Accordingly, the Charming Serpent holding me by
the hand, led me up the stairs. His steps were steady.
It was evident that his libations had excited his brain,
and instead of weakening him, gave him strength.

What's your name?” said he to me kindly

[figure description] Page 016.[end figure description]

“William Russell, sir.”

“Do you know me, my little fellow?”

“Yes sir, you're Mr. Patterson, the great lawyer.”

“Ah, Ha! they call me the great lawyer! What else
do they say?”

“That you're the greatest orator in the country,” I
replied—for what I had drank made me bold, too.

“They do—I know they do, my little fellow—I believe,
in fact, that I could have stood up in the Areopagus
of old, in favor of human rights, and faced the best
of them. Yes, sir, I too could have fulmined over
Greece. But we are not Grecians now—we are
Pawnees.”

“Stop, stop, Mr. Pawnee,” called out some one from
the crowd, “Short was to go, he is the tallest man.”

“The tallest man,” re-echoed Mr. Patterson, speaking
in his natural tone. “The judge, sir, has already
decided that by just legal construction, Short is short,
no matter how long he is; and, if he claims to be long,
sir, I can just inform him that Lord Bacon says `that
tall men are like tall houses, the upper story is the
worst furnished:” Here every eye was turned on Short,
and there was a shout of laughter.

“If,” continued Mr. Patterson—and it was evident his
potations were doing their work—“if it be true—I'll
just say this to you, sir: Dr. Watts was a very small
man, and he said and I repeat it of all small men—

“There, gentlemen of the jury; if that be true, I
opine that the tallest man in the crowd is addressing
you. But, I forget, I am a Pawnee.”

“Brothers: The tall grass of the prairies is swept by

[figure description] Page 017.[end figure description]

the fire, while the flint endureth the flames of the stake.
The loftiest trees of the forest snap like a reed in the
whirlwind, and the bird that builds there leaves her eggs
unhatched. The highest peak of the mountain is always
the bleakest and barest—in the valley are the
sweet waters and the pleasant places. Damn it,” said
he, speaking in his proper person, for he began to forget
his personation, “why do we value the gem—

“That's Burns, an illustrious name, gentlemen.—
When I was minister abroad, I stood beside the peasant-poet's
grave, and thanked God that he had given me
the faculties to appreciate him. Suppose that he had
been born in this land of ours, sirs, all we who think
ourselves lights in law and statesmanship would have
seen our stars paled—paled, sirs, as the fire of the
prairie grows dim when the eye of the great spirit looks
forth from the eastern gates—damn it, that's Ossian and
not Pawnee—upon it in its fierceness.

That's Byron—I know him well—handsome fellow.
`Thou shinest not on my soul'—no but thou shinest on
the prairie.”

“The usher!—Dogberry—let's have Dogberry!”
called out several of the students.

“Ha!” exclaimed Mr. Patterson, “Dogberry!” He's
Goldsmith's village teacher, that caused the wonder—

“That one small head could carry all he knew.'

Dogberry!—Dogberry?—but that sounds Shaksperian.
`Reading and writing come by nature.' Those

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

certainly are not his sentiments. I mean the defendant's—
were they, he should throw away the usher's rod and
betake himself to something else; for if these things
come by nature, then is Dogberry's occupation gone.
Yes, he had better betake himself to the constableship—
the night watch. Come my little friend—come, son
of the Pawnee, and we will arouse the pale face.”

Obeying Mr. Patterson, we ascended to the little platform
in front of Dogberry's door, at which he rapped
three times distinetly. “Who's there?” cried out a
voice from within. Dogberry must of course have been
awake for at least half an hour.

“Pale-face,” said the Pawnee chief. “Thou hast not
followed the example of the great chief of the pale-faces;
the string of thy latch is pulled in. Upon my word,
this is certainly the attic story,” he continued in a low
voice—“are you attic too Dogberry?”

“No sir I am rheumatic—gentleman, unless your
business be pressing”—

“Pressing! Pale-face, the Pawnees have lit their
council fire, and invite thee to drink with them the fire-water,
and smoke the pipe of peace.”

“Thank you, gentlemen, I never drink,” responded
Dogberry, in an impatient tone.

“Never drink! Pale-face, thou liest! Who made
the fire-water, and gave it to my people, but thee and
thine? Lo! before it, though they once covered the
land, they have melted away like snow beneath the
sun.”

“I belong to the temperance society,” cried out Dogberry
from within. “Dogberry,” exclaimed Patterson—
whose patience, like that of the crowd below, who
were calling for the usher as if they were at a town
meeting and expected him to speak, was becoming

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

exhausted—“Dogberry, compel me not, as your great
name-sake would say, to commit either `perjury' or
`burglary,' and break your door open. You remember
in Marmion, Dogberry, that the chief, speaking of the
insult which had been put upon him, said:

Now I will not say that I would make you drink
wherever the old chief would `right his wrongs,' but
this I will say, that whenever I, Burbage Patterson, get
drunk, I think you can come forth and take a stirrup
cup with him: he leaves for the Supreme Court to-morrow,
to encounter the giant of the North.”

“Mr. Patterson,” said Dogberry, coming towards
the door, “your character can stand it—it can stand
anything—mine can't.”

“There's truth in that,” said Mr. Patterson aside
to me.

“Gentlemen, let us leave the pedagogue to his reflection;
and now it occurs to me that we had better
not uncage him, for, boys, he would be a witness against
you; more, witness, judge, jury, and executioner—by
the by, clear against law. Were I in your place, I
would appeal, and for every stripe he gives you,
should the judgment be reversed, do you give him two.”

Here a sprightly fellow, one of the scholars, named
Morris, from Long Green, ran up the steps and said to
Mr. Patterson:

“Do, sir, have him out, for if we get him into the
frolic too, we are as safe, sir, as if we were all in our
beds. He has seen us all through some infernal crack
or other.”

“Ah,” exclaimed Mr. Patterson in a low tone to Morris,
“he has been playing Cowper, has he—“looking

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

from the loop holes of retreat, seeing the Babel and not
feeling the stir.”

“Yes, sir, but he'll make a stir about it to-morrow.”

“He shall come forth, then,” said Mr. Patterson;
“Dogberry, open the door; they speak of removing
Sears, and why don't you come forth and greet your
friends? We have an idea of getting the appointment
for you.”

This flattery took instant effect, for we heard Dogberry
bustling to the door, and in a moment it was
opened about half way, and the usher put his head out,
and said, but with evident wish that his invitation would
be refused, “Will you come in, sir?—Why William
Russell!” to me in surprise.

“Pale-face, this is a youthful brave to whom I want
the pale-face to teach the arts of his race. Behold!
I am the Charming Serpent. Come forth and taste of
the fire-water.”

As Mr. Patterson spoke, he took Dogberry by the
hand and pulled him on the platform. The usher was
greeted with loud acclamations and laughter by the
crowd. He, however, did not relish it, and was frightened
out of his wits. He really looked the personification
of a caricature. His head was covered with an old
flannel night cap, notwithstanding it was warm weather,
and his trowsers were held up by his hips, while his
suspenders dangled about his knees. On his right leg
he had an old boot, and on his left foot an old shoe; he
was without coat or vest. As Mr. Patterson held up the
light so that the crowd below could see him, there was
such a yelling as had not been heard on the spot since
those whose characters the crowd were assuming had
left it.

Dogberry hastily withdrew into his room, but followed

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

by Mr. Patterson and myself, each bearing a light.—
When we entered, the crowd rushed up the steps.

“For God's sake, sir, for the sake of my character
and situation, don't let them come in here.”

“They shall not if you will promise to drink with me
Pale face, speak, will you drink with the Pawnee?”

“Yes, sir,” said Dogberry faintly.

The Charming Serpent here went to the door, and
said:

“Brothers, the Charming Serpent would hold a private
talk with the chief of the pale faces. Ere long, he
will be with you. Let the Big Bull (one of the lawyers
was named Bull, and he was very humorous.) pass
round the fire water and the calumet, and by that time
the Charming Serpent will come forth. Brothers, give
unto the Charming Serpent some of the fire water that
he may work his spells.”

A dozen handed up bottles of different wines and liquors.
The Charming Serpent gave Dogberry the candles
to hold, took a bottle of Champagne and handed
me another. Then shutting the door he said:

“This is the fire-water that hath no evil in it. It courses
through the veins like a silvery lake through the prairie,
where the wild grass waves green and glorious, and it
makes the heart merry like the merriment of birds in
the spring time, and not with the fierce fires of the dark
lake, like the strong fire-water that glows red as the living
coal. Brothers, we will drink.”

Dogberry's apartment was indeed an humble one.
Only in the centre of it could you stand upright. Over
our heads were the rafters and bare shingles, formed exactly
in the shape of the capitalletter Vinverted. Opposite
the door was a little window of four panes of
glass, and under it, or rather beside it, in the corner,

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

was a little beadstead, with a straw mattress upon it. A
small table, with a tumbler and broken pitcher and candle
in a tin candle-stick on it, stood opposite the bed.
A board nailed across from rafter to rafter, held a few
books, and beside it on nails, were several articles of
clothing. There were besides in the apartment two
chairs, and a wooden chest in the corner by the door.

“Come, drink, my old boy,” exclaimed Patterson.

“Thank you, Mr. Patterson, your character can stand
it, I tell you, but mine can't.”

“Friend of my soul, this goblet sip,” reiterated Patterson,
offering Dogberry the glass.

“Thank you Mr. Patterson, I would not choose any,”
said he.

“You can't but choose, Dogberry; there is no alternative.
Do you remember what the poet beautifully
says of the Roman daughter, who sustained her imprisoned
father from her own breast?


`Drink, drink, and live, old man;
Heaven's realm holds no such tide.'
Do you remember it? I bid you drink, then, and I say
to you Hebe, nor Ganymede never offered to the immortals
purer wine than that; I imported it for my own
use. Drink! here's to you, Dogberry, and to your
speedy promotion;” and Mr. Patterson swallowed every
drop in the glass, and, refilling it, handed it to the usher.

“How do you like the letter, Mr. Dogberry?” asked
Mr. Patterson of the pedagogue.

“What letter, sir? Mr. Patterson, I must say this is
a strange proceeding. I don't know, sir, to what you
allude.”

“Don't know to what I allude! Why, the letter wishing
to know if you would take the academy at the same
price at which Sears now holds it.”

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

“Sir, I have no such letter. I certainly, sir, would,
if it was thought that I was—”

“Was competent. Merit is always modest; you're
the most competent of the two, sir,—take some.”

So saying, Mr. Patterson filled up the tumbler, and
Dogberry swallowed the compliment and the wine together,
and fixed his eye on the rafters with an exulting
look.

While he was so gazing, the lawyer filled his glass,
and observed, “Come, drink, and let me open this other
bottle; I want a glass myself.” Down went the wine,
and with a smack of his lips, Dogberry handed the
glass to Mr. Patterson.

“Capital, ain't it, eh?”

“Capital,” re-echoed Dogberry. The wine and his
supposed honors had roused the brain of the pedagogue
in a manner which seemed to awake him to a
new existence. While Mr. Patterson was striking the
top from the other bottle, Dogberry handed me the candle
which he held—the other he had put in his candle-stick,
taking out his own candle when he first drank—
and lifting the tumbler, he stood ready.

Again he quaffed a bumper. The effect of these
potations on him was electrical. He had a long face,
with a snipe-like nose, which was subject to a nervous
twitching whenever its owner was excited. It now
danced about, seemingly, all over his face, while his
naturally cadaverous countenance, under the excitement,
turned to a glowing red, and his small ferret eyes
looked both dignified and dancing, merry and important.
“So,” he exclaimed, “I am to be principal of the
academy; ha, ha, ha! oh, Lord! William Russel, I
would reprove you on the spot, but that you are in such
distinguished company.”

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

Whether Dogberry meant only Mr. Patterson, or included
himself, I do not know, but as he spoke he
arose, and paced his apartment with a proud tread, forgetting
what a figure he cut, with his suspenders dangling
about his knees and his night cap on, and forgetting
also that his attic was not high enough to admit
his head to be carried at its present altitude. The consequence
was that he stuck it against one of the rafters,
with a violence that threatened injury to the rafter, if not
to the head. He stooped down and rubbed the affected
part, when Mr. Patterson said to him, “Pro-di-gi-ous,”
as Dominie Sampson, one of you, said, ain't it? Hang
Franklin's notion about stooping in this world. Come,
we'll finish this bottle, and then go forth. The scholars
are all rejoiced at your promotion, and are all assembled
without to do you honor. They have made a
complete saturnalia of it. They marvel why you treat
them with so much reserve.”

“Gad, I'll do it,” exclaimed Dogberry, taking the
tumbler and swallowing the contents.

“Just put your blanket around you,” said Patterson
to him, “and let your night-cap remain; it becomes
you.”

“No, it don't indeed, though eh?”

“It does, 'pon honor. That's it. Now, pale face,
come forth; the eloquence of the Charming Serpent has
prevailed.”

So speaking, Mr. Patterson opened the door, and we
stepped on to the platform.

The scene without was grotesque in the extreme. In
front of us, I suppose to the number of a hundred persons,
were the frolickers, composed of lawyers, students,
and town's people, all seated in a circle; while Mr. Paterson's
client from the West, dressed in costume, was

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

giving the Pawnee war-dance. This client was a rough,
uneducated man, but full of originality and whim. Mr.
Patterson had gained a suit for him, in which the title
to an estate in the neighborhood was involved, worth
upwards of sixty thousand dollars. The whole bar had
believed that the suit could not be sustained by Patterson,
but his luminous mind had detected the clue
through the labyrinths of litigation, where they saw
nothing but confusion and defeat. His client was overjoyed
at the result, as every one had croaked defeat to
him. He gave Mr. Patterson fifteen thousand dollars,
five more than he had promised, and had made him a
present of the splendid Indian dress in which, as a bit
of fun, before the frolic commenced, he had decked
himself, under the supervision of his client, who acted
as his costumer, and afterwards dressed himself in the
same way. The client had a great many Indian dresses
with him, which he had collected with great care, and
on this occasion he had thrown open his trunks and supplied
nearly the whole bar.

The name of Mr. Patterson's client was Blackwood,
and the admiration which he excited seemed to give
him no little pleasure. Most of the lawyers in the circle
had something Indian on them, while the boys, who
could not appear in costume, and were determined to
appear wild, had turned their jackets wrong side out,
and swapped with each other, the big ones with the little,
so that one wore his neighbor's jacket, the waist
of which came up under his arms, and exhibited the
back of his vest, while the other wore a coat, the hip
buttons of which were at his knees.

On the outskirts of this motley assembly could be
seen, here and there, a negro, who might be said at
once to contribute to the darkness that surrounded the

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

scene and to reflect light upon it; for their black skins
were as ebon as night, while their broad grins certainly
had something luminous about them, as their white
teeth shone forth.

We stood about a minute admiring the dance, when
it was concluded, some one espied us, and pointed us
out to the rest. We, or rather, I should say, Dogberry,
was greeted with three times three. I have never
seen, for the size of the assembly, such an uproarious
outbreak of bacchanalian merriment. After the cheers
were given, many of the boys threw themselves on the
grass and rolled over and over, shouting as they rolled.
Others jerked their fellow's hats off, and hurled them in
the air. Prettyman stood with his arms folded, as if
he did not know what to make of it, and then, deliberately
spreading his blanket on the ground, he deliberately
took a seat in the centre of it, and, like an amateur
at play, enjoyed the scene. Morris held his sides,
stooped down his head, and glanced sideways cunningly
at Dogberry, throwing his head back every now
and then with a sudden jerk, while loud explosive bursts
of laughter, from his very heart, echoed through the
village above every other sound.

“A speech from Dogberry!” exclaimed Prettyman.

“Ay, a speech!” shouted Morris, “a speech!”

“No, gentlemen, not now,” exclaimed Richardson,
the proprietor of one of the hotels; “I sent down to
my house an hour ago, and have had a collation served.
Mr. Patterson, and gentlemen and students all, I
invite you to partake with me.”

“Silence!” called out Mr. Patterson. All were silent.
“Students of the Belle-Air academy and citizens
generally, I have the honor to announce to you that my
friend, Mr. Dogberry, is about to supercede Mr. Sears.

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

We must form a procession and place him in our midst,
the post of honor, and then to mine host's.” So speaking,
Mr. Patterson descended, followed by Dogberry and
myself. The students gave their candles to the negroes
to hold, joined their hands, and danced round Dogberry
with the wildest glee, while he received it all in
drunken dignity.

When I have seen since, in Chapman's floating theatre,
or in a barn or shed in the far West, some lubberly,
drunken son of the sock and buskin enact Macbeth,
with the witches about him, I have recalled this
scene, and thought that the boys looked like the witches,
and Dogberry like the Thane, when the witches greet
him:

The procession was at length formed. Surrounded
by the boys, who rent the air with shouts, with his night-cap
on his head and his blanket around him, with one
boot and one shoe, Dogberry, following immediately
after the judges, proceeded with them to Richardson's
hotel. Whenever there was the silence of a minute or
two, some boy or other would ask Dogberry not to remember
on the morrow that he saw them out that night.”

“No, boys, no; certainly not; this thing, I understand,
is done in honor of me—I shan't take Sears in
even as an assistant. Boys, he has not used me
well.”

We arrived at Richardson's as well as we could, having
business on both sides of the street. His dining
room was a very large one, and he had a very fine collation
set out, with plenty of wines and other liquors.—
Judge Willard took the head of the table, and Judge
Noland the foot. Dogberry was to the right of Judge
Willard, and Mr. Patterson to the left. He made me

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

sit beside him. The eating was soon despatched, and
it silenced us all a little, while it laid the ground work
for standing another supply of wine, which was soon
sparkling in our glasses, and we were now all more excited
than ever. It was amusing to see the merry faces
of my schoolmates twinkling about among the crowd,
trying to catch and comprehend whatever was said by
the lawyers, particularly those that were distinguished.

