INTRODUCTION.

A NARRATIVE of the life of WILLIAM WIRT will present us the career of one who, springing from an humble origin, was enabled to attain to high distinction amongst his countrymen. Whether the incidents of that career are sufficiently striking to communicate any high degree of interest to his biography, the reader will determine for himself in the perusal of these pages. Mr. Wirt's life was, in great part, that of a student. His youthful days were passed in preparation for his profession. His manhood was engrossed by forensic labors. Old age found him crowned with the honors of a faithfully earned juridical renown.

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His social life was one of great delight to his friends. It was embellished with all the graces which a benevolent heart, a playful temper and a happy facility of discourse were able to impart. With mankind, beyond the circle of his personal friends, he had no great acquaintance. He was not much of a traveller. casionally touching upon the confines of political life, he was, nevertheless, but scantily entitled to be called a statesman. For twelve years Attorney General of the United States, and consequently a member of the Cabinet through three Presidential terms, his participation in government affairs went very little beyond the professional duties of his office. He had a strong talent and, with it, an eager inclination for literary enterprise. To indulge these was the most ardent wish of his mind;, but the pressure of his circumstances kept him under a continual interdict. What he has given to the world, therefore, in this kind, VOL. 1-2

is small in amount, and given under conditions that should almost disarm criticism. The few works which he has left behind, however, will be found to merit, as in his lifetime they received, the praise due to the productions of an instructive and pleasant writer. A life confined to the pursuits indicated in this sketch, may not be expected to charm the reader by the significance of its events. It is much more a life of reflection than of action; more a life of character than of incident. I have to present to the world a man greatly beloved for his social virtues, the illustrations of which are daily fading away with the fading memories of contemporary friends, now reduced to a few survivors: a man of letters and strong literary ambition, but who had not the leisure to gratify a taste in the indulgence of which he might have attained to high renown: a public functionary, who had no relish for politics, and who was, consequently, but little identified with that public history which so often imparts the only value to biography: a lawyer who, with a full measure of contemporary fame, has left but little on record by which the justice of that fame might be estimated.

These are the chief impediments to the success of the task I have assumed. Yet I do not fear that, from the material at my disposal, I shall be able to furnish an agreeable image of a man whose character will win the affections of the generation which succeeds him, as it did of those amongst whom he lived.

LIFE OF WILLIAM WIRT.

CHAPTER I.

1772-1783.

WIRT.

PARENTAGE OF WILLIAM WIRT.-HIS BIRTH.-WILL OF JACOB PATRIMONY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR OF TEN YEARS.-BLADENSBURG. -THE SCHOOLMASTER. MOTHER AND AUNT.-A THUNDERSTORM.—OLD INHABITANTS OF BLADENSBURG.-THE DANCING MASTER.-A GHOST STORY. PERFORMANCE ON THE SLACK WIRE.-LEE'S LEGION. THE YOUNG DRUMMER.-MR. ROGERS' SCHOOL IN GEORGETOWN.-MRS. SCHOOLFIELD. -MRS. LOVE and heR FAMILY.-RURAL LIFE AND ITS IMAGES.-MR. DENT'S SCHOOL, CHARLES COUNTY.-ALEXANDER CAMPBELL.-THE PEACE.-DAY DREAMS. COLONEL LEE.-MR. HUNT'S SCHOOL IN MONTGOMERY.—EARLY ACQUAINTANCES.-MUSIC.-A FOX HUNT.

THOSE Who best remember William Wirt, need not be reminded how distinctively his face and figure suggested his connection with the German race. The massive and bold outline of his countenance, the clear, kind, blue eye, the light hair falling in crisp and numerous curls upon a broad forehead, the high arching eyebrow, the large nose and ample chin might recall a resemblance to the portrait of Goethe. His height rather above six feet, his broad shoulders, capacious chest and general fullness of development were equally characteristic of his Teutonic origin. The ever changing expression of his eye and lip, at one moment sobered with deep thought, and in the next radiant with a rich, lurking, quiet humor that might be seen coming up from the depths of his heart and provoking a laugh before a word was said these were traits which enlivened whatever might be supposed to be saturnine in the merely national cast of his features.

His father, Jacob Wirt, was from Switzerland :* his mother, Henrietta, was a German. Jacob, with his brother Jasper Wirt, had settled in Bladensburg, in Maryland, some years before the war of the Revolution. Jacob had six children, three sons and three daughters, of whom William was the youngest. He had gathered some little property in Bladensburg and supported his family there chiefly by keeping a tavern, the avails of which, together with some small rents accruing from a few lots in the village, enabled him, in an humble way, to maintain a comfortable household.

William was born on the 8th of November, in the year 1772. In less than two years after this date, Jacob Wirt died, leaving a small heritage to be divided between his wife and children. His will, which is on record in Prince George's county, assigns to his wife Henrietta "one half lot of ground in Bladensburg, No. 5, on which the billiard room is built, and on which I am now building a new house." After her death this lot was to "be appraised and to descend to my eldest son, Jacob Wirt, provided he pay out of the appraised value of said house and half lot, to each of my other children, one equal part, share and share alike, to wit: to my daughters Elizabeth, Catharine and Henrietta, and my sons Uriah-Jasper and William,-to each and every of which I give and bequeath one equal part of the appraised value of the above premises." The will mentions, besides this property, "the brick store in Bladensburg," rented at twenty-five pounds sterling per annum to Cunningham and Co.;-and "my tavern in which I now reside, with the back buildings, stables and lot, also the counting house before the tavern door and the smith shop." We have also a reference to two lots of ground in "Hamburg near Georgetown," and some personal estate.

This is a summary of all the worldly goods which Jacob Wirt, in the year 1774, left to be divided between his wife and six children. Henrietta Wirt, the mother of the family, died before William attained his eighth year. How much of the property we have enumerated remained in the family at that period, we

* The name of Wirt or Wirth is familiar to the annals of Switzerland. The reader conversant with the history of the Reformation, will remember the unhappy fate of Adam Wirth, the deputy bailiff of Stammheim, and his two sons, John and Adrian, at Baden in 1524.