I take much pleasure in quoting also, in this connexion, another scene of somewhat similar character, though greatly misrepresented in the ordinary pictures of it heretofore given. Penn's personal appearance has been even more misapprehended than his character. He was, indeed, one of the most handsome men of his age, and at the time of his first coming to America he was in the very prime of life. West makes him an ugly, fat old fellow, in a costume half a century out of date. So says Mr. Dixon. The passage referred to, and about to be quoted, is from a description of the celebrated Treaty with the Indians at Shackamaxon.
"This conference has become one of the most striking scenes in history. Artists have painted, poets have sung, philosophers have applauded it; but it is nevertheless clear, that in words and colours it has been equally and generally misrepresented, because painters, poets, and historians have chosen to draw on their own imaginations for the features of a scene, every marking line of which they might have recovered from authentic sources.
"The great outlines of nature are easily obtained. There, the dense masses of cedar, pine, and chestnut, stretching far away into the interior of the land; here, the noble river rolling its waters down to the Atlantic Ocean; along its surface rose the purple smoke of the settlers' homestead; on the opposite shores lay the fertile and settled country of New Jersey. Here stood the gigantic elm which was to become immortal from that day forward,--and there lay the verdant council chamber formed by nature on the surface of the soil. In the centre stood William Penn, in costume undistinguished from the surrounding group, save by the silken sash. His costume was simple, but not pedantic or ungainly: an outer coat, reaching to the knees, and covered with buttons, a vest of other materials, but equally ample, trousers extremely full, slashed at the sides, and tied with strings or ribbons, a profusion of shirt sleeves and ruffles, with a hat of the cavalier shape (wanting only the feather), from beneath the brim of which escaped the curls of a new peruke, were the chief and not ungraceful ingredients.[3] At his right hand stood Colonel Markham, who had met the Indians in council more than once on that identical spot, and was regarded by them as a firm and faithful friend; on his left Pearson, the intrepid companion of his voyage; and near his person, but a little backward, a band of his most attached adherents. When the Indians approached in their old forest costume, their bright feathers sparkling in the sun, and their bodies painted in the most gorgeous manner, the governor received them with the easy dignity of one accustomed to mix with European courts. As soon as the reception was over, the sachems retired to a short distance, and after a brief consultation among themselves, Taminent, the chief sachem or king, a man whose virtues are still remembered by the sons of the forest, advanced again a few paces, and put upon his own head a chaplet, into which was twisted a small horn: this chaplet was his symbol of power; and in the customs of the Lenni Lenapé, whenever the chief placed it upon his brows the spot became at once sacred, and the person of every one present inviolable. The venerable Indian king then seated himself on the ground, with the older sachems on his right and left, the middle-aged warriors ranged themselves in the form of a crescent or half-moon round them, and the younger men formed a third and outer semicircle. All being seated in this striking and picturesque order, the old monarch announced to the governor that the natives were prepared to hear and consider his words. Penn then rose to address them, his countenance beaming with all the pride of manhood. He was at this time thirty-eight years old; light and graceful in form; the handsomest, best-looking, most lively gentleman she had ever seen, wrote a lady who was an eyewitness of the ceremony."