. The term has been ascribed to more than one source. Modern dictionaries and some of the ency clopaedias have treated it as worthy of notice. Webster, Worcester, and other lexicographers ascribe the origin of lynch law to a Virginia farmer named Lynch; and the traditions and records of the Lynch family agree with the more formal references found in histori cal works. There is no room for doubt that the term "now become a part of the English language and accepted of all men " was de rived from that fearless and honored soldier of the Revolution, Col. Charles Lynch, whose sword hangs on the wall of the lofty hall at Avoca. But that Colonel Lynch should be reputed the father of lynch law, in the modern acceptation of the term, is quite another matter, and would be utterly unjust to him. In the year 1780, when the fortunes of the patriots were at low ebb, the Scotch settlers and Tories of Piedmont,