and composure upon the supposed dangers which filled the hearts of the past generation with dismay.

In the following letter to Mr. Edwards, we shall find the utterance of some gloomy misgivings as to the fate of the Union, which may be said to express an opinion not confined to the writer. The first portion of this letter touches a question of education which may be profitably perused by every youthful aspirant after professional success.

TO BENJAMIN EDWARDS.

RICHMOND, December 22, 1809.

MY DEAR FRIEND:

I think you are rather hard upon my brother Ninian, when you speak of the Quixottic schemes which he has carried to his territory. It strikes me that a fellow who has made his way through the presidency of a Court of Appeals, to the government of a Territory, deserves to have his solidity a little better thought of. I suspect that the Knight of La Mancha would never have achieved such adventures as those. I own that I cannot see what he will gain by the exchange, except (what I should suppose he has no need of) land: but he has displayed so much soundness of judgment that I do not doubt motives exist sufficient to justify his conduct. I am sorry that Cyrus is deprived of McAllister. I hear this man every where spoken of as a prodigy of learning and mental force; not very well qualified perhaps, for the instruction of children, but highly so for the instruction of young men, and Cyrus is now a young man. McAllister, I am told, is distinguished for the clearness and cogency of his style of reasoning. What a treasure would such a man be to a young man of genius and enterprise who was destined for the bar! power of analysis, the power of simplifying a complex subject, and shewing all its parts clearly and distinctly, is the forte of Chief Justice Marshall, and is the great desideratum of every man who aims at eminence in the law. Genius, fancy, and taste may fashion the drapery and put it on; but Reason alone, is the grand sculptor that can form the statue itself. Hence it is that I have

This

been so anxious for Cyrus to cultivate the mathematics-not for the sake of being a mathematician, but to give to his mind the habit of close and conclusive reasoning. I hope he will still be placed in some situation where he may pursue this science. I would have him mathematician enough to be able to comprehend and repeat, with ease, by calculations of his own, Sir Isaac Newton's mathematical demonstrations of the principles of natural philosophy. Locke says, if you would have your son a reasoner, let him read Chillingworth: I say, if you would have him a reasoner let him read Locke. I think you will find that the mathematics and Locke will put a head in his tub; for, what you censure is not, I apprehend, any defect in the faculty of memory, but rather the inattention and volatility so natural to his time of life, for which there is no better cure than what I am recommending.

As to my country's calling for my aid, you make me smile!—yet if such an improbable thing should ever come to pass, you will find that your lectures on patriotism have not been lost upon me. Alas! poor country! what is to become of it? In the wisdom and virtue of the administration I have the most unbounded confidence. My apprehensions, therefore, have no reference to them, nor to any event very near at hand. And yet, can any man who looks upon the state of public virtue in this country, and then casts his eyes upon what is doing in Europe, believe that this confederated republic is to last for ever? Can he doubt that its probable dissolution is less than a century off? Think of Burr's conspiracy, within thirty-five years of the birth of the republic;think of the characters implicated with him ;-think of the state of political parties and of the presses in this country;-think of the execrable falsehoods, virulent abuse, villanous means by which they strive to carry their points. Will not the people get tired and heart-sick of this perpetual commotion and agitation, and long for a change, even for king Log, so that they may get rid of their demagogues, the storks, that destroy their peace and quiet? These are my fears. Heaven grant that they may prove groundless! It may be for the want of that political intrepidity which is essential to a statesman that these fears have found their way into my mind-yet I confess they do sometimes fill it with awe and dismay. I am sure that the body of the people is virtuous; and

were they as enlightened as they are virtuous, I should think the republic insured against ruin from within. But they are not enlightened, and therefore are liable to imposition from the more knowing, crafty and vicious emissaries of faction;-—and the very honesty of the people, by rendering them unsuspicious and credulous, promotes the cheat. They are told, for instance, that this administration is in French pay or under French influence, and that this country, although nominally free, is, in effect, a dependant and a province of France. That the taxes which they pay to support their government, instead of being applied to these purposes, are remitted to their master in France, to enable him to complete the conquest of Europe and hasten the time of his taking open possession here. The people who live amid the solitude and innocence of the country, who read or hear this tale well vamped up, and see general items pointed out in the annual accounts of expenditure, which are declared to cover these traitorous remittances what are they to think-especially when the tale is connected with a long train of circumstances, partly true and partly false, growing out of the actual embarrassments of the country? Would it be surprising, if, thus worked upon for four years, with the vile and infamous slander sanctioned by assertions on the floor of Congress, they should precipitate Mr. Madison from the Presidential seat, and place one of his calumniators in the chair of state? And then when "vice prevails and wicked men bear sway," "what ills may follow," Heaven only can foretell.

Yours forever and aye,

WM. WIRT.

CHAPTER XVIII.

1810.

RESUMES THE PURPOSE OF WRITINg the biogRAPHY OF PATRICK HENRY — CONSULTS MR. JEFFERSON ON THIS SUBJECT.-LETTERS TO CARR.-NEW ENGLAND ORATORY. THE SENTINEL.-LETTER TO B. EDWARDS.-DEATH OF COL. GAMBLE. THE OLD BACHELOR-LETTERS CONCERNING IT.

In the lives of professional men, there is generally but little incident of that kind which is adapted to give interest to the narrative of the biographer. The pursuits of a student, whether in the field of professional science or of literature, present little for notice beyond the record of his acquirements and opinions. That engrossment of the mind, which constitutes the delight and profit of a life devoted to study, necessarily withdraws the student from an active participation in the affairs of his fellow men, and, to the same extent, deprives his career of that various fortune, of which the lights and shades communicate so much interest to personal history.

We have seen, in the progress of Mr. Wirt, a sted fast devotion to his profession, marked by a regular and continued advancement to eminence-eminence which, it is apparent throughout his career, he was fully persuaded was only to be won by unremitting study. All other pursuits were subordinate to the great object of his ambition, a well-merited renown in his profession. In his estimates of this renown, and of the means by which it was to be fairly earned, he was guided by the example of those distinguished men who, in the history of the profession, both in ancient and modern times, had illustrated it by the highest accomplishments of general scholarship. The bar of the United States, by no means deficient in the highest order of ability, affords but few instances of that accurate and full scholastic training, without which no man can be said to be entitled to the reputation of an accomplished jurist. Looking to the leading members of the profession amongst us, we have too much cause to remark that, with

some rare and brilliant exceptions, there is a lamentable want of conversancy with those subsidiary studies, which not only grace the reputation of an eminent lawyer, but are even indispensable to it. We discern in men of the highest professional repute, a lack of scholarship, a deficiency in philosophical and historical study, and a neglect of literature and science, which contrast most unpleasantly with their acknowledged vigor and capacity of mind. This defect may