a few English scholars who made a brief sojourn in the new land and then flitted back across the ocean. Of the principal writers of the first Colonial period, all except one, Alexander Whitaker, who had come "to bear the name of God to the heathen" of the New World, returned to England after a few years. The writings of the period may be roughly gathered into four groups:
1. Letters to friends in England. These, written often in haste, with no thought of literary finish, are full of observations on the strange scenes and surroundings into which the lives of their writers had fallen. They are of value now only so far as they throw light on the history, society, and spirit of the age that produced them.
2. Descriptions of the Indians, of the geography of the country, of the new flora and fauna, and of the history of the early days of the settlement. Smith's A True Relation, etc., and A Map of Virginia; and Whitaker's Good News from Virginia, are the best examples of this class of literature.
3. Letters legal, and reports to the Companies in England, as, for example, Smith's Answers to the Seven Questions, etc.
4. Scholarly works written by Englishmen of leisure sojourning for a time in America. These cannot be classed as American Literature any more than Irving's Sketch Book can be called an English book because it was written in England. Among such writings may be mentioned Sandys' translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses.
