The first was an epoch of gigantic commercial enterprises which ultimately resulted in the formation of large trading companies. Antwerp ushered in the seventeenth century, for it was that city that symbolized the commercial greatness of Europe. Gradually Antwerp’s two most important rivals, Amsterdam and London, were steadily pushing ahead, finally to replace the Flemish city as the commercial marts of Europe.
The second half of the seventeenth century was characterized by a settling down, a closer organization of society and politics and the establishment and the building up of great landed estates, particularly in the southern colonies of America, which subsequently gave rise to the landed gentry of the eighteenth century and a concomitant culture and refinement of life and manners the like of which the world had seen but once or twice since the age of Pericles.[1] It is interesting to find that Augustine Herrman rather symbolized these two divisions of the seventeenth century; and he was successful in both phases. During the first part of the century he was essentially a merchant and a trader and probably not over-scrupulous in the way he made his money. During the second half of his life we find him devoting his energies in the preparation of the drawing of a beautiful and useful map and the founding of a great estate. Living until 1686, Herrman’s life was roughly concomitant with the seventeenth century. He grew up with that century and he changed as the spirit of the times changed.
Seventeenth century America, nonetheless, produced few great figures whom we can regard as strictly Americans. Roger Williams may have come close to the point; and Charles Calvert, the third baron of Baltimore was in many respects a product of the New World. The second Richard Lee of Virginia was largely a product of his native colony; and in New
- ↑ During the Italian Renaissance or Elizabethan England.