Songs were sung, sentiments given, and Indian talks
held by the quantity. Dogberry looked the while first
at the boys, and then at the lawyers, and then at himself,
not knowing whether or not the scene before him was a
reality or a dream. The great respect which the boys
showed him, and Patterson making an occasional remark
to him, seemed at least not only fully to impress
him with the reality, but also with a full, if not a sober
conviction of his own importance.

“A song!—a song!” was shouted by a dozen of the
larger students; “a song from Morris. Give us `Down
with the pedagogue Sears.' Hurrah for old Dogberry!
Dogberry forever!”

“No,” cried out others, “a speech from Mr. Patterson—
no, from the Pawnee You're finable for not speaking
in character.”

Here Prettyman took Mr. Patterson courteously by
the hand, and said something to him in a whisper.

“Ah ha!” exclaimed Mr. Patterson, “so it shall be;
I like Morris. Come, my good fellow, sing us the
song you wrote; come, Dogberry's Star is now in the
ascendant. `Down with the pedagogue Sears'—let's
have it.

Nothing loth, Morris was placed on the table, while
the students gathered round him, ready to join the
chorus. Taking a preparatory glass of wine, while

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

Mr. Patterson rapped on the table by way of commanding
silence. Morris placed himself in an attitude and
sang the following which he had written on some rebellious
occasion or other:

“Hip, hip, hurrah—once more,” shouted Morris.
“Now then”—

While the whole room was in uproarious chorussing,
who should enter but Sears himself. He looked round
with stern dignity and surprise, at first uncertain on
whom to fix his indignation, when his eye lit on Dogberry,
who, the most elated and inebriated of all, was
flourishing his night cap over his head, and shouting at
the top of his voice:

As soon as Sears caught a view of Dogberry, he

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

advanced towards him, as if determined to inflict personal
chastisement on the usher. At first Dogberry
again prepared to vociferate the chorus, but when he
met the eye of Sears his voice failed him, and he moved
hastily towards Mr. Patterson, who slapped him on the
shoulders, and cried out,

“Dogberry, be true to yourself.”

“I am true to myself. Yes, my old boy, old Sears,
you're no longer head devil at Belle-air Academy.—
You're no devil at all, or if you are, old boy, you're a
poor devil, and be d—d to you.”

“You're a drunken out-cast, sir,” exclaimed Sears.
“Never let me see your face again; I dismiss you from
my service from Belle-air Academy” and so speaking,
he took a note book from his pocket, and began
hastily to take down the names of the students. The
Big Bull saw this, and caught it from his hand.

“Sir, sir,” exclaimed Sears, enraged, “my vocation,
and not any respect I bear you, prevents my infliction
of personal chastisement upon you. Boys, young
gentlemen, leave instantly for your respective boarding
houses.”

During this, Patterson was clapping Dogberry on
the shoulder, evidently to inspire him with courage.

“Tell him yourself,” I overheard Dogberry say.

“No, no,” replied Patterson, “it is your place.”

“Well, then, I'll tell you at once, Sears: you're no
longer principal of this academy; you're dished. Mr.
Patterson, sir, will tell you so.”

“Mr. Patterson!” exclaimed Sears, for the first time
recognizing, in the semblance of the Indian chief, the
distinguished lawyer and statesman. “Sir, I am more
than astonished.”

“Sir,” rejoined Patterson, drawing himself up with

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

dignity, “I am a Pawnee brave; more, a red-man eloquent,
or a pale-face eloquent, as it pleases me; but,
sir, under all circumstances, I respect your craft and
calling. What more dignified than such! A poor,
unfriended boy, I was taken by the hand by an humble
teacher of a country school, and here I stand, let
me say, sir, high in the councils of a great people, a
leader among leaders in the senate hall of nations—
and I owe it to him. Peace to old Playfair's ashes
The old philosopher, like Porson, loved his cups, and,
like Parr, loved his pipe; but, sir, he was a ripe scholar
and a noble spirit, and I have so said, sir, in the
humble monument which I am proud, sir, I was enabled,
through the education he gave me, to build over
him;


`After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well.'
Yes, as some one says, he was `my friend before
had flatterers.' How proud he was of me! I remember
well catching his eye in making my first speech,
and the approving nod he gave me had more gratification
to me than the approbation of bench, bar, and
audience. Glorious old Playfair! Mr. Sears, you
were his pupil too. Many a time have I heard him
speak of you; he said, of all his pupils you were the
one to wear his mantle. And, sir, that was the highest
compliment he could pay you—the highest, Mr.
Speaker, for he esteemed himself of the class of the
philosophers, the teachers of youth. Sir, Mr. Sears,
I propose to you that, in testimony of our life-long respect
for him, we drink to his memory.”

This was said so eloquently, and withal so naturally,
that Sears, forgetful of his whereabouts, took the
glass which Mr. Patterson offered him, and drank its
contents reverently to the memory of his old teacher.

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

“Sir,” resumed Patterson, “how glorious is your
vocation! But, tell me, do you subscribe to the sentiments
of Don Juan?


`O, ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions—
It mends their morals—never mind the pain.”'
The appropriate quotation caused a thrill to run through
the assembled students, while they cast ominous looks
at each other. For the life of him, Sears could not
resist a smile.

At this Mr. Patterson glanced at us with a quiet
meaning, and, turning to Mr. Sears, he continued:
“The elder Adams taught school—he whose eloquence
Jefferson has so loudly lauded—the man who was for
liberty or death, and so expressed himself in that beautiful
letter to his wife. Do you not remember that
passage, sir, where he speaks of the Fourth being
greeted thereafter with bon-fires and illuminations?
His son, Johnny Q. taught school. My dark-eyed
friend Webster, who is now figuring so gloriously in
the halls of Congress and in the Supreme Court and
whom I meet to-morrow, taught school. Judge Rowan,
of Kentucky, a master spirit too, taught school.
Who was that


`Who passed the flaming bounds of time and space,
The living throne, the sapphire blaze,
Where angels tremble as they gaze:
Who saw, but, blasted with excess of light,
Closed his eyes in endless night—'
Who was he? Milton—the glorious, the sublime,—
who, in his aspirations for human liberty, prayed to
that great Spirit who, as he himself says, `sends forth
the fire from his altar to touch and purify the lips of
whom he pleaseth'—Milton, the school-master.


`If fallen in evil days on evil tongues,
Milton appealed to the avenger, Time:

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

If Time, the avenger, execrates his wrongs,
And makes the word `Miltonic' mean `sublime,'
He deigned not to belie his soul in songs,
Nor turn his very talent to a crime;
He did not loath the sire to laud the son,
But closed the tyraut-hater he begun.
`Think'st thou, could he—the blind old man—arise,
Like Samuel, from the grave, to freeze once more
The blood of monarchs with his prophecies,
Or be alive again—again all hoar,
With time and trials, and those helpless eyes
And heartless daughters, worn, and pale, and poor'—
Would he not be proud of his vocation, when he reflected
how many great spirits had followed his example?
The school-master is indeed abroad. Mr. Sears,
let us drink the health of the blind old man eloquent.”

“Thank you, thank you, Mr. Patterson, but before
my scholars, under the circumstances, it would be setting
a bad example, when existing circumstances prove
they need a good one. Sir, it was thought that I
should not return from Baltimore until to-morrow, and
this advantage has been taken of my absence. But,
Mr. Patterson, when such distinguished gentlemen
as yourself set the example, I know not what to say.”

“Forgive them, sir, forgive them,” said Mr. Patterson,
in his blandest tone.

“Let them repair to their homes, then, instantly.
Mr. Patterson, your eloquent conversation has made
me forget myself; I don't wonder they should have forgotten
themselves. Let them depart.”

“There, boys,” exclaimed Mr. Patterson, “I have
a greater opinion of my oratorical powers than ever.
Be ye all dismissed until I again appear as a Pawnee
brave, which I fear will be a long time, for 'tis not
every day that such men as my western client are
picked up. But, Mr. Sears, what do you say about

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

Dogberry? He must be where he was; to morrow
must type yesterday. Dogberry, how is Verges?”

“I don't know him,” said Dogberry, doggedly.

“Why, sir, he is the associate of your name-sake
in Shakspeare's immortal page. Let this play to-night,
Mr. Sears, be like that in which Dogberry's name-sake
appeared—let it be `Much ado about Nothing.”'

Sears smiled and nodded his head approvingly.

“Then be the court adjourned,” exclaimed Mr.
Patterson. “Dogberry, you and my friend Sears are
still together, and you must remember in the premises
what your name-sake said to Verges, `An two men
ride of a horse, one man must ride behind.”'

Giving three cheers for Mr. Patterson, we boys separated,
and the next day found us betimes in the academy,
where mum was the word between all parties.

p387-044 THE UNSUMMONED WITNESS.

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

Some years since, when I was in the practice of the
law, one morning, just after I had entered my office—
I was then an invalid on two crutches and not a very
early riser, so what clients I had, were often there before
me—some few moments after I had ensconced myself
in my chair with my crutches before me, like monitors
of mortality, I heard a timid rap at my door. Notwithstanding
I called out in a loud voice, “come in,”
the visitor, though the rap was not repeated after I spoke,
still hung back. With feelings of impatience and pain,
I arose, adjusted my crutches under my arms, and
muttering, not inaudibly, my discontent, I hobbled to
the door and jerked it open.

The moment the visitor was presented to my vision,
I felt angry with myself for what I had done, and the
feeling was not relieved, when a meek and grief-subdued
voice said,

“I am very sorry to disturb you, sir.”

“No,” said I politely, for it was a young and beautiful
woman, or rather girl, of certainly not more than
sixteen, who stood before me, “I am sorry that you
should have waited so long. Come in, I am lame as
you see, Miss, and could not sooner get to the door.”

Adjusting her shawl, which was pinned closely up to
her neck, as she passed the threshold, she entered, and

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

at my request, but not until I had myself resumed my
seat, took a chair. I observed it was a fine morning,
to which she made no reply, for she was evidently abstracted,
or rather embarrassed, not knowing how to
open the purpose of her visit.

The few moments we sat in silence, I occupied in
observing her. She had, I thought, arrayed herself in
her best clothes, anxious by so doing to make a respectable
appearance before her lawyer, and thereby convince
him that if she could not at present compass his
fee, he could have no doubt of it eventually; though it
was also apparent to me that in the flurry of mind attendant
upon her visit and its consequence, she had not
thought at all of adding to her personal attractions by
so doing. That consideration not often absent from a
woman's mind, had by some absorbing event been banished
from hers. She wore a black silk gown, the better
days of which had gone, perhaps, with the wearer's.
Her timid step, had not prevented my seeing a remarkably
delicate foot, encased in a morocco shoe much
worn and patched, evidently by an unskilful hand—I
thought her own. And though when she took a seat,
she folded her arms closely up under her shawl, which
was a small one, of red merino, and, as I have said,
pinned closely to her neck, it did not prevent my observing
that her hand, though small, was gloveless, and
that a ring—I thought an ominous looking ring—we
catch fancies we know not why or wherfore—begirt one
of her fingers. In fact when she first placed her hands
under the shawl, she turned the ring upon her finger,
may be unconsciously

On her head she wore a calash bonnet, and as
I again interrupted the silence by asking, “Is it the
law you seek so early, Miss?” She drew her hand from

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

beneath her shawl, and removing her bonnet partly
from her face so as to answer me, she revealed as fair
and as facinating features as I ever remember to have
seen. Her hair was parted carelessly back over a
snowy forehead, beneath which, lustrous eyes black as
death and almost as melancholy, looked forth from the
shadow of a weeping-willow-like lash. A faint attempt
to smile at my question discovered beautiful teeth, and
I thought, as she said the simple “yes, sir,” that there
must be expression in every movement of her lip.

Observe, I was an invalid, full, at this very moment,
of the selfishness of my own pains and aches which,
though not of the heart,—and it would be difficult to convince
a sick man that those of the body are not greater,—
notwithstanding which my attention was at once arrested.

“This is Mr. Trimble,” asked she, glancing at my
crutches as if by those appendages she had heard me
described.

“That is my name,” I replied.

“You have heard of Brown, who is now in—in jail,
sir,” she continued.

“Brown, the counterfeiter, who has been arrested for a
theft,” I asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“I have repeatedly heard of him though I have never
seen him.”

“He told me to say, sir, wouldn't you go to the jail
and see him about his case?”

Brown's case, from what I had heard of it was a desperate
one. Not knowing in what relation the poor girl
might stand to him, I shrunk from saying so, though I
feared it would be useless for me to appear for him, I
therefore asked her,

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

“Are you his sister?”

“No, sir.”

“His wife?”

“No, sir, we are cousins like, and I live with his
mother.”

“Ay, is your name Brown?”

“No, sir, my name is Mason—Sarah Mason.”

“Where's Mrs. Brown, Miss Sarah?” I asked.

“She is very sick, sir, I hurried away just as she got
to sleep after morning—I have walked by here very often,
and I thought, sir, you might have business out,
and not be here to-day—do go and see him sir.”

“Why, Sarah, to speak plainly to you, I am satisfied
I can be of no service to him—he is a notorious character,
and there have been so many outrageous offences
lately committed, that if the case is a strong one,
there will be little hope for the prisoner, and Brown's
case, I understand, is very strong, I am told, that after
they had caught him in the woods, as they were
bringing him to the city, he confessed it,”

“My, my, did he, sir,' exclaimed Sarah, starting
from her seat and resuming it as quickly.

“Yes, I think I overheard one of the constables say
so. There are no grounds whatever in the case, for
me to defend him upon. I can do nothing for him, and
should get nothing for it if I did.”

I said this without meaning any hint to Sarah, but
she took it as such and replied:

“I have some little money, sir—only a few dollars
now,” and she turned herself aside so as with delicacy
to take it from her bosom, but I shall have some more
soon. I had some owing to me for some fancy work,
but, when I went for it yesterday, to come and see you,

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

they told me the store keeper had failed and I've lost
it.”

As she spoke, she held the money in her hand which
she rested in her lap, in a manner that implied she
wished to offer it to me, but feared the sum would be
too small, and a blush—it was that of shame at her bitter
poverty—reddened her forehead. I could not but
be struck with her manner, and as I looked at her without
speaking or attempting to take the money, she said,
after a moment's pause:

“It's all I have now, sir, but indeed, I shall have more
soon.”

“No, no, keep it, I do not want it,” said I, smiling.

Instantly the thought seemed to occur to her that I
would not accept the money from a doubt of its genuineness,
as Brown might have given it to her and she
said:

“Indeed, sir, it is good money, Mr. Judah, who keeps
the clothing store gave it to me last night—you may
ask him, sir, if you don't believe it.”

“Don't believe you! Surely I believe you—Brown
must be a greater scoundrel than even the public take
him for, if he could involve you in the consequences of
his guilt.”

“Sir, sir—indeed he never gave me any bad money
to pass—I was accused of it, but indeed, I never passed
a single cent that I thought was bad.”

“Well, Sarah, keep the money—do not for your own
sake on any consideration pass any bad money—go
first and ask some one who knows whether any money
you have is good and keep that.”

“But sir, will you see him,” asked she imploringly.

“Yes, I will, and because you wish it; I cannot go this
morning, I shall be engaged. This afternoon I have

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

some business at the court house, and I will, on leaving
there step over to the jail.”

“Please, sir, to tell him,” she said, hesitatingly, “that
they won't let me come in to see him often. I was there
yesterday but they wouldn't let me in—on Sunday, they
said they would, not 'till Sunday—please, sir tell
him that I will come then.”

“I will, Sarah,” I replied; “and if you will be at the
jail at two o'clock this afternoon, I will contrive to have
you see Brown.”

She thanked me, repeated the words “at two o'clock,”
and again pressed the money on me, which I refused,
when she withdrew closing the door noiselessly after
her.

She had not been gone more than half an hour, when
a gentleman entered who was about purchasing some
property, and who wished me, previously to his closing
the bargain, to examine the title. He wanted it done
immediately, and in compliance with his request I forthwith
repaired to the recorder's office which stood beside
the court house.

I was then in the practic of the law in Cincinnati.
My office was two doors from the corner of Main street,
in Front, opposite the River, where I combined, the
double duties of editor of a daily paper, and lawyer.—
From my office to the court house, was as the common
people say a “measured mile,” and nothing but the certainty
of the immediate payment of my fee, in the then
condition of my arms and health, versus pocket, (the
pocket carried the day, and it is only in such cases that
empty pockets succeed,) nothing but the consideration in
the premises induced me to take up my crutches, and
walk to the court house. After I had examined the title,
I determined as it would save me a walk in the

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

afternoon, to step over to the jail which was only a square
or so off and see Brown. I did so, and at the gate of
the jail found, seated on a stone by the way, side,
Sarah Mason, who had instantly repaired thither from
my office resolved to wait my coming, not knowing, as
she told me, but what I might be there before two.

I entered the jailor's room, in which he received constables,
visitors, knaves previous to locking them up,
lawyers, &c., and handing a chair to Sarah, desired
him to bring Brown out in the jail yard, that I might
speak with him. While he was unlocking the greated
door of the room in which Brown with many other crimnals
was confined, several of them—who were also clients
of mine, called me by name and made towards
the door, with the wish each of speaking to me
about his own case, perhaps for the fifteenth time. As
soon as Brown heard my name he called out:—

“Stop! it's to see me, Mr. Trimble has come—here
Jaw-bone Dick, fix that bit of a blanket round them
damned leg irons and let me shuffle out. Mr. Trimble
came to see me”—controlled by his manner for he was
a master spirit among them, as I afterwards learned,
they shrunk back while Jaw-bone Dick, a huge negro,
fixed the leg irons, and Brown came forth.

He had a muscular iron form of fine proportions,
though of short stature. His face was intellectual with
a high but retreating forehead, and a quick bold eye.—
His mouth was very large, displaying simply when he
laughed his jaw teeth, but it was not ill shaped, and
had the expression of great firmness when in repose,
with that of archness and insinuation, generally when
speaking. He gazed on me steadily for an instant after
he had passed the threshold of the door into the
passage, as if he would understand my character

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

before he spoke. He then saluted me respectfully, and
led the way into the back yard of the jail, which is surrounded
by a large wall to prevent the escape of the
prisoners who at stated periods are suffered to be out
there for the sake of their health, and while their rooms
are undergoing the operations of brooms and water.—
Kicking as well as his fetters would allow him, a keg
that stood by the outer door into the middle of the yard,
Brown observed:

“Squire, it will do you for a seat, for you and I don't
like to talk too near to the wall—the proverb says that
stone walls have ears, and those about us have heard
so many rascally confessions from the knaves they have
enclosed, that I don't like to entrust them—with even
an innocent man's story—'twould be the first time
they've heard such a one, and they'd misrepresent it
into guilt.”

The jailer laughed as he turned to leave us, and said:

“Brown, you ought to have thought of that when the
chaps nabbed you—for you told them the story, and
they not only have ears but tongues.”

“Damn them, they gave me liquor,” exclaimed
Brown, as a fierce expression darkened his face. “I
don't think a drunken man's confession should be taken,
extorted or not.”

As the jailer turned to lock up the yard with the remark
to me, of “Squire, you can rap when you have
got through”—I told him that it would save some trouble
to him, if he would let the girl in his room who was
a relation of Brown's see him now. After a slight
hesitancy, he called her, observing, it was not exactly
according to rule.

“It's Sarah, I suppose,” said Brown, taking a station
by my side with folded arms and giving a slight

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

nod of recognition to the girl, as in obedience to the
jailer's call she entered the yard—“You'd better stand
there, Sarah,” he said to her, “'till Mr. Trimble gets
through with me.” He then remarked in an under
tone to me, It's no use for her to hear our talk—plague
take all witnesses any how.”

Eyeing me again with a searching expression, Brown,
as if he had at last made his mind up to the matter,
said, “I believe I'll tell you all, Squire—I did the
thing.”

“Yes, Brown, I knew you did,” I replied; “the misfortune
is you told it to the officers.”

“Yes—that's a fact. But maybe you can lead the
witnesses on the wrong scent if you know just how
things are—couldn't you?” I nodded, and he continued,
“I boasted when they got me, considerable, but the
fact is that I got the money—I was in the Exchange, on
the landing, where I saw a countryman seated, who
looked to me as if he had money—I contrived to get
into conversation with him, and asked him to drink
with me, he did so, and I plied him pretty strong. The
liquor warmed him at last, and he asked me to drink
with him, I consented, and when he came to pay his
bill, he had no change, and had to dive into a cunning
side pocket in the lining of his waistcoat, to get out a
bill, though he turned his back round and was pretty
cautious—I saw he had a good deal of money. I got
him boozy, and when he left, I dogged him. He was
in to market and had his wagon on the landing not far
from the Exchange. He slept in it. He not only buttoned
his vest tight up, but his overcoat tight over that,
and laid down on the side where he hid away his rhino.
Notwithstanding this,” continued Brown, and he
laughed at the remembrance of his own ingenuity, “I

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

contrived to make him turn over in his sleep, and cut
clean out through overcoat and all, got his pocket with its
contents—three hundred dollars. I had spent all my
money at night with him. In the morning my nerves
wanted bracing, and what must I do but spend some of
his money for grog and breakfast. The countryman
immediately went before a magistrate and described me
as a person whom he suspected. The officers knew
me from his description, and though I had left Cincinnati
and got as far as Cleves, fifteen or eighteen miles,
they followed so close on my track as to nab me that
very day. I had been keeping up the steam pretty
high along the road—they traced me in that way—and
full of folly and the devil, for the sake of talking and
keeping off the horrors, I made my braggs, and told
all. I suppose my case is desperate.”

I told him that I thought it was.

“When I think of my old mother!” exclaimed he,
passing his hand rapidly across his brow—he then
beckoned Sarah to him, and I walked to the farther
end of the yard so as not to be a listener. Their colloquy
was interrupted by the jailer coming to the door.
When I left him, Sarah followed me out, and after requesting
me to call and see him again, she took a direction
different from mine and I went to my office.

The grand jury, of course, had no difficulty in finding
a bill against Brown, and the day of his trial soon
came. The countryman was the first witness on the
stand. It was amusing if not edifying to observe the
smirk of professional pride on the countenance of the
prisoner, when the countryman recounted how he carefully
buttoned up his coat over his money and went to
sleep on that side, and awoke on that side—the right
one—and found his pocket cut out with as much

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

ingenuity as a tailor could have done it. I tried to exclude
the evidence of Brown's confession from the jury
on the ground that it was extorted from him, but that
fact not appearing to the court they overruled my objection,
and the facts of the case with many exaggerations
were narrated to them by the officer who arrested
the prisoner, as his free and voluntary confession. I
had scarcely any grounds of defence at all. I tried to
ridicule the idea of Brown's having made a confession;
and presented the countryman in an attitude that made
him the laughing stock of the jury and audience—but
though it was evident to them that the countryman was
a fool, it was not less apparent, I feared, that Brown
was a knave. I had some idea of an alibi, but that
would have been carrying matters too far. I, however,
proved his good character by several witnesses. Alas,
the prosecuting attorney showed that he was an old
offender, who had been more than once a guest of the
state's between the walls of the penitentiary. The
prosecuting attorney, in fact, in his opening address to
the court and jury, attacked Brown in the sternest language
he could use. He represented him as the violator
of every sound tie—and as hurrying his mother's
grey hairs to the grave. At this last charge the prisoner
winced—I saw the lightning of his ire against the
prosecutor flash through the tears of guilt and contrition.
When I arose to address the jury in reply,
Brown called me to him and said:

“Mr. Tremble, you know all about my case—you
know I am guilty—but you must get me off, if you
can, for my old mother's sake. Plead for me as if you
were pleading for the Apostles—for the Saviour of mankind.”

This was a strong expression to convey to me the

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

idea that I must speak and act to the jury as if I held
him in my own heart, guiltless—was it not?

Poor Sarah, was a tearful witness of his trial. She
was spared, however, being present when the verdict
was rendered. The jury retired about dark; with the
agreement between myself and the prosecutor that
they might bring in a sealed verdict. I told Sarah for
the sake of her feelings before the court adjourned,
that they would not meet the next morning before ten
o'clock. They met at nine, and before she got there,
their verdict of guilty was recorded against the prisoner.

As they were taking Brown to jail he asked me to
step over and see him, saying that he had a fee for me.
I had been unable to get from him more than a promise
to pay before his trial. I, of course, gave that up as
fruitless, and appeared for him on Sarah's account, not
on his own, or with any hope of acquitting him. I
therefore was surprised at his remark and followed him
to the jail. He was placed in a cell by himself—the
rule after conviction—and I went with him at his request
and we were left alone.

“Squire,” said he, with more emotion than I thought
him capable of, “I don't care so much for myself—I
could stand it, I am almost guilt-hardened—but when I
think of my mother—oh! God—and Sarah, she has
been as true to me as if I were an angel instead of a
devil—but she wasn't in court to-day.”

“No,” said I; “I told her that court would not sit
until ten o'clock. I saw how deeply she was interested,
and I saved her the shock of hearing your guilt
pronounced in open court.”

“Blast that prosecuting attorney,” exclaimed Brown,
gnashing his teeth, “why need he go out of the case to

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

abuse me about my mother, before Sarah—I'd like to
catch him in the middle of the Ohio swimming some
dark night—if he didn't go to the bottom and stay
there it would be because I couldn't keep him down.
But Squire, about that fee—you trusted me, and as you
are the first lawyer that ever did, I'll show you that I
am for once, worthy of confidence. Over the Licking
liver, a quarter of a mile up on the Covington side—
you know, Squire, the Licking is the river right opposite
to Cincinnati, in Kentucky—Well, over that river,
a quarter of a mile up, you will see, about fifteen feet
from the bank, a large tree standing by itself, with a
large hole on the east side of it. Run your hand up
that hole, and you will take hold of a black bottle,
corked tight—break it open. In it you will find fifteen
hundred dollars—five hundred of it is counterfeit—the
rest is good. Squire, it is your fee. Your character
and countenance is good enough to pass the whole of
it.”

I bowed to the compliment which Brown paid my
“character and countenance,” at the expense of my
morals, and said, “you are not hoaxing me, I hope.”

“I am not in that mood, Squire,” replied the convict,
and asking me for my pencil, he drew on the wall a
rough map of the locality of the river and tree, and
repeated earnestly the assertion, that he himself in the
hollow of the tree had hid the bottle. I left him rubbing
the marks of his map from the wall, determined
at the first opportunity to make a visit to the spot. The
next day my professional duties called me on a visit
to another prisoner in the jail, when Brown asked thro'
the little loop hole of his door, if I had got that yet.

“No, Brown,” I replied, “I have not had time to go
there.”

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

“Then, Squire,” he exclaimed, “you are in as bad
a fix as I am, and the thing's out.”

“How so,” I asked—I began to suspect that he
thought I had been after the money, and that he was
forming some excuse for my not finding what he knew
was not there.

“You see me, Squire, without a coat, my hat's gone
too, Job Fowler, the scoundrel—he knows about that
bottle—he was taken out of the jail yesterday to be
tried just as they brought me in, I thought though my
respectable clothes hadn't done me any good they
might be of service to him, as his case wasn't strong
and every little helps out in such cases, as they help
the other way when the thing's dark, so I lent them to
him. He was found not guilty, and he walked off,
with my wardrobe, so the jury, damn them, aided and
abetted him in committing a felony in the very act of
acquitting him for one, and by this time he's got that
money. Never mind, we shall be the state's guests
together yet, in her palace at Columbus.”

What Brown told me in regard to the bottle and Job
Fowler, was indeed truth.

Job was acquitted in Brown's clothes, and he walked
off in them, and wended instantly to the tree beside
the Licking, where he found the bottle, which he rifled
of its contents without the trouble of uncorking it.—
Mistaking the bad money for the good, he returned instantly
to Cincinnati, and attempted to pass some of it.
The man to whom he offered it happened to be in the
court house, a spectator of his trial. His suspicions
were aroused. He had Mr. Job arrested, and on him
was found the fifteen hundred dollars. A thousand
dollars of it were good, but I got none of it, for the

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

gentleman from whom Brown and Fowler together had
stolen it was found.

The very day that Brown was convicted, and Job
acquitted in the former's clothes, he was arrested for
passing counterfeit money. A bill was found against
him that morning. He was tried that afternoon and
convicted, and the day after he and Brown, handcuffed
together, were conveyed to the penitentiary.

The interest which I took in Brown's mother and Sarah,
induced me to visit them after he was sent to the
penitentiary, to which he was sentenced for ten years.
His afflicted mother, overcome by accumulated sorrow
for his many crimes and their consequences, rapidly
sank into the grave. I happened to call at her humble
dwelling the night she died. Sarah supported her by
her needle, and a hard task it was, for the doctor's bill
and the little luxuries which her relative needed, more
than consumed her hard earnings.

The old woman called me to her bed-side, and together
with Sarah, made me promise that if I saw her
son again I would tell him that with her dying breath
she prayed for him. The promise was made, and while
she was in the act of praying her voice grew inaudible,
and uttering with her last feeble breath an ejaculation
for mercy, not for herself, but for her outcast child, her
spirit passed to the judgment seat; and if memory and
affection hold sway in the disembodied soul, doubtless
she will be a suppliant there for him, as she was here.

After the death of the old woman, I saw Sarah once
or twice, and then suddenly lost all trace of her. More

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

than a year had now elapsed since Brown's conviction,
and in increasing ill health and the presence of other
scenes and circumstances as touching as those of the
mother and the cousin, I had forgotten them. I was
advised by my physician to forsake all business, obtain
a vehicle and by easy stages, traveling whither Fancy
led, try to resuscitate my system. In fulfilment of this
advice, I was proceeding on my way to Columbus,
Ohio, with the double purpose of improving my health,
and by making acquaintances in the State where I had
settled, facilitate and increase my practice, should I
ever be permitted to resume my profession.

The sun was just setting in a summer's evening, as,
within a half a mile of Columbus, I passed a finely
formed female on the road, who was stopping along with
a bundle on her arm. There was something of interest
in the appearance of the girl which caused me to
look back at her after I had passed. Instantly I drew
up my horse. It was Sarah Mason. Her meeting with
me seemed to give her great pleasure. I asked her if
she would not ride, and thanking me, she entered my
vehicle and took a seat by my side.

She had been very anxious to obtain a pardon for
Brown before his mother's death. I had told her it
would be fruitless unless she could get the jury who
condemned him, together with the judges, to sign the
recommendation to the governor, and I did not beheve
they would do it. I, however, at her earnest solicitation,
drew up the petition, and when I last asked her
about her success, which was, in fact, the last time I
saw her, she told me she had not got one of the jury to
sign it, but that several had told her that they would do
so, if she would obtain, previously, the signature of the
presiding judge. By the law of Ohio, a judgeship is

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

not held for life, but for a term of years. The term of
office of the presiding judge on Brown's trial had expired,
and a new party prevailing in the legislature from
that which had appointed him, he had failed to obtain
the re-appointment. He had removed to St. Louis for
the purpose of practising law there, and thither Sarah
had repaired with her unsigned petition. After repeated
solicitations and prayerful entreaties, she at last prevailed
on the ex-judge to sign it. She then returned to
Cincinnati, and after considerable trouble succeeded in
finding ten of the jury, some of whom followed the
judge's example. The rest refused, stating what was
too true, that the ease with which criminals obtained
pardon from gubernatorial clemency in this country,
was one of the great causes of the frequency of crime,
for it removed the certainty of punishment which should
ever follow conviction, and which has more effect upon
the mind than severity itself, when there is a hope of
escaping it.

A new governor, in the rapid mutations of official
life in the United States had become dispenser of the
pardoning power shortly after Brown's conviction, and
it was his ear that Sarah personally sought, armed with
the recommendation.

He was a good, easy man, where party influence
was not brought to bear adversely on him, and after he
had read the petition, Sarah's entreaty soon prevailed,
and Brown was pardoned.

The very day he was pardoned he called on me at
Russell's hotel with his cousin, and after they had mutually
returned me their thanks for the interest which I
took in their behalf, he promised me, voluntarily, to pay
me a fee with the first earnings he got, which he said
solemnly should be from the fruits of honest industry.

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

He took my address and departed. I thought no more
of it, till, one day, most opportunely, I received, thro'
the post-office, a two hundred dollar bill of the United
States Bank, with a well-written letter from him, stating
that he had reformed his course of life, and that it was
through the influence of his cousin, whom he had
married, that he had done so. He said that he had assumed
another name in the place where he then dwelt,
which he would have no objection to communicate to
myself, but as it was of no consequence to me, and
might be to him, should my letter fall into the hands of
another person, he had withheld it, together with the
name of the place where himself and wife were located.
The letter had been dropped in the Cincinnati post-office,
and there was no clue whereby I could have
traced him had I entertained such a wish, which I did
not.

Some time after this I was a sojourner in the south,
spell-bound by the fascinations of a lady with whom I
became acquainted the previous summer in Philadelphia,
where she was spending the sultry season. She
lived with her parents on a plantation near a certain
city of the Mississippi, which, for peculiar reasons, I
may not name. Her brother was practising law there,
and he and I became close cronies. Frequently I rode
to the city with him, and on one occasion we were both
surprised, as we entered it, by an unusual commotion
among the inhabitants, who were concentrating in
crowds to a spot, collected by some strange and boisterous
attraction.

My friend rode into the melee, and presently returned
to my side, with the crowd about him, from whom he
was, evidently, protecting a man, who walked with his
hand on the neck of my friend's horse. The man

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

walked as if he felt that he was protected, but would die
game if he were attacked.

“Sheriff,” called out my friend to a tall person who
was expostulating with the crowd, “it is your duty to
protect Bassford; he has lived here with us some time—
has a wife and family, a good name, and he must and
shall have a fair trial.”

“Colonel Camerons' empty pocket-book was found
near Bassford's house,” exclaimed one of the crowd,
“and Bassford's dagger by the dead body.”

“And Bassford and the colonel were overheard quarrelling
a few hours before he was killed,” shouted another.

“Let Bassford answer then according to law,” said
my friend. “I will kill the first man who lays violent
hands on him.”

“And I will justify and assist you,” said the sheriff.
Mr. Leo, Mr. Gale and you, sir,” continued the officer,
turning to me, “I summon you to assist me in lodging
this man safely in jail, there to abide the laws of his
country.”

Awed by the resolution which the sheriff and his
posse exhibited, the crowd slunk back, but with deep
mutterings of wrath, while we gathered round Bassford,
and hastened with him to the jail, which was not
far off, in which we soon safely lodged him.

It occurred to me when I first looked on Bassford,
that I had seen him before, but I could not tell where.
A minuter scrutiny, as I stood by his side in the jail,
satisfied me that he was no other than my old client,
Brown. Feeling that my recognition of him would not
advance his interests if I should be questioned about
him, I maintained silence, and stood by, a spectator.—
Brown stated to the sheriff that he wished my friend,

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

whom I will call De Berry, to be his counsel, and requested
that he might be placed alone with him, where
he might have some private conversation with him. The
sheriff said “certainly,” and we all retired, De Berry
asking me to wait for him without. I did so, and in a
few minutes he came to me, and said that the prisoner
wished to see me. “I presume, sheriff, you will have
no objection.”

“Not the least,” replied the sheriff. “Take Mr. Trimble
in with you.”

I accordingly entered, and the moment the door was
closed Brown asked me “if I remembered him.”

“Perfectly,” I replied.

“Mr. Trimble,” he continued, “I saw you with Mr.
De Berry, and knew that you recognized me. I supposed
that you might tell him what you knew of me to
my prejudice. Here I have maintained a good character,
and I therefore resolved to see you with him, and
tell you the circumstances. I am as guiltless now as I
was guilty then. Mr. De Berry says that the court,
upon application, will admit you, if it is necessary, to
defend me with him, and I wish you would do it. Let
me tell this affair. I know it looks black against me,
but hear me first. After my cousin obtained my pardon
in Ohio, I married her, swore an oath to lead a better
life, and before God have done so. Sarah was and
is every thing to me. Not for the wealth of worlds
would I involve myself in guilt which might fall upon
her and her children. Knowing, Mr. Trimble, that in
Ohio I could not obtain employment or reinstate myself
in character, I came here with a changed name and nature,
to commence, as it were, the world again. Since
I have been here my character, as Mr. De Berry will
tell you, has been without reproach. But old

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

associations and companions dog us, though we fly from them.
I have been located here on a little farm belonging to
Mr. De Berry, which, with the aid of two negroes hired
from him, I cultivate, raising vegetables and such things
for the market. I had hoped the past was with the past,
but last week there came along one of my old associates,
who urged me to join with him and others in a
certain depredation. I told him of my altered life, and
positively refused. He insisted and taunted me with
hypocrisy and so forth, 'till he nearly stung me to madness.
I bore it all, until, on my telling him that my wife
had reformed me, and that, on her account, I meant to
be honest, he threw slurs on her of the blackest die. I
could bear it no longer, but leaped upon him and would
have slain him, had not some of his companions came up
and rescued him. It was on the banks of the river in
a lonely spot that we met, and their coming up might
have been accident or not. He vowed vengeance against
me and mine, and left. Colonel Cameron, as you know,
Mr. De Berry, bore the character of an overbearing
and tyrannical man. We had some dealings together.
He was in my debt, and wished to pay me in flour. I
told him politely it was the money which I wanted.—
He swore that I should not have money or flour either.
He raised his whip to strike me. I flew into a passion,
dared him to lay the weight of his finger on me, and
abused him as a man in a passion and injured would do
under the circumstances—perhaps I threatened him—I
do not know exactly what I said in my anger. This
was yesterday afternoon. It seems that the Colonel
went to Mr. Pottea's afterwards—returned after night—
was waylaid and killed. How his pocket book came by
my house I know not. As for the dagger I had such a
one, When I changed my name I thought to make

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

every thing about me seem natural with it, that I would
have Bassford engraved on it. I lost it some months
ago, and have not seen it since 'till to-day. Such, gentlemen,
is the truth, but great God, what is to become
of myself and family with such testimony against me.
Two or three men in the crowd called out that they
knew me before—that I had been in the Ohio penitentiary—
that my name was Brown, and here is my quarrel
with the colonel, his murder on the heels of it—my
dagger by his dead body, and his empty pocket-book
by my house. Notwithstanding all this, gentlemen, I
am innocent. Do you think, if I had murdered him
that I would not have hid my dagger—and would I
have rifled his pocket-book and pitched it away by my
own door-sill, where anybody might find it? No, my
enemy must have contrived this to ruin me.”

At this instant the door was opened by the sheriff,
and Brown's wife admitted—she threw herself into his
arms, exclaiming:—“He is innocent, I know he is innocent!”
while Brown, utterly overcome by his emotions,
pressed her to his heart and wept bitterly. I
whispered to De Berry that we had better leave them,
and accordingly withdrew.

That afternoon, Mrs. Brown called to see me. She
asked me if I would aid her husband; and I promised
that I would. She looked neat and tidy, said she had
two children, and I saw that she was soon again to be
a mother. She told me the same story that Brown had
told me, and I could not but express the deepest regret
for his and her situation.

The name of Brown's former accomplice, with whom
he had quarrelled, was Burnham. He was a desperate
character, perfectly unfeeling and unprincipled, and
possessed of great energy of spirit and frame. It is

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

surprising that Brown should have overcome him.
Brown's mastery originated, doubtless, in the fury of
his insulted feelings.

De Berry became very much interested in Brown's
case. The morning of his interference in his behalf,
Brown had been taken upon the charge of murdering
Colonel Cameron. While the Sheriff, who was well
disposed towards him, was proceeding with him to the
magistrate's, the crowd had gathered round them so
thickly as to interrupt their progress, and Brown had
been separated from the officer. The crowd, among
whose leaders was Burnham, had made furious demonstration
against the prisoner; but his resolute manner
had prevented their laying hands on him, when De
Berry and myself rode up, and the Sheriff, as we have
related, took his charge to jail, to prevent an outrage,
until the excitement had somewhat subsided.

The next morning, De Berry insisted upon having a
hearing before the magistrate, asserting that he meant
to offer bail for Brown. As we proceeded to the magistrate's,
we stopped at Brown's humble dwelling, and
took his wife and children with us. The tidiness of
his afflicted wife and children, and the evident order of
his household and garden, made a most favorable impression
upon us.

As we approached the magistrate's, we wondered
that we saw nobody about the door of his office, but we
learned, on arriving, that the officer of the law had determined
to have the hearing in the court-house, in consequence
of the anticipation of a great crowd, who
would be anxious to hear. To the court we repaired.
There was an immense concourse about the door,
though the Sheriff had not yet appeared with his charge.
De Berry sent the wife and children to the jail, that

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

they might come with him to the court-house, and by
their presence and the sympathy that they would excite,
prevent any outbreak from the mob. We took our station
on the court-house steps, where, elevated above
the crowd, we could observe their demeanor as the
Sheriff and Brown advanced. By our side stood a tall
gaunt Kentuckian, clad in a hunting-shirt, and leaning
on his rifle. He seemed to be an anxious observer of
myself and friend. He soon gathered from our conversation
the position in which we stood towards Brown,
and remarked to us:

“Strangers, I suppose you are lawyers for Bassford;
I am glad he has help, I fear he'll need it, but he once
done me a service, and I want to see right 'twixt man
and man.”

Before De Berry could reply, we were attracted by a
stir among the crowd, and not far off, in the direction
of the jail, we saw the sheriff advancing with the
prisoner, who was accompanied by his wife and children.
Approaching close behind them, were several
horsemen, among whom we could not fail to observe
Burnham, from the eagerness with which he pressed
forward.

With not so much as the ordinary bustle and confusion
incident upon such occasions; in fact, with less
suppressed emotion, the crowd gathered into the court-house,
the Squire occupying the seat of the Judge and
the prisoner a chair within the bar, by the side of De
Berry and myself, with his anxious wife to his right.
The prosecuting attorney, who was a warm friend of
the deceased Colonel, seated himself opposite to us.
Burnham pressed through the crowd within the bar,
and stationed himself near the prosecutor, to whom I
overheard him say:

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

“There are folks here who can prove that his real
name is not Bassford but Brown, and that he was pardoned
out of the Ohio penitentiary; that man by his
lawyer can prove it, so can I, but you had better call
him, he knows—”

“Let me pass, let me pass!” exclaimed a female at
this moment, pressing through the crowd with stern
energy; “I'll tell the truth—Bassford is innocent!”

“She's crazy!” exclaimed Burnham, looking around
with alarm, and making a threatening gesture, as if privately,
to her to hush, forgetting that the eyes of all
were upon him.

“Crazy!” retorted the woman, who was of slender
person and fine features, though they were distorted by
excess and passion, and who seemed to be possessed
by some furious purpose as if by a fiend. “They shall
judge if I am crazy. Prove it, and then you may prove
that Bassford is guilty. Gentlemen, John Burnham
there, murdered Colonel Cameron! There is the money
that Burnham took from the dead body!—there are
letters—here is his watch. Bassford's dagger he got in
a quarrel with him; he murdered the Colonel with it,
and left it by the dead body, and the pocket-book by
Bassford's house to throw the guilt on him!”

“How can you prove this, good woman?” inquired
the magistrate, while the crowd, in breathless eagerness,
were as hushed as death.

“Prove it!—by myself, by these letters, by that watch,
by that dagger—by everything, by what I am, by what
I was. The time has been when I was as innocent as
I am now vicious—as spotless as I am now abandoned;
but for that man, that time were now! Hear me for a
moment; the truth that is in me shall strike your hearts
with justice and with terror, shall acquit the innocent

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

and appal the guilty. In better days I knew both these
men; Bassford I loved—he loved me. My education
had been good; that was all my parents left me, with a
good name. He was thoughtless and wild then, but
not criminal; he fell in with this man Burnham, whom
he brought to my father's house and made his confidant.
Burnham professed a partiality for me, which I
rejected with scorn. He led Bassford into error, into
crime. He coiled himself into his confidence, and made
him believe that I had abandoned myself to him, at the
same time he was torturing me with inventions of Bassford's
faithlessness towards me. Each of us, Bassford
and myself, grew reserved towards the other, without
asking or making any explanation. Oh! the curse of
this pride—this pride! Burnham widened the breach.
He drove me nearly mad with jealousy, and Bassford
with distrust. Bassford and I parted in anger. Burnham
all the while pressed his passion on me. Bassford
left that part of the country, Hagerstown, Maryland.
I promised to marry Burnham; in a spell of
sickness, which was brought on me by the absence of
Bassford, he drugged me with opium made me what I
am, and abandoned me to my fate. After many wretched
years of ignominy and shame, I fell in at Louisville,
three weeks since, with Burnham; I came here with
him. He saw Bassford—tried to draw him into his
guilty plots—they quarrelled; and he—he never, never
told me aught until he had done the deed—he murdered
Colonel Cameron to ruin Bassford; and there, I repeat
it,” pointing to the watch, the money, and the
letters of the deceased, “there are the evidences of his
guilt!”

“Sheriff,” said the magistrate, “take Burnham into
your custody.”

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

“Kill him!” cried out an hundred voices from the
crowd, while several attempted to seize him. Uttering
a yell like a wild Indian at bay, Burnham eluded the
grasp, and drawing, at the same instant, a bowieknife
from his breast, he darted forward and plunged it
into the heart of the woman. The crowd shrunk back
in terror, as the death cry of the victim broke upon the
ear, while the murderer, brandished the bloody knife
over his head, and before any one could arrest him, he
sprung out of one of the windows of the court-room.
It was a leap which none chose to follow, and all rushed
instantaneously to the door Before the crowd got
out, Burnham had mounted his horse and made for the
woods. Several of the horsemen who had come in the
line, mounted and darted after, as if to take him.

“They want to save him,” exclaimed several who
were also mounting other horses that stood by.

“Clear the road!” shouted the Kentuckian, who, rifle
in hand, had sprung upon a mound within a few feet of
the court-house. The horsemen looked fearfully back,
as if instinctively they understood the purpose of the
hunter, and spurred their horses from the track of the
flying man. The Kentuckian raised his rifle to his
shoulder—instantly its sharp report was heard. All
eyes were turned to the murderer, who was urging his
steed to the utmost. He started, as if in renewed energy,
then reeled to and fro like a drunken man, then
fell upon the neck of his horse, at the mane of which he
seemed to grasp blindly; in a moment more he tumbled
to the earth like a dead weight. He was dragged,
with his foot in the stirrup, nearly a mile, before his
horse was overtaken and stopped. The bullet of the
sure-sighted Kentuckian had lodged in the murderer's
brain. He had fallen dead from his saddle, and was so

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

disfigured as scarcely to be recognized. The body
was consigned to a prayerless, hurried, and undistinguished
grave by the road side.

Brown is still alive where I left him, an entirely reformed
and honest man. A stone slab, with some rude
attempts at sculpture on it, at the foot of Brown's garden,
designate the mortal resting-place of the woman,
who, though fallen and degraded, was true to her first
affection, and braved death to save him. His children,
with holy gratitude, have kept the weeds from growing
there, and ever, in their play, become silent when they
approach it.

p387-072 WILLIAM WIRT.

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

Perhaps there was no individual in our country more
highly endowed with intellectual gifts than the late William
Wirt, the greatest public blunder of whose whole career
was that late in life, and at the eleventh political hour
he suffered himself to be announced as a candidate for
the Presidency, by a party with whom he had not before
acted. But be this as it may, all must admit, who knew
him, that whatever Mr. Wirt did he did conscientiously.
We all know and feel that “to err is human,” and we
have yet to learn that error is a proof of selfishness.
The Roman Cato when he found that

“This world was made for Cæsar,”

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

and sagacity kept pace with his other improvements.
His genius was of the first order, and he improved it
with the most sedulous care. He exerted his mind at
times as an author, then as an orator, and daily as a
lawyer, while his efforts in each department improved
his general powers, and gave him that variety of information
and knowledge, which, when combined with genius,
makes what Mr. Wirt really was, a truly great man
Not great only in politics, literature or law, but great in
each and all, like Lord Brougham. Many of his countrymen
were his superiors in some departments of learning,
as they may be said to be his superiors in some
natural endowments, but for universality and variety of
talent perhaps he was not surpassed.

Mr. Wirt had none of the adventitious aids of high
birth, fortune and connexions, to assist him up the steep
of Fame. He was compelled to force his own way, unaided
and unfriended; and like many other great men
of our country, he taught school for a maintenance
while he studied law. It was during that time, while he
was a student, or immediately after he was admitted to
the practice, that he wrote the letters of the “British
Spy.” The description of the novi homines, the new
men, which he so eloquently gives in one of those letters
applied aptly to himself. The eloquence with
which he describes the elevated purposes of oratory, exhibited
his own devotion to the art, while it showed his
capability of excelling in it.

It may be said to be almost the peculiar privilege of
an American to win his own way by the gifts which natude
has given him, with the certainty that success will
wait on merit. Wealth and family influence, it is true,
have great weight in the start of a young man; but in
the long run, superior talents will gain the prize, no

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

matter what may have been the early disadvantages of
their possessor, provided the resolution to be true to
himself comes not too late. The history of almost every
departed, as well as of almost every living worthy
of our country, proves this remark, and it is right
that it should be so. Perhaps this, more than any other
feature in a Republic, tends to its durability, while it
renders it glorious. The great mass of the people are
seldom wrong in their judgments, and therefore it is
that with them talents meet with a just appreciation
whenever they become known, at least talents for oratory.

Mr. Wirt had all the qualifications for obtaining the
popular good will. He possessed a fine person, remarkable
amenity of manners, colloquial qualities of the first
order, wit at will, and he abounded in anecdotes, which
he related with remarkable pleasantness and tact. A
stranger, on entering an assemblage where Mr. Wirt
was, would immediately on perceiving him, have supposed
him a superior man. His person was above the
middle height, with an inclination to corpulency, his
countenance was “sicklied o'er with the pale cast of
thought;” his mouth was finely formed, and a physiognomist
would have noted that the compression of his
lips denoted firmness, and his smile good humored
irony. He had a Roman nose, an eye of cerulean
blue, with a remarkably arch expression when he was
animated, and of calm thoughtfulness when his features
were in repose. His forehead was not high, but it was
broad with the phrenological developments strongly
marked, particularly the poetic and perceptive faculties.
His hair was sandy, and his head bald on the top,
which, with a Byronian anxiety, he tried to hide by
combing the hair over the baldness—and it was much

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

his custom, when engaged in an oratorical display, to
preserve its adjustment by passing his hands over it.
He was much more careful in this regard than is the eloquent
and chivalric Preston, who, though he wears a
wig, seems not only indifferent as to who knows it, but
of the wig itself; for in the sturdy breeze which blew
over the Canton course, at the Baltimore convention, it
nearly left him—he the while apparently unconscious
as he fulminated to the vast and wrapt multitude.
Well! the Carolinian may not love the laurel as Cæsar
did, because it hid his baldness; but he deserved to
have it voted to him long ago for his eloquence.

General Harrison used to tell—peace to his ashes,
and a nation's living gratitude to his name and fame—
as he gladdened the hearth at the Bend with stories of
the past and present, how he remembered to have seen
Patrick Henry, in the heat of his glorious declamation,
twist the back of his wig until it covered his brow, and
any one who has heard the Senator from Carolina, would
say that the resemblance between himself and his illustrious
relative, extended from great things to small
ones.

At the first glance at Mr. Wirt's countenance when
he was not engaged in conversation or business, the observer
would have been struck with the true dignity of
the man, whose mind seemed to hold all its energies in
perfect control. His self-possession was perfect. When
he rose to address the court or jury, there was no hurry,
no agitation about him, as we perceive in many
men. On the contrary, he stood collected, while his
enunciation was deliberate and slow. He stated his
proposition with great simplicity; in fact it was generally
a self-evident one, the applicability of which to the
case, if it were intricate and doubtful, the hearer might

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

in vain endeavor to trace; but when he heard the orator
to the conclusion, he would wonder that he had fancied
any uncertainty about it. For Mr. Wirt would lead him
on by the gentlest gradations until he was convinced.
It may be mentioned, too, that Mr. Wirt, like Mr. Clay,
was a great taker of snuff, and he handled his box with
a grace which would have rivalled even that of the Senator
from Kentucky. Lord Chatham, it was said, made
his crutch a weapon of oratory:

“You talk of conquering America, sir,” said he, “I
might as well attempt to drive them before me with this
crutch.”

And so Mr. Wirt made, and Mr. Clay makes, his snuff-box
an oratorical weapon. Mr. Wirt's language was,
at times, almost oriental—his figures being of the boldest,
and his diction correspondent. His speeches in
Burr's trial show this, though latterly he chastened
somewhat his diction and his thoughts. He sustained
himself well in the highest flight of eloquence, his hearers
having no fear that he would fall from his eminence,
like him in the fable, with the waxen wings. On the
contrary, the hearer felt confident of his intellectual
strength, and yielded his whole feelings to him without
that drawback we experience in listening to some of the
ablest speakers, who often have a glaring imperfection,
which is continually destroying their eloquence. Mr. Wirt
studied oratory with Ciceronian care, and in the recklessness
with which he let fly the arrows of his wit, he
much resembled the Roman. The power of ridiculing
his adversary was Mr. Wirt's forte. The appropriate
manner in which he applied an anecdote was admirable.
After he had demonstrated the absurdity of his opponent's
arguments, with a clearness that the most critical
logician would have admired; after he had illustrated

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

his position with all the lights of law, that law whose
seat Hooker said, “is the bosom of God, and whose
voice is the harmony of the world” (and when Mr.
Wirt had a strong case he explored every field of literature
and science, bringing their joint sanction to his purposes;)
after he had called up the truths of philosophy,
the experience of history, and the beauties of poetry,
all coming like spirits thronging to his call; after he had
expatiated upon the cause with such reflections as you
would suppose Barrow or Tillotson to have used when
speaking of the “oppressor's wrong;” after he had done
all this, Mr. Wirt would, if the opposite party deserved
the infliction, pour forth upon him a lava-like ridicule,
which flamed while it burned, and which was at once
terrible and beautiful—terrible from its severity and
truth, and beautiful from the chaste language in which it
was conveyed.

Mr. Wirt always struck me as being very much like
the late Prime Minister of England, Canning, in his
mind. Canning wanted, and Wirt, in a degree, the
power of calling up and controlling the stronger and
deeper passions of our nature. He had not that withering
scorn which Brougham possesses so strongly, nor
could he rise above the tempest of popular commotion,
as he tells us Patrick Henry could, and soar with “supreme
dominion.” He wanted deep passion. Comparing
him with the leading orators of our country, it
would be said that Clay far surpassed him in the power
of controlling a miscellaneous assemblage, when the
public mind was deeply agitated; that Pinckney on a
question of feudal lore, Webster in profundity and on
constitutional law, and that Preston, in the glow of vehement
declamation, would have had the advantage
over him; but before an auditory who loved to mingle

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

wit with argument and elegance with strength, who
would make truth more beautiful by the adornments of
poetry, and poetry useful as the handmaid of truth,
adding to all those exterior graces which make oratory
so captivating—before such an auditory, it may be said,
without great hesitation, that Mr. Wirt would have surpassed
either of them in general effect. Mr. Wirt's
gestures, too, that of which the Grecian thought so much,
were in keeping with his other excellencies. The fault
was that they were studied—and yet the art with which
he concealed his art was consummate. It was only by
the closest observation that it could be detected.

For a long time, Mr. Wirt's chief opponent at the Baltimore
bar, was Mr. Taney, the present Chief Justice of
the United States. Mr. Taney removed to Baltimore,
from Frederick, on the death of Pinckney, and there
Mr. Wirt and himself were the great forensic rivals.
No two men of the same profession could be more different
in their intellectual gifts than were these gentlemen.
They were as unlike in these regards as they were in
their personal appearance. Mr. Taney was then slim
to feebleness, (he looks now improved in health,) he
stooped, and his voice was weak, and such was the precarious
condition of his health, that he had to station
himself immediately before and near the jury to make
himself heard by them. Mr. Wirt always placed himself
on the side of the trial table, opposite the jury, in
oratorical position. Mr. Taney's manner of speaking
was slow and firm—never using the least rhetorical
ornament, but pressing into the heart of the case, with
powerful arguments, like a great leader, with unbroken
phalanx, into the heart of a besieged city. His style was
plain, unadorned, and so forcible and direct, that it might
be called palpable. With his snuff-box—for the Chief

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

Justice then, too, used snuff—compressed in his closed
hands, he reasoned for hours without the least attempt at
wit or eloquence. And yet, at times, he was truly eloquent
from his deep, yet subdued, earnestness. In a
question of bail in the case of a youth who had shot at
his teacher, I remember, though then a youthful student,
that a crowded auditory were suffused in tears.
It was the fervor of his own feelings, speaking right out,
that made him eloquent. He did not appear to know
that he was eloquent himself. It was an inspiration
that came to him, if it came at all, unbidden—and
which would no more answer to his call than Glendowers'

One of the most interesting cases ever witnessed at
the Baltimore bar, was a trial in a Mandamus case, in
which the right of a church was contested. Mr. Duncan
had been established in the ministry in Baltimore
by a number of Scotch Presbyterians, in an obscure
edifice. His talents drew such a congregation that it
soon became necessary to build a larger one. It was
done; and, in the progress of events, the pastor preached
a more liberal doctrine than he had at first inculcated.
His early supporters remained, not only unchanged
in their faith, but they resolved to have it preached
to them by one with whom they could entirely agree
upon religious matters. The majority of the congregation
agreed with Mr. Duncan. A deep schism arose in
the divided flock which could not be healed, and which
was eventually, by a writ of mandamus, carried before
a legal tribunal. Mr. Taney was counsel for the old
school side, and Mr. Wirt for the defendants. The
court room, during the trial, was crowded with the beauty
and fashion of the monumental city. It was such a

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

display of eloquence, and a full appreciation of it, as is
seldom witnessed. Mr. Wirt was always happy in making
a quotation, and in concluding this cause he made
one of his happiest. After alluding to the old school
members, who, it has been said, were Scotchmen, and
after dwelling upon the tragedy of Macbeth, the scenes of
which are laid in Scotland, he described their preacher
as being in the condition of Macbeth's guest, and said,
after a stern rebuke upon them, that though they should
succeed in their cause, which he felt confident they
would not, that they would feel like the guilty thane.

This quotation was made with such oratorical effect.
that there was a deep silence when Mr. Wirt took his
seat, which was succeeded by repeated outbreaks of
applause. Mr. Wirt gained the case.

As an author Mr. Wirt's merits are very high. His
“British Spy” contains sketches of some of our first
men, drawn with a graphic power which makes us regret
that he did not oftener direct his fine mind to the
delineation of character. He was eminently calculated
for a biographer. His high tone of moral feeling would
have prevented him from becoming the apologist of
vice, no matter how high were its endowments; while
his great admiration of virtue and talent, would have
made him the enthusiastic eulogist of those qualifications
which render biography so attractive and so useful.
The great fault of his life of Patrick Henry is exaggeration.
His mind became heated and inflated as
he contemplated the excellencies of Henry as an orator
and a man, and he over-colored that which, told with

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

more simplicity, would have been more striking. The
effects of Henry's eloquence being so wonderful in
themselves, narrated in a plainer way, would have more
forcibly struck the mind. What they borrowed from
the poetry of the biographer, seems

Mr. Wirt's Old Bachelor is deserving a high commendation.
It is written in numbers, after the manner
of the Spectator, Guardian, and Adventurer, and has
much of the eloquence of style which has contributed
so largely to the popularity of those celebrated works.
It treats of various subjects; oratory, poetry, morality,
&c., and abounds in reflections happily suited to the
condition of young men who are entering the learned
professions. It is not sparse of wit, while it shows the
author's familiar acquaintance with the old worthies of
English literature, those who drank of the “well of
English undefiled.”

It should not be neglected to be said of Mr. Wirt that
he was one of those who, in early life, from the pressure
of an unfriended condition upon a mind of excessive
sensitiveness, fell, for a while, into reckless despondency,
alternated by wayward fits of intellectual energy,
which had an unfortunate influence upon his habits.
Such has been the situation of men like him, who had
the “fatal gift,” without any other gift—no friendly
hand— no cheering voice. Alas, the records of genius
for wretchedness is surpassed only by the records of
the lunatic asylum. In fact, its history often illustrates
and deepens the saddest story on the maniac's wall.
But, to the glory of Mr. Wirt, it is known that his energies
prevailed—that friends came—that religious hope,
which had formerly visited him, like the fitful

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

wanderings of a perturbed spirit, at last made her home by his
hearth, where a beautiful and gifted family grew up
around him, until, full of honors and of years, and the
faith that is beyond them, he was gathered to his
fathers.

When contemplating the moral and intellectual character
of Mr. Wirt, it has been regretted that he did not
turn away from the thorny paths of the law, and devote
the whole force of his mind to general literature; but
how could he, with the poor rewards of literature, support
those nearest and dearest to him? Yet, had circumstances
allowed him to have done so, he would
have been one of the first literary men of our country.
I have frequently heard Mr. Wirt when opposed to some
of our most eminent men, and this slight sketch is
drawn from opinions then entertained and expressed.
I presented, while he lived, the tribute of my admiration,
not to the politician, not to the candidate for the
Presidency, but to the author of the “British Spy,” “The
Old Bachelor,” “The Life of Henry,” a great lawyer
and acute statesman, a consummate advocate, and last,
though not least, an honest man; and now, that he is
dead, I would fain garner testimonials to his memory
worthy of him—but the will must be taken for the deed.

p387-083 A VISIT TO SIMON KENTON, The Last of the Pioneers.

“An active hermit, even in age, the child
Of Nature, or the Man of Ross, run wild.”
—Byron.

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

Falling, the other day, accidentally, upon Byron's
beautiful lines in Don Juan, on—


“General Boone, Backwoodsman of Kentucky,”
I thought, as I dwelt upon their freshness—fresh as the
forests and the character which is his theme—of a visit
which I paid some years ago to Boone's cotemporary and
similar, Simon Kenton, who died shortly afterwards—
and I determined to fill out a slight sketch then made of
him. One bright morning in October, I think, '34, after
a hearty breakfast on venison, with the becoming appliances
of cranberry jelly, and all the etceteras of a luxurious
meal, such as you often get in the western country,
and which our kind hostess of West Liberty, Ohio,
had, according to the promises of the previous evening,
prepared for us by day-dawn, my friend and myself
started from that village on our way to Bellefontaine,
resolved to call and pay our respects—the respects of
strangers and travelers—to Simon Kenton, who, we were
informed, dwelt some thirty miles from our whereabouts.

It was a glorious Indian summer morning. The day
had just broke as we started, and the thick haze, which
characterizes this season of the year, enveloped the
whole landscape, but without concealing, made it just
indistinct enough for the imagination to group and

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

marshal hill, prairie, tree and stream, in a manner agreeable
to our feelings. The haze rested on the face of Nature
like a veil over a sleeping beauty, disclosing enough of
her features to charm, without dazzling us with the flash
of her eye, which makes us shrink while we admire.

A vast prairie extended on our right, through which
loitered a lazy stream, as if it lingered, loth to leave the
fertile soil which embosomed it. A silvery mist hung
over it, making it appear like a great lake. Here and
there arising from the immense body of the prairie, were
what are called islands—that is, great clumps of trees,
covering, sometimes, many acres, appearing just like so
many islands in an outstretched ocean. Onee I observed
was peculiarly striking: it was a natural mound arising
out of the prairie, and was covered with a dense
wood, while around it the plain extended far and wide,
and was as level as a floor.

As the day dawned the scene became more and more
enchanting. The sun blazed up through the forest trees
that skirted the prairie like a beacon fire. Those of the
trees which were earliest touched by the frost, and had
lost their foliage, seemed like so many warriors stretching
forth their arms in mortal combat; while the fallen
ones, which lay in their huge length upon the ground,
might easily be fancied so many brave ones who were
realizing the poet's description of a contrast:

Then my fancy caught another impression; I thought,
as I looked upon the tranquil scene—the wide prairie—
the sheep browzing on it—the gentle stream—the mist
curling up—the towering trees—the distant hills—the
blue smoke ascending here and there from a rustic
dwelling—all looking tranquillity—I thought that Peace
had lit her altar, and all Nature was worshipping the

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

Being whose blessings were upon all. The rich tint of
those trees which still retained their foliage, added to
the beauty and oneness of the scene; and, in gilding
the picture, harmonized with it.

On our left, a hill ascended abruptly up, covered with
tall trees, which, in some places, were remarkably clear
of underwood, and in others, choked up with it. The
undergrowth, from its great luxuriance, where it did appear,
seemed emulous of the height of its neighbors.
At the foot of the hill, and winding around it, lay our
road; sometimes it would ascend the hill's side to the
very summit, and then abruptly descend to the very
foot. This gave us a full view of the surrounding scenery.
It was beautiful. To me, like that of another
world, coming, as I did, from the contagious breath of
the city, where disease and death were spread, wide as
the atmosphere, for I had just left Cincinnati, where the
cholera was raging. The bustle of business—the hum
of men—the discordant noises—the dusty streets—the
sameness and dingy red of the houses—the smoky and
impure atmosphere—the frequent hearse—the hurrying
physician—the many in black, were all remembered in
contrast with this bright scene of Nature. I caught
myself almost unconsciously repeating the lines of the
poet:


“Oh, how canst thou renounce the boundless store
Of charms, which Nature to her votary yields!
The warbling woodland, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields;
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,
And all that echoes to the song of even;
All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields,
And all the dread magnificence of Heaven;
Oh, how canst thou renounce, and hope to be forgiven?”
I felt at once why I had been an invalid. I had been
breathing an air pregnant with all sorts of sickness; was
it any wonder I was sick? I had swollowed a whole

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

drug shop—for what purpose? To be drugged to
death?

Every thing in this world takes the hue of our feelings.
A few weeks previously I had been to a wedding
in Lebanon, where I had enjoyed myself gloriously.
We kept it up till “'tween the late and early,” and all
went off appropriately—


“As merry as a marriage bell.”
The next morning I breakfasted with the bewitching
bride and her generous lover, and then away from the
bridal scene in a hazy rain, over horrible roads, tossed
about in a trundle-bed of a carry-all, with no companion
but my crutch, and a whole host of bachelor reflections.
The scene was sad every where. I passed an
old rooster by the road side. He stood alone, dripping
wet, with not a single hen near him—chick nor child—
like a grand Turk who had been upset in an aquatic
excursion, and has quarrelled with his whole seraglio.
A dog skulked by me, with his tail between his legs,
looking, for all the world, as if he had been sheep-killing.
How desolate the girdled trees looked! As the
winds whistled through their leafless branches, they
seemed the very emblems of aspiring manhood, deprived
of all his honors when he thought them greenest; yet
still standing with the world's blight upon him. The
road wound about, as if it had business all through the
woods; and the long miry places, which were covered
with rails, to prevent one from disappearing altogether!
what jolting! what bouncing! zigzag—this way, that
way, every way. Why, Sancho Panza, when tossed in
the blanket, enjoyed pefect luxury in the comparison.
And when, at last, I did get upon a piece of road that
was straight, it appeared a long vista leading to utter
desolation. The turbid streams were but emblems of

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

the lowering sky. They looked frowning on each other,
like foe on foe, while the autumn leaves fell thick around
me, like summer hopes. To-day is different—all is
bright. To-morrow may be cloudy—and thus wags the
world.

There is no nobler theme for the novelist and the poet,
than the stirring incidents of the first settlement of
our country. The muse of Scott has made his country
appear the appropriate place for romantic legend, and
traditionary feud, but it only wants his genius, to make
our country more than the rival of his, in that respect.
The field here is as abundant, and almost untrodden.
However, I am not one of those who believe that legends
of the olden time are the best themes for the novelist.
If he would describe truly the manners, virtues
and vices round him, as they are, he would win more
applause than in the description of other scenes; because
all would feel the truth of the portraiture. Scott
failed in describing modern manners in Saint RomansWell.
Why? Because his affections and feelings were
with the past; and those ballads and romances in which
his boyhood delighted, exercised over his imagination a
controlling power, and when he came to give them a “local
habitation and a name,” that controlling power was
manifest.

But who of Scott's readers has not regretted that he
did not give us more of the men and manners of the
day? If he had thought as much of them as of baronial
and other periods—and having studied, he had attempted
to paint them when his mind was in its vigor,
he would have succeeded as well as in Ivanhoe, Rob
Roy, or the Crusaders. Fielding could only describe
the manners around him, because he had only thought
of them. Scott's imagination had a feudal bias, and

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

consequently he painted that period best when, as he
describes it—


“They laid down to rest,
With the corselet laced—
Pillowed on buckler cold and hard:
They carved at the meal
With gloves of steel,
And drank the red wine through the helmet barr'd.”
How delightful if Scott had given us some of the scenes
which he witnessed among the different circles with
whom he mingled. In such scenes he studied human
nature, it is true, but he applied his knowledge in describing
how men acted in other circumstances than those
in which he saw them act, for he well knew that the
truthful portraiture finds sympathy in every breast. He
learned the whole history of the human heart, and then
gave us volumes of the olden time, because there his
imagination feasted. He should, sometimes, have shown
us ourselves as we are. It seems to me that not only
in our early history is there a wide field for the novelist,
but that in our own times there is both a wider and
a better. What a great variety of characters in our
country! Men from all climes, of all opinions, parties,
sects. The German, Frenchman, Englishman, Russian,
the Backwoodsman, the Yankee, and the Southerner,
are each and all often found in the bar room of a
country tavern. To one who likes to observe character,
what enjoyment! Why, as Fallstaff would say,
“it is a play extempore.” And then to quit a scene like
this, pass a few miles from one of these towns, and be
right into the wilderness: for it seems a wilderness to
look round on the deep woods, and the wild prairie, and
see no marks of civilization but the road on which you
travel. How the mind expands! You look up, and fancy
some far off cloud, the Great Spirit looking down on
His primeval world, in all the freshness and beauty of

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

its first years. The imagination glows, the feelings
freshen, the affections become intense. Rapidly, then,
the scenes of our boyhood rush upon us, our early manhood,
our hopes, our fears, the lady of our love, the objects
of our ambition. We see some brilliant bird that
we have started from its perch, dart off in the blue
ether, and thus before us seems the world, all our own.
And then we enter the town, and behold the vast variety
of human beings among whom and with whom we
have to struggle. Here, too, we often find women lovliest
and most fascinating—a flower in the wilderness,
and beautiful both in bud and in bloom. And here
are generous and free spirits, who wear no disguise
about them, whose feelings spring up like the eagle from
its eyrie, in natural fearlessness. The change is enjoyment:
one fits us for the other. In solitude, we
think over, examine, and analyze what we see in the
world; and in the world, the reflections and resolutions
of solitude strike us like a parental admonition.

That simplicity which Cooper has described so well
in the character of Leatherstocking, seems to have
been the characteristic of the early pioneers. It has
been my good luck to meet with several of them. One,
who is now a country squire, and of course, far advanced
in years, with whom I became acquainted in the
interior of Ohio, frequently in conversation with me,
dwelt upon the peculiarities of the pioneers, lamenting
with simplicity, energy, and natural eloquence, which
told that he was one of them, the “falling off,” as he
called it of the present times.

“Why,” said he to me, “if you will believe me,
there is not half the confidence between man and man
that there used to be, when I was in the wilderness
here, and used to travel to the different stations. It

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

was a long tramp, I tell you—but you might rely on the
man that went with you, to life and to death just as you
would on your rifle—and then you rested upon your
rifle—and looked upon the beauties of the wilderness—
and the wilderness is beautiful to them that like it—and
felt that you were a man. Why, I could do everything
for myself in those days—I needed no help no how—I
tell you I have a snug farm, and may be, some things
that you call comforts; but I shall never be as happy as
I was when here in the wilderness with my dog and rifle,
and nothing else. No, I shall never be as happy
again, and that's a fact. Mr. —, our preacher,
preaches a good sermon, bating a spice of Calvinism,
that I, somehow, can't relish or believe natural, but he
can't make me feel like I used to—I mean with such reliance
on Providence—as I did when I roused up in
the morning, and looked out on the beauties of nature,
just as God made them. You find fault with these roads—
and I know the traveling's bad—I thought so myself
as I came to town—and yet I used to travel through
the wilderness when there was no road or town. I
sometimes felt tired, it is true, but it was not the weariness
I feel now—no, no! I never shall be so happy as
I was in the wilderness, and that's a fact.”

I believe I have repeated the very words as they fell
from the lips of the fine old man. I was much amused
with his opinion of novels.

“Why, I am told,” he said, “that a man will write
two big books—and not a word of truth in 'em from beginning
to end. Now ain't that abominable! To tell a
lie, any how is a great shame; but to write, and then to
print it, is what I never thought of. How can you tell
it from truth, if he's an ingenious man! It looks just like
truth when 'tis printed. It destroys all confidence in

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

books. Judge Jones tells me that there was a man called
Scott, who has written whole shelves of 'em—what
do you call 'em? novels? He tells me that he was a
pretty good sort of a man, too, with a good deal of the
briar about him. I read one of them books once, that
I liked, I suppose, from the name; they called it the `Pioneers;
' that's the reason I read it. I think there must
be some mistake; you may depend upon it, that man,
Leatherstocking never could have known so much about
the wilderness, and the ways of the Ingins, without being
in it, and among 'em.”

What a fine compliment to the powers of Cooper.—
The scenery was striking and as we passed along, our
conversation turned, of course, upon it, and from that,
to the dark forms that once flitted through it—and to
those who had first struggled with the red man for its
possession; and how naturally to him whom we were
going to visit, who had been among the first and most
fearless of the Pioneers, and who was then lingering the
last of them.

Simon Kenton's life had been a very eventful one—
perhaps the most so of all the Pioneers. Boone has
been more spoken of, and written about; but in all probability,
the reason is, because he was the oldest man, and
had been, then, sometime dead.

Kenton was a Virginian by birth, and, I believe, entirely
uneducated. At a very early age, he quarreled
with a rival in a love affair, and after an unsuccessful
conflict with him, Kenton challenged him to another,
and was getting the worst of it, in a rough and tumble
fight, and being undermost, subject to the full rage of
his antagonist, he was much injured; when it occurred
to him that if he could twist his rival's hair, which was
very long, in a bush near by, he could punish him at his

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

leisure. Crawling to the point under the stunning blows
of his antagonist, Kenton, with desperate energy, seized
him by the hair, and succeeded in entangling it in the
bush as he desired. He then pummelled him with such
right good will, that he thought he had killed him.—
Kenton, fearing the consequences, instantly absconded,
and changed his name from Simon Butler, which was
his real name, to Simon Kenton. He pushed for the
West. There he joined in several excursions against
the savages, and was several times near being taken by
them. He acted as a spy between the Indians and the
colonies, in the war occasioned by the murder of Logan's
family. After many adventures and hardships,
he was taken by the Indians, in purloining some of their
horses, which, in retaliation, he had led away in a night
foray into one of their villages. He was treated with
great cruelty: he ran the gauntlet thirteen times, and was
finally saved from torture, by the interference of Girty,
a renegade white man, who had joined the Indians,
and was their leader in many of their attacks on the
whites. Kenton and Girty had been friends, and
pledged themselves so to continue, whatever changes
might overtake them, before Girty apostatized. He,
with all his savageness and treachery, was true to Kenton.
This is but the caption of a chapter in Kenton's
life.

After journeying for some time through thick woods,
in which there was innumerable grey and black squirrels,
we arrived at an angle of a worm fence, and turned off
into a swampy road, towards a log house, in which, we
are told, the old Pioneer lived. The house was comfortable
and large, for one of the kind. On stopping, a
son-in-law of the old worthy met us at the bars, and,
though he knew us not, with the hospitality of the

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

country, he insisted upon putting up our horses, which kindness
we were compelled to decline, as we could not tarry
long. As we advanced towards the house, I observed
every thing about it wore the air of frugal comfort.

We ascended two or three steps, and entered the room,
in which was a matron, who, we learned, was the wife
of the Pioneer, and seated by the fire, the old worthy
himself. He rose as we entered. Advancing towards
him, I said, “Mr. Kenton, we are strangers, who have
read often of you and your adventures, and being in
your neighborhood, we have taken the liberty to call
and see you, as we were anxious to know one of the
first and the last Pioneers.”

The old Pioneer was touched and gratified by the remark,
and while shaking hands with us, he said:

“Take seats, take seats, I am right glad to see you.”

We sat down and immediately entered into conversation
with him. He conversed in a desultory manner,
and often had to make an effort to recollect himself, but
when he did his memory seemed to call up the events
alluded to, and when asked anything, “well I'll tell you,”
he would say, and after a pause, he narrated it. I have
stood in the presence of men who had won laurels by
field and flood, in the senate, at the bar, and in the pulpit,
but my sensations were merely those of curiosity—
a wish to know the impressions which the individual
made upon himself, corresponded with the accounts
given of him by others—if his countenance told his
passions; and if the capabilites which he possessed could
be read in him. This wish to observe prevents all other
sensations and makes one a curious but cold observer.
But far different were my feelings as I looked upon
the bent but manly form of the old Pioneer, and

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

observed his frank and fine features. Here, thought I, is
a man, who, if human character was dissected with
a correct eye, would be found to be braver than many a
one who has won the world's eulogy as a soldier. Who
cannot be brave with all the

“Pride, pomp, and circumstance, of glorious war”

Kenton's form, even under the weight of seventy
years, was striking, and must have been a model of
manly strength and agility. His eye was blue, mild,
and yet penetrating in its glance. The forehead projected
very much at the eyebrows, (which were well defined,)
and then it receded, and was not very high, nor
very broad—his hair had been a light brown; it was then
nearly all grey—the nose straight and well shaped, his

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

mouth, before he lost his teeth, must have been expressive
and handsome. I observed that he had one tooth
left, which, taking into consideration his character, and
manner of conversation, was continually reminding one
of Leatherstocking. The whole face was remarkably
expressive not of turbulance or excitement, but rather
of veneration and self-possession. Simplicity, frankness,
honesty, and a strict regard to truth, appeared the
prominent traits of his character. In giving an answer
to a question which my friend asked him, I was particularly
struck with his truthfulness and simplicity. The
question was, whether the account of his life in “Sketches
of Western Adventure,” was true or not? “Well,
I'll tell you,” he said, “not true: the book says, that
when Blackfish, the Indian warrior, asked me, after
they had taken me prisoner, if Colonel Boone sent me to
steal the horses, that I said no, Sir; (here he looked indignant,
and rose from his chair;) I tell you I never said
Sir to an Ingin in my life; I scarcely ever say it to a
white man.”

Mrs. Kenton, who was engaged in some domestic occupation
at the table, turned round, and remarked:—
“When we were last in Kentucky, some one gave me
the book to read, and when I came to that part, he
would not let me read any more.”

“And I tell you,” interrupted Kenton, “I never was
tied to a stake in my life, to be burned; they had me
painted black when I saw Girty, but not tied to a stake.”

I mention this not at all to disparage the book, but to
show Kenton's character—for though personally unacquainted
with the author, I have a high respect for his
talents; besides Mr. M'Clung does not give the account
of Kenton's adventures as narrated to himself, by him,
but as abridged from a MS. account, given by the

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

venerable Pioneer himself, and now in the possession of
Mr. John D. Taylor, of Kentucky. Kenton stated that
he had narrated his adventures to a young lawyer,
(whose name I forget,) and that all in the book was true.
In answer to a question about Girty, he observed:

“He was good to me: when he came up to me, when
the Ingins had painted me black, I knew him at first.
He asked me a good many questions, but I thought it
best not to be too forard, and I held back from telling
him my name; but when I did tell him, oh! he was
mighty glad to see me. He flung his arms round me,
and cried like a child. I never did see one man so
glad to see another yet. He made a speech to the Ingins—
he could speak the Ingin tongue, and knew how
to speak—and told them if they meant to do him a favor,
they must do it now, and save my life. Girty, afterwards,
when we were at (I think he said) Detroit together,
cried to me like a child, often, and told me he
was sorry of the part he took against the whites—that
he was too hasty. Yes, I tell you, Girty was good to
me.”

I remarked, It's a wonder he was good to you.”

“No,” he replied quickly, but solemnly, “it's no wonder.
When we see our fellow creatures every day, we
don't care for them; but it is different when you meet
a man all alone in the woods—the wild lonely woods. I
tell you, stranger, Girty and I met, lonely men, on the
banks of the Ohio, and where Cincinnati now stands,
and we pledged ourselves, one to the other, hand in
hand, for life and death, when there was nobody in the
wilderness but God and us,”—his very language, and a
sublime expression I thought it.

He spoke kindly of the celebrated Logan, the Indian
chief, and said he was a fine looking man, with a good

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

countenance, and that Logan spoke English as well as
himself. Speaking of the Indians, he said:

“Though they did abuse me mightily, I must say that
they are as 'cute as other people—with many great warriors
among them—they are as keen marksmen as the
whites, but they do not take as good care of their rifles.
Finding one's way through the woods, is all habit. Indians
talk much less than the whites, when they travel,
but that is because they have less to think about.”

He spoke of Boone, and said that he had been with
him a great deal. He described him as a Quaker-looking
man, with great honesty and singleness of purpose,
but very keen. We were struck with his acuteness and
delicacy of feeling. He was going to show us his hand,
which had been maimed by the Indians; he half drew
off his mitten, and then pulled it on again.

“No,” said he, “it hurts my feelings.”

My friend observed that it was mentioned in the different
accounts of him, that when himself and his companions
arrived at the Ohio, with the horses of the Indians,
they might have escaped if they had followed his
advice.

“Understand, understand,” said he, “I do not mean
to blame them. The horses would not, somehow, enter
the river. I knew the Indians were behind us, and told
them so. They would not leave the horses; I could
not leave them, so the Indians came yelling down the
hills, and took us.”

I observed to him that I wondered, after his escape
from the Indians, that he did not return to Virginia, and
run no more risks in being taken by them.

“Ah!” said he, “I was a changed man; they abused
me mightily. I determined, after that, never to miss a
chance”—(meaning at the life of an Indian.)

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

He was very anxious that Clarke's life should be written—
General George Rogers Clarke—who, he said, had
done more to save Kentucky from the Indians than any
other man. He told us that a gentleman from Urbanna,
Ohio, had been with him two or three days, and that he
had told him a good deal about himself; “but,” said he,
“I am mighty anxious to tell what I know about Clarke.
You may depend he was a brave man, and did much.”

He then told us that not five miles from the place
where we were, he had been a captive among the Indians,
painted black, with his hands pinned behind him,
his body lacerated with the severest treatment; the bone
of his arm broken, and projecting through the flesh, and
his head shockingly bruised. I observed to him that he
must have been a very strong and active man, to have
endured so many hardships, and made so many escapes.

“Yes,” said he, “I believe I might say I was once an
active man, but,” continued he, taking my crutch in
his hand, as I sat beside him, and holding it, together
with his staff—I could trace the association of his ideas—
“I am an old man.”

I observed from his manner that he wished to ask me
about my crutch, but that he felt a delicacy in doing so.
I explained it to him, after observing the fashion of it
for some time—for I had a fashion of my own in my
crutches—he looked earnestly at me, and said, with
emotion, showing me his own staff—

“You see I have to use one, too; you are young and
I am old; but I tell you we all must come to it at last.”

Many, in their courtesy, have tried to reconcile me to
my crutch, but no one ever did it with so bland a spirit
as this blunt backwoodsman, who “never said sir to an
Indian in his life, and scarcely ever to a white man.”

True politeness is from the heart, and from the

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

abundance of the heart it speaketh—the rest is but imitation,
and at best, the automation fashioned to act like a man.

We rose twice to leave; ere we did so the old worthy
pressed us so warmly “not to go yet.” At last, after a
hearty shake of the hand with him, we departed on our
way to Bellefontaine. We were scarcely on the road,
before the rain descended fast upon us, but we went on,
transacted our business, and returned to West Liberty
to spend the night, unmindful of the heavy storm that
poured down upon us in our open buggy, but full of the
old pioneer, and the reflections which our visit had called
up.

We looked around, and did not wonder that the Indians
fought hard for the soil, so fruitful with all the resources
and luxuries of savage life, redolent with so
many associations for them—all their own—theirs for
centuries—their prairies, their hunting grounds—the
places where their wigwams stood, where their council
fires were lit, where rested the bones of their fathers,
where their religious rites were performed.

How often had they hailed the “bright eye of the
universe!” as we hailed him that morning, almost with
a Persian's worship, and on that very spot, in a few hours,
we beheld him sinking in his canopy of clouds. And
thus they sink, and the shadows of their evening grow
darker and darker, and they shall know no morrow.—
Happy for those who now possess their lands, if they
cherish, and if their posterity cherish, the homely virtues,
the simple honesty and love of freedom of the
early Pioneers—of him with whom we shook hands that
morning on the brink of the grave. If they do, then
indeed may their broad banner, with its stars and stripes
trebled, he planted on the far shores of the Pacific, the
emblem of a free united people.

p387-100 MARY M'INTYRE HAS ARRIVED.

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

On my way to St. Louis, safe and sound, I arrived at
Louisville, on the steamer Madison, now years agone.
The falls of the Ohio, at Louisville, were so low, that
the Captain resolved to go round by the canal, which
was cut to obviate the necessity of unloading vessels to
lighten them, so as to permit their passage over the
falls. At ten o'clock, A. M., we reached Louisville, and
the Captain told me, upon enquiry, as I wished to pay
my respects to a friend or two of that hospitable city,
that the boat would not leave until one o'clock, as he
had to take on board a number of Scotch immigrants
with their baggage, who had been brought thus far from
Pittsburgh on a boat that was returning. I therefore
had ample time to make a morning call or two in passing,
a pleasure of which I generally avail myself on
our Western waters, whenever the boat on which I happen
to be a wayfarer stops, where I have acquaintances.

I resolved to pay my respects to “Amelia,” the sweetest
poetess of our land, in whose society I spent a most
agreeable hour, which I would willingly have prolonged,
but the admonition, that the boat started at one
o'clock, rose to my memory.

I therefore repaired to the wharf half an hour before
one, determined to be in time. Lo! as I approached
the wharf, I beheld the Madison lumbering along in the
canal, stopping every moment as if to take breath,

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

being in fact retarded by some obstacle or other, which
she could not surmount without the aid of poles, and
ropes, and a fresh start.

My only remedy was to ride round to Lockport,
where the canal terminates by passing into the river,
and wait an indefinite period for the arrival of the steamer,
or get on board a row boat and have myself transported
after her in the canal, and thus reach her, which
I was assured could be affected in half an hour at farthest.

I accordingly fee'd two youths who were padling
about in a boat, to convey me to the Madison. I was
soon seated astern and they pulled away for the steamer.
We soon entered the canal, but owing to the
waves the steamer threw in her confined track, and her
lumbering movements from side to side, it was with
difficulty and delay that we approached her.

The Scotch immigrants were what are called on the
Western waters, deck passengers; of that class almost
all of whom are poor, but often very respectable, who
in the packet ships in crossing the Atlantic, take a
steerage passage. Among the immigrants on the Madison
were many females, among whom there were some
young and beautiful ones.

As I ripped out a strong Western oath. (I am
ashamed to write it, for I have not pronounced one for a
long time,) at the Captain for breaking his word with
me and leaving before the hour, one of these Scotch
lasses said to me imploringly, for our boat had gotten
immediately under the stern of the steamer, where she
stood,

“Oh! sir, please don't swear so.”

Struck with the tone and beauty of the Scotch

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

maiden, my impulse of anger changed to one of admiration,
and I instantly said to her—

“Well, I won't again—and you must be like Sterne's
angel when my uncle Toby swore; you must drop a
tear upon the word in the high archives and blot it out
forever.”

As I said this I stretched out my hand to reach the
railing of the steamer, but failed, as our boat gave a
lurch at the moment. Again I made the effort, and
would have failed again had not the pretty Scotch girl
leaned over the vessel's side and given me her hand.
Thus assisted, in a moment more I was on the steamer's
deck beside my fair assistant. I thanked her with
all the grace I could master, which she received with a
blush and said:

“But you forget, sir, that my uncle Toby's oath was
to save life.”

“But it was unavailing,” I replied, “yet your fair
hand stretched out to me may have saved mine, therefore,
as I live and may err,

“Poor Ophelia, ejaculated the Scotch girl sadly,
“she went crazy for love.”

“Ah,” thought I, “here is intelligence as well as
beauty, taking a steerage passage, and not the first
time, for with poverty they have been companions before,
and love, too, I suspect, is no stranger in this
party.”

Impressed with these reflections, I entered into conversation
with my new-made acquaintance and soon
discovered that she was remarkably intelligent, as well
as beautiful. It seemed to me that fair hair was never
braided on a fairer brow. Her neck and shoulders

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

were exquisitely turned, and added to the charm of
features, which were decidedly patrician. There was
a naivete in her manner, too, that had caught its tone
from a position, I thought, evidently above her present
one. She had also nothing of the Scotch in her accent,
which was broad enough on the lips of her companions.
Though she was apparently poor, there was
not only great neatness in her humble toilette, but a
style that was above the “clay biggin.” Several little
trinkets upon her person—a ring, breast-pin, and particularly
a massive gold cross, attached to a handsome
chain—attracted my attention, especially the latter, and
indicated, not only from their value, but the manner in
which they were worn, her superiority to her companions,
as well as the fact to my mind, that she was a Roman
Catholic. Her companions were rigid Presbyterians,
I soon learned, and my fair assistant into the boat
and reprover did not attend, I observed, when an old
Scotchman, in the afternoon, read the Bible to the group
of immigrants gathered about him, but withdrew to the
side of the boat and looked over pensively into the
water.

She interested me much. Being myself, at that time,
the wearer of a large pair of whiskers and an imperial
to match, my humble traveling companions were rather
shy of me, but soon observing that my fellow passengers
above stairs knew me well, and that I was not unpopular
among them, the Scotch folk grew rapidly familiar
and frank with me.

I learned from a solemn and remarkably pious old
Presbyterian, the history of the beautiful Scotch girl,
whose name was Mary M'Intyre. He sighed heavily
when he told it. Her father was an humble farmer of
the better sort, and lived in Ayrshire. An old Roman

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

Catholic nobleman who dwelt in Edinburgh, had a
daughter, who, on a visit, which she made to Ayrshire,
became acquainted with Mary, and treated her as an
humble friend. When the young lady returned to Edinburgh
she took Mary with her, who was affianced to a
young miller in the neighborhood, named McClung. In
fulfilment of an old Scotch custom, which Burns and his
Highland Mary practiced, they at parting broke a piece
of silver over a running brook, and on a Bible plighted
their everlasting faith unto each other.

In the progress of events, Mary, to the horror of her
lover's faith, became a Roman Catholic. Her lover
wrote her what she thought a harsh and uncalled-for
letter on the subject. Her maiden pride, as well as
her religious prejudices, were aroused, and she returned
him his letter without a word of comment.
Both were stung to the quick; the lover, though he
went to Edinburgh, left for the United States, without
calling to see her, and wandered away up the
Missouri river. Mary grew thin and absent-minded,
and exhibited all the symptoms of a maiden sick for
love. Three years passed, Mary's friend had died, and
she had returned to her father's, the while wasting
away, when lo! a package came from the far Western
wilds from Mary's lover.

He implored her to forgive him for his conduct to her,
in the humblest terms, and in the strongest he expressed
the endurance of his passionate love, and he stated
that he had thought of nothing else but Mary since he
had left Scotland; that knowing every Sunday that she
was worshiping in the Catholic church, he went to one
himself, that he might worship with her, and that he had
become a Catholic, and sent her the antique cross she
wore in testimony of his love and of his faith. He

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

furthermore told Mary that he was doing well in the New
World, that if she said so he would go for her, but that
it would ruin his business, (he was a true Scotchman)
and he concluded by begging Mary to come to him.
These immigrants were on the point of leaving Scotland,
many of them were Mary's especial friends, and
she determined to embark with them.

How I felt interested in that Scotch girl! In proud
saloons since in gay and wild Washington, I have many
a time and oft felt all the impulses of my fitful and
wayward nature aroused and concentrated to please
some dark-eyed one from the sunny South, or some fair
descendant of the Puritans, or may be some dame of
high degree from over the waters, cynosures of fashion
in the Capitol, but remember I not woman yet, who more
struck my fancy than this bonnie lassie from the land of
Burns. She could tell me so many things traditional in
Ayrshire about Burns and his birthplace, and then she admired
him so much, and could sing his songs so well.
We had a long passage, and as she kept herself aloof from
the other passengers, I was all day and half the night
by her side. She half made me a Catholic. I have
since with uncertain steps and some short comings, been
trying to fix my conduct where my firm faith and hope
and heart are fixed, in the humble ways of Methodism;
and I know that Mary will think none the less of me
when she sees this avowal, but then I was careless of
everything but the enjoyment of the hour that was passing
over me. It was just this time of the year, (May,)
and the beautiful Ohio never was more beautiful. How
many simple and frank questions she asked me, and as
she did not know that I knew her secret, I could so
plainly trace in all her thoughts the image of her lover
the controling one, as the bright moon above us was the

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

controling light. Several times, when she knew not
that I observed her, I witnessed her devotions, and I
thought, as I saw her clasp the crucifix, her lover's gift
and pray, that some earthly adoration mingled with her
heavenly vows.

One day as we sat chatting together with more than
usual unreservedness, I observed: “Well, you will soon
marry some rich American. “No,” she instantly replied,
“I prefer a poor Scotchman.” I must have felt
a pang of jealousy of her lover at the time, for I remarked:

“Mary, you have asked me what I thought was the
difference between a Scotch woman and an American;
I will tell you: an American would make her lover come
to her; a Scotch woman, as you know, would come to
her lover.”

Her brow and bosom crimsoned in an instant, and
rising from my side, she looked at me and said: “Sir,
you have no right so to wound a lonely woman's heart,”
and bursting into tears, she walked away from me.

Whatever may have been my misunderstandings with
men, and they have been few, I certainly never had
then had one with a woman, and my uncourteous and
uncalled for remark stung my own pride as a gentleman,
as much as I had wounded Mary's womanly nature.
I instantly followed her, and used every effort to
reconcile her, but without effect; she walked away from
me with a haughty inclination of the head, and entered
her humble apartment.

I learned that one of her chief objections to her voyage,
was this coming to her lover instead of with him.
Her refined education had taught her this refinement
woman delicacy. I could not forgive myself for the
wound I had inflicted on Mary's feelings, and I soon

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

began to feel that I should not forgive her, for not forgiving
me.

At last we approached a point not far below St. Louis,
near by Jefferson barracks, where the Scotch immigrants
were to debark, and they were all bustle and
preparation. I sat smoking a segar on the guards and
watching them. Mary, in the certainty of meeting her
lover, was with a natural anxiety practising all the arts
of the toilette to make her scanty wardrobe do its best.
I could see her arranging her hair and shawl, and consulting
one of the Scotch girls as to their adjustment,
whose opinions, but for her own anxiety, she would
have disregarded. Doubtless, she often thought, years
may have changed me much, and he—how he will be
disappointed! She may have fancied that her very education,
which gave her a different air and manner from
what she had when he wooed her, might make an unfavorable
impression upon him.

I never in my life thought I could easier read a woman's
feelings.

At last we reached the point of the Pilgrims rest, and
the boat rounded to, but, when they landed, Mary's
lover was not there! She seemed stupified; and the
others were so busied with themselves and their own
concerns, that they thought not of Mary or her lover.

She took a seat on her trunk on the shore amidst the
baggage, which the immigrants were getting off, and
looked the very picture of despair; as with her hands
clasped in her lap, she gazed now here now there, as if
she thought that from some point or other he must come,
but he came not.

My provocation at Mary for her unforgiveness was
gone. I arose from the guards of the boat, threw my
segar overboard, and went ashore. I had often been

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

at this point on pleasure excursions from St. Louis, and I
saw several persons that I knew. I went up to a young
Frenchman, whose employment was carting wood to
St. Louis, and after a profusion of compliments between
us, for he was an old acquaintance, I asked him if he
knew a Scotchman named McClung, a miller in the
neighborhood?

“Well monsieur—ah well.”

“How far from here does he live” I asked.

“Ah—about—two mile.”

I will give you a five dollar gold piece if you will
mount a fleet horse and go to him and tell him that the
Scotch immigrants have arrived”—and I showed the
glittering coin.

“Instanter, Monsieur,” he replied, with a dancing
eye.

“Stop,” I exclaimed, and taking one of my cards
from my pocket, I wrote on it with pen and ink which
he got for me from the boat, the simple words, “Mary
M'Intyre has arrived.”

I saw my Frenchman in a few minutes more at the
top of his speed, on a Canadian pony, dashing like mad
through the woods. As I walked towards the boat, I
met Mary's eye, but she instantly averted it as if she
thought I was taking pleasure in her grief at her not
finding on the spot, to welcome her, the lover she had
“come to.” What strange creatures we are. I felt a
proud thrill through my heart. No, my bonnie lassie,
thought I, I'll have a braver revenge upon you than that—
you shall forgive me.

Time flew on—the baggage was all landed; we were
preparing to depart, when some one exclaimed;

“Look yonder! there's some chaps coming to the

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

boat, or else they're racing it, for they've got all steam
on.”

We looked, and sure enough two horsemen were
bounding towards us, as if with such intent, and one
was my Frenchman, so I supposed, the other was
McClung; and I soon knew it, for I could see his Miller's
clothes.

The whole boat was excitement, and the Captain ordered
delay for a moment, till they should arrive, not
knowing what their eager haste meant. I understood
it: McClung was thinking of his Mary M'Intyre and
the Frenchman of his five dollar gold piece.

“They come on bravely,” was the cry.

“Yes, and the Miller is ahead,” exclaimed another.

I was glad to see LOVE ahead of AVERICE, but I suspect
it was owing more to the steeds than their riders.

I looked at Mary. At the cry “the Miller is ahead,”
she had risen from her listless posture, and was gazing
intently at the horsemen.

In a moment, the Miller's horse was bounding home
without his rider, for he had not thought to fasten him
as he threw himself from his back. He rushed towards
Mary, and in a instant they were in each other's arms.
Such a wild embrace of joy I never witnessed. I thought
their kindred hearts, like the “kindred drops” of the
poet, would literally mingle into one.

“Ah, Mon dieu,” exclaimed the Frenchman from the
shore, for the Captain had ordered our departure, mad
at the delay, and we had left. “Ah, mon dieu,” my
five dollar, dat gold piece—I am a cheat!” I stuck it
in an apple, and threw it on the shore, and had the satisfaction
of seeing the Frenchman bound towards it like
the Miller toward Mary, and grasp it too; and I laughed
heartily at the manner—so eager, and yet so gentle,

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

holding it between his compressed legs in which he made
the luscious pippin disgorge its golden treasure.

The last thing which attracted my attention on the
shore, was the Frenchman, who stood beside Mary, and
the Miller, with one hand restoring the gold piece to its
lustre by rubbing it on his pantaloons; and in the other
holding the pippin, from which he was taking large contributions,
while he gesticulated with that member when
not applied to his mouth, towards the steamer, evidently
trying to do a good many things at once, and among
the rest to explain who sent him on his errand.

Ah, though I, I have had my revenge.

Years after this, I was again in St. Louis, in a very
sickly summer. Partaking, may'be, too freely of its
hospitalities—for I never saw a more hospitable people
than those of St. Louis; and not being used to the climate,
I was seized with a bilious fever—in fact it was yellow
fever. I was in a boarding house, and in a very confined
room, and the physician said if I could not be
taken to the country, I would die.

I became unconcious. I awoke one morning at last,
with a dreamy impression of existence, but I had not
the slightest conception of my location. I discovered
that I was in the country, and as, in the progress of
days, returning life grew keener, I found myself in a
pleasant chamber, and a lady attending to me. She
would not let me talk at first, but I at last learned that
I had been there a week delirious; and further, from a
black servant, that her mistress had, without taking off
her clothes, watched on me all that time. I was about
questioning the black girl further, when from a moment's
absence, her mistress returned; and after remarking
how much better I was, asked if I did not know her?
I looked at the beautiful lady before me,—for she was

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

indeed beautiful—tho' she looked wan, from her attendance
upon me I supposed, and replied:

“Indeed, my dear Madam, I do not know you, though
I shall never forget you.”

She stepped to the mantle-piece, and took from it a
small richly gilt frame, which looked as if it contained
a miniature, and showing it to me, I beheld within it
my card given to the Frenchman: “Mary M'Intyre
has arrived,” Mr. McClung had greatly prospered in the
world, and Mrs. McClung was what she would have
been, in fact, in any situation—a Lady in the Land,
and now an acknowledged and received Lady. She
seldom visited St. Louis, and when she did she stopped
at the house where I was so ill, and hearing my name
mentioned, and learning who I was, she had me conveyed
to her house in her own carriage, supporting my
unconscious head all the way herself. Lucky for me
was this last arrival.

I may speak again of this Scotch lassie, for we have
met in other scenes, where beaming the “bright, particular
star,” fashion, and rank, and intellect did her
homage.

p387-112 JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.

“Great wits to madness nearly are allied.”

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

I remember some years since to have seen John Randolph
in Baltimore. I had freqently read and heard
descriptions of him, and one day, as I was standing in
Market, now Baltimore street, I remarked a tall, thin,
unique-looking being hurrying towards me with a quick
impatient step, evidently much annoyed by a crowd of
boys who were following close at his heels, not in the
obstreperous mirth with which they would have followed
a crazy or a drunken man, or an organ grinder and
his monkey, but in the silent curious wonder with which
they would have haunted a Chinese bedecked in full
costume. I instantly knew the individual to be Randolph
from the descriptions. I therefore advanced towards
him, that I might make a full observation of his
person without violating the rules of courtesy in stopping
to gaze at him. As he approached, he occasionally
turned towards the boys with an angry glance, but
without saying any thing, and then hurried on as if to
outstrip them, but it would not do. They followed close
behind the orator, each one observing him so intently
that he said nothing to his companions. Just before I
met him he stopped a Mr. C—, a cashier of one of
the banks, said to be as odd a fish as John himself. I
loitered into a store close by, and, unnoticed, remarked

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

the Roanoke orator for a considerable time, and really
he was the strangest looking being I ever beheld.

His long thin legs, about as thick as a strong walking
cane, and of much such a shape, were encased in a
pair of tight small clothes, so tight that they seemed
part and parcel of the limbs of the wearer. Handsome
white stockings were fastened with great tidiness at the
knees by a small gold buckle, and over them, coming
about half way up the calf, were a pair of what, I believe,
are called hose, coarse, and country knit. He
wore shoes. They were old-fashioned, and fastened
also with buckles—huge ones. He trod like an Indian,
without turning his toes out, but planking them down
straight ahead. It was the fashion in those days to
wear a fan-tailed coat, with a small collar, and buttons
far apart behind, and few on the breast. Mr. Randolph's
were the reverse of all this, and, instead of his coat being
fan-tailed, it was what, we believe, the knight's of
the needle call swallow-tailed; the collar was immensely
large, the buttons behind were in kissing proximity,
and they sat together as close on the breast of the garment
as the feasters at a crowded public festival. His
waist was remarkably slender; so slender that, as he
stood with his arms akimbo, he could easily, as I
thought, with his long bony fingers have spanned it.
Around him his coat, which was very tight, was held together
by one button, and, in consequence, an inch or
more of tape, to which it was attached, was perceptible
where it was pulled through the cloth. About his neck
he wore a large white cravat, in which his chin was occasionally
buried as he moved his head in conversation;
no shirt collar was perceptible; every other person seemed
to pride himself upon the size of his, as they were
then worn large. Mr. Randolph's complexion was

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

precisely that of a mummy, withered, saffron, dry and
bloodless; you could not have placed a pin's point on
his face where you would not have touched a wrinkle.
His lips were thin, compressed, and colorless; the chin,
beardless as a boy's, was broad for the size of his face,
which was small; his nose was straight, with nothing
remarkable in it, except perhaps it was too short. He
wore a fur cap, which he took off, standing a few moments
uncovered. I observed that his head was quite
small, a characteristic which is said to have marked
many men of talent, Byron, and Chief Justice Marshall,
for instance. Judge Burnet, of Cincinnati, who
has been alike distinguished at the bar, on the bench
and in the United States Senate, and whom I have
heard no less a judge and possessor of talent than Mr.
Hammond, of the Gazette, say, was the clearest and
most impressive speaker he ever heard, has also a very
small head. Mr. Randolph's hair was remarkably fine—
fine as an infant's, and thin. It was very long, and
was parted with great care on the top of his head, and
was tied behind with a bit of black riband about three
inches from his neck; the whole of it formed a queue
not thicker than the little finger of a delicate girl. His
forehead was low, with no bumpology about it; but his
eye, though sunken, was most brilliant and startling in
its glance. It was not an eye of profound, but of impulsive
and passionate thought, with an expression at
times such as physicians describe to be that of insanity,
but an insanity which seemed to quicken, not destroy,
intellectual acuteness. I never beheld an eye that
struck me more. It possessed a species of fascination,
such as would make you wonder over the character of
its possessor, without finding any clue in your wonderment
to discover it, except that he was passionate,

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

wayward, and fearless. He lifted his long bony finger impressively
as he conversed, and gesticulated with it in a
peculiar manner. His whole appearance struck me,
and I could easily imagine how, with his great command
of language, so appropriate and full, so brilliant
and classical, joined to the vast information that his
discursive oratory enabled him to exhibit in its fullest
extent, from the storehouse of which the vividness of
his imagination was always pointing out a happy analogy,
or bitter sarcasm, that startled the more from the
fact that his hearers did not perceive it until the look,
tone, and finger brought it down with the suddenness
of lightning, and with its effects, upon the head of his
adversary; taking all this into consideration, I could
easily imagine how, when almost a boy, he won so
much fame, and preserved it so long and with so vast an
influence, notwithstanding the eccentricity and inconsistency
of his life, public and private.

By the bye, the sudden, unexpected, and aphoristical
way in which Randolph often expressed his sentiments
had much to do with his oratorical success. He would,
like Dean Swift, make a remark, seemingly a compliment,
and explain it into a sarcasm, or he would utter
an apparent sarcasm, and turn it into a compliment.
Many speakers, when they have said a thing, hurry on
to a full explanation, fearful that the hearer may not understand
them; but when Randolph expressed one of these
startling thoughts, he left the hearer for some time puzzling
in doubt as to what he meant, and when it pleased
him, in the coolest manner in the world he explained his
meaning, not a little delighted if he discovered that his
audience were wondering the while upon whom the
blow would descend, or what principle the remark would
be brought to illustrate. A little anecdote, which I

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heard a member of Congress, from Kentucky, tell of
him, shows this characteristic. The Congressman, on
his first visit to Washington, (he had just been elected,)
was of course desirous of seeing the lions. Randolph,
though not a member of either house, was there,
and had himself daily borne into the Senate or House
by his faithful Juba, to listen to the debates. Every
body, noted or unnoted, were calling on the eccentric
orator, and the member from Kentucky determined to
do likewise, and gratify his curiosity. A friend, General—,
promised to present him, saying though:
“You must be prepared for an odd reception, for, if
Randolph is in a bad humor, he will do and say any
thing; if he is in a good humor, you will see a most
finished gentleman.” They called. Mr. Randolph
was stretched out on a sofa. “He seemed,” said the
member, “a skeleton, endowed with those flashing eyes
which ghost stories give to the re-animated body when
sent upon some earthly mission.”

The Congressman was presented by his friend, the
General, as a member of Congress from Kentucky. “Ah,
from Kentucky, sir,” exclaimed Randolph, in his shrill
voice, as he rose to receive him, “from Kentucky, sir;
well, sir, I consider your State the Botany Bay of Virginia.”
The Kentuckian thought that the next remark
would be a quotation from Barrington's Botany Bay
epilogue, applied by Randolph to the Virginia settlers
of Kentucky,


“True patriots we, for be it understood,
We left our country for our country's good,”
but Randolph, after a pause, continued: “I do not
make this remark, sir, in application to the morals or
mode of settlement of Kentucky, No, sir, I mean to
say that it is my opinion, sir, that the time approaches

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

when Botany Bay will in all respects surpass England,
and I fear it will soon be so with regard to your State
and mine.”

I cite this little anecdote not for any peculiar pith
that it possesses, but in illustration of his character, and
in proof of the remark above made.

If Mr. Randolph had lived in ancient times, Plutarch,
with all his powers in tracing the analogies of
character, would have looked in vain for his parallel.
And a modern biographer, with all ancient and all modern
times before him, will find the effort fruitless that
seeks his fellow. At first, the reader might think of
Diogenes as furnishing some resemblance to him, and
that all that Randolph wanted was a tub; but not so if
another Alexander had asked him what he would have
that imperial power could bestow—the answer never
would have been a request to stand out of his sunlight.
No, Randolph, if he could have got no higher emolument
and honor, would immediately have requested to
be sent on a foreign mission; that over, if Alexander
had nothing more to give, and was so situated as not to
be feared, who does not believe that the ex-minister
would turn tail on him.

The fact is, that Randolph was excessively ambitious,
a cormorant alike for praise and plunder; and
though his patriotism could point out the disinterested
course to others, his love of money would not let him
keep the track himself—at least in his latter years, when
Mammon, the old man's God, beset him, and he turned
an idolator to that for which he had so often expressed
his detestation that his countrymen believed him. His
mission to Russia broke the charm that the prevailing
opinion of his disinterestedness cast about him, and his
influence in his native State was falling fast beneath the

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

appointment and outfit and salary that had disenchanted
it when he died; and now old Virginia will forget
and forgive these inconsistencies of one of her greatest
sons to do reverence to his memory.

Randolph's republicanism was never heartfelt; he
was at heart an aristocrat. He should have been born
in England a noble— there he would stubbornly have
resisted the encroachments of all below him upon his
own prerogatives, station, dignity, and quality; and he
would have done his best to have brought the prerogatives,
station, dignity, and quality of all above him a
little below his level, or at least upon an equality with
his. Randolph would have lifted Wilkes up to be a
thorn in the side of a king whom he did not like, and
to overthrow his minister; had he been himself a minister,
his loyalty would then have pronounced Wilkes
an unprincipled demagogue. Wilkes, we know, when
he got office, said he could prove to his majesty that he
himself had never been a Wilkeite. Randolph was intensely
selfish, and his early success as a politician and
orator impressed him with an exaggerated opinion of
his own importance, at an age when such opinions are
easily made and not easily eradicated. In the case of
Randolph this overweaning self-estimation grew monstrous.
“Big man me, John,” and the bigness or littleness
of others' services were valued and proclaimed
just in proportion as they elevated or depressed the interests
and personal dignity of the orator of Roanoke.
And often when his interest had nothing to do with the
question presented to him, his caprice would sway his
judgment, for his personal resentments led him far away
from every consideration save that of how he could best
wound his adversary.

His blow wanted neither vigor nor venom; his

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weapons were poisoned with such consummate skill, and
he so well knew the vulnerable point of every character,
that often when the wound by an observer who
knew nothing of his opponent was deemed slight, it
was rankling in the heart. Randolph was well acquainted
with the private history of the eminent men of
his time, the peccadilloes, frailties, indiscretions, weaknesses,
vanities, and vices of them all. He used his
tongue as a jockey would his whip; he hit the sore
place till the blood came, and there was no crack or
flourish, or noise, or bluster in doing it. It was done
with a celerity and dexterity which showed the practised
hand, and its unexpectedness as well as its severity
often dumbfounded the victim so completely that he had
not one word to say, but writhed in silence.

I remember hearing two anecdotes of Randolph,
which strikingly type his character. One exhibits his
cynical rudeness and disregard for the feelings of others—
in fact a wish to wound their feelings—and the
other his wit. I do not vouch for their accuracy, but I
give them as I have frequently heard them, as perhaps
has the reader.

Once, when Randolph was in the city of B—, he
was in the daily habit of frequenting the bookstore of
one of the largest booksellers in the place. He made
some purchases from him, and was very curious in looking
over his books, &c. In the course of Randolph's
visits, he became very familiar with Mr. —, the
bookseller, and they held long chats together; the orator
of Roanoke showing off with great courtesy. Mr.—
was quite a pompous man, and rather vain of
his acquaintance with the lions who used to stop in his
shop. Subsequently, being in Washington with a
friend, he espied Randolph advancing towards him, and

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told his friend that he would introduce him to the “great
man.” His friend, however, knowing the waywardness
of Randolph, declined. “Well,” said Mr. —, “I
am sorry you will not be introduced—I'll go up and
give him a shake of the hand at any rate.” Up he
walked, with outstretched hand, to salute the cynic.
The aristocratic Republican (by the bye, how often your
thoroughgoing Republican is a full-blooded aristocrat in
his private relations) immediately threw his hand behind
him, as if he could not “dull his palm” in that way, and
gazed searchingly into the face of the astonished bookseller.
“Oh, oh!” said he, as if recollecting himself,
“you are Mr. B—, from Baltimore?” “Yes, sir,”
was the reply. “A bookseller?” “Yes, sir,” again.
“Ah! I bought some books from you?” “Yes, sir, you
did.” “Did I forget to pay you for them?” “No, sir,
you did not.” “Good morning, sir,” said the orator,
lifting his cap with offended dignity, and passing on.
This anecdote does not show either Randolph's goodness
of head or heart, but it shows his character.

The other anecdote is as follows. The Honorable
Peter —, who was a watchmaker, and who had represented
B— county for many years in Congress,
once made a motion to amend a resolution offered by
Randolph, on the subject of military claims. Mr. Randolph
rose up after the amendment had been offered,
and drawing his watch from his fob, asked the Honorable
Peter what o'clock it was. He told him. “Sir,”
replied the orator, “you can mend my watch, but not
my motions. You understand tictics, sir, but not tactics!”

That, too, was a fine retort, when, after he had been
speaking, several members rose in succession and

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

attacked him. “Sir,” said he to the Speaker, “I am in
the condition of old Lear—

All accounts agree in praising the oratorical powers
of Randolph. His manner was generally slow and impressive,
his voice squeaking, but clear and distinct,
and, as far as it could be heard, what he said was clearly
understood. His gesture was chiefly with his long
and skeleton-like finger. The impressiveness with
which he used it has been remarked by all who have
heard him. When he was sarcastic, amidst a thousand
it would say, stronger than language, to the individual
whom he meant, “Thou art the man.” In his choice
of language he was very fastidious, making sometimes a
considerable pause to select a word. His reading was
extensive, and in every department of knowledge—romances,
tales, poems, plays, voyages, travels, history,
biography, philosophy—all arrested his attention, and
each had detained him long enough to render him familiar
with the best works of the kind. His mind was
naturally erratic, and his desultory reading, as he never
devoted himself to profession, and dipped a little into
all, increased his natural and mental waywardness.
He seldom reasoned, and when he did, it was with an
effort that was painful, and which cost him more trouble
than it was worth. He said himself, in one of his
speeches in the Senate of the United States, “that he
had a defect, whether of education or nature was immaterial,
perhaps proceeding from both—a defect which
had disabled him, from his first entrance into public life
to the present hour, from making what is called a regular
speech.” The defect was doubtless both from

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

education and nature; education might have, in some measure,
corrected the tendencies of his nature, but there
was perhaps an idiosyncrasy in the constitution of the
man, which compelled him to be meteoric and erratic in
mind as well as temper. He said that “ridicule was the
keenest weapon in the whole parliamentary armory,”
and he learned all the tricks of fence with it, and never
played with foils. He seems to have had more admiration
for the oratory of Chatham than that of any other
individual, if we may judge from the manner in which
that great man is mentioned in his speeches. They
were certainly unlike in character, very unlike. Chatham
having had bad health, and it being well known
that he went to Parliament and made his best efforts
when almost sinking from sickness, Randolph might
have felt that, as he had done the same thing, their
characters were assimilated. Chatham was seized with
a fainting fit when making his last speech, and died a
short time afterwards. And probably it is not idle speculation
to say that Randolph, with a morbid or perhaps
an insane admiration of his character, wished to sink as
Chatham did, in the legislative hall, and be borne thence
to die.

However, there was enough in the character of Chatham
to win the admiration of any one who loved eloquence,
without seeking in adventitious circumstances
a motive for his admiration; and Randolph appreciated
such talents as his too highly not to have admired them
under all circumstances, but his reverence was doubtless
increased from the resemblance which he saw in
their bodily conditions, and which, he was very willing
to believe, extended to their minds. Chatham was bold,
vehement, resistless, not often witty, but eminently successful
when he attempted it; invective was his forte.

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

In some of these points Randolph resembled him; but
then Chatham's eloquence was but a means to gain his
ends; his judgment was intuitive, his sagacity unrivalled;
he bore down all opposition by his fearless energies,
and he compelled his enemies to admit that he was a public
benefactor in the very breath in which they expressed
their personal dislike. Chatham kept his ends steadily
in view, and never wavered in his efforts to gain them.
Not so Randolph. He reminds us of the urchin in the
“Lay of the Last Minstrel,” who always used his fairy
gifts with a spirit of deviltry to provoke, to annoy, and
to injure, no matter whom he wounded, or when or
where. Randolph did not want personal dignity, but he
wanted the dignity which arises from consistent conduct,
a want which no brilliancy of talent can supply. On
the contrary, the splendor of high talents but serve to
make such inconsistency the more apparent. He was
an intellectual meteor, whose course no one could predict;
but, be it where it might, all were certain that it
would blaze, and wither, and destroy. As a statesman,
it is believed that he never originated a single measure,
though his influence often destroyed the measures of
others. Some one observes “that the hand which is not
able to build a hovel, may destroy a palace,” and he
seemed to have had a good deal of the ambition of him
who fired the Ephesian dome. As a scholar, he left
nothing behind him, though his wit was various and his
acquirements profound. He seems not to have written
a common communication for a newspaper, without
great labor and fastidious correction. I have been informed
by a compositor who set a part of his speech on
“retrenchment,” which he dedicated to his constituents,
that his amendations were endless. I have a part of the
MS. of this speech before me; it is written with a trembling
hand, but with great attention to punctuation, and

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

with a delicate stroke of the pen. It was as an orator
he shone; and, as an orator, his power of chaining the
attention of his audience has been, perhaps, never surpassed.
In an assembly where Demosthenes, Cicero,
Chatham, Mirabeau, or Henry spoke, Randolph's eloquence
would have been listened to with profound interest,
and his opposition would have been feared. As
an orator he felt his power—he knew that in eloquence
he wielded a magic wand, and he was not only fearless
of opposition, but he courted it; for who of his contemporaries
has equalled him in the power of carrying on
successfully the partisan warfare of desultory debate—
the cut and thrust—the steady aim? Who could wield
like him the tomahawk, and who of them possessed his
dexterity in scalping a foe? His trophies are numberless,
and he wore them with the pride of his progenitors,
for there was truly a good deal of Indian blood in his
veins. It is said that Randolph first signalized himself
by making a stump speech in Virginia in opposition to
Patrick Henry. Scarcely any one knew him when he
rose to reply to Henry, and so strong was Henry's conviction
of his powers, that he spoke of them in the highest
terms, and prophesied his future eminence. Randolph
gloriously said of Henry that “he was Shakspeare and
Garrick combined.”

Randolph's character and conduct forcibly impress
upon us the power of eloquence in a republic. How
many twists, and turns, and tergiversations, and obliquities
were there in his course; yet how much influence
he possessed, particularly in Virginia! How much he
was feared, courted, admired, shunned, hated, and all
because he wielded the weapon that “rules the fierce
democracy!” How many men, far his superiors in
practical usefulness, lived unhonored and without influence,
and died unsung, because they had not eloquence.

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Eloquence is superior to all other gifts, even to the dazzling
fascinations of the warrior; for it rules alike in war
and peace, and it wins all by its spell. Randolph was
the very personification of inconsistency. Behold him
talking of the “splendid misery” of officeholders; “what
did he want with office; a cup of cold water was better
in his condition; the sword of Damocles was suspended
over him by a single hair,” &c. &c.—when lo! he
goes to the frigid north—for what? For health? No,
for an outfit and a salary! and dies childless, worth, it is
said, nearly a million!

Randolph's oratory reminds us forcibly of Don Juan;
and if Byron had written nothing but Don Juan, Randolph
might have been called the Byron of orators. He
had all the wit, eccentricity, malice, and flightiness of
that work—its touches that strike the heart, and sarcasms
that scorn, the next moment, the tear that had
started.

In a dying state Randolph went to Washington during
the last session of Congress, and, although not a member,
he had himself borne daily to the hall of legislation
to witness the debate. He returned home to his constituents
and was elected to Congress, and started on a
tour to Europe, if possible to regain his health; he said
“it was the last throw of the die.”

He expired in Philadelphia, where he had first appeared
in the councils of the nation, in the sixty-first
year of his age, leaving a reputation behind him for classic
wit and splendid eloquence which few of his contemporaries
may hope to equal; and a character which his
biographer may deem himself fortunate if he can explain
it to have been compatible with either the duties
of social life, the sacredness of friendship, or the requirements
of patriotism unless he offer as an apology partial
derangement. In the letter in which the deceased

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acknowledged that he had made a misstatement in regard
to the character of Mr. Lowndes on the tariff, he
assigned, as a reason of the error, the disordered state
of his mind, arising from the exciting medicine which
he was compelled to take to sustain life.

I have, perhaps, expressed myself harshly, inconsistent
with that charitable feeling which all should possess
who are “treading upon ashes under which the fire is not
yet extinguished.” If so to express our conscientious
opinions is sometimes to do wrong,


“Why draw his frailties from their dread abode?”
For who can tell, in the close alliance between reason
and madness which were so strongly mixed up in his
character, how much his actions and words partook of
the one or the other? Where they alternated, or where
one predominated, or where they mingled their influence,
not in the embrace of love, but in the strife
for mastery, oh! how much he may have struggled with
his mental aberrations and wanderings, and felt that
they were errors, and yet struggled in vain. His spirit,
like the great eye of the Universe, may have known
that clouds and storms beset it, and have felt that it was
contending with disease and the film of coming death,
yet hoped at last to beam forth in its brightness.


“The day drags on, though storms keep out the sun,
And thus the heart will break, and brokenly live on.”
And so is it with the mind, and Randolph's “brokenly
lived on” till the raven shadows of the night of death
gathered over him and gave him to the dark beyond.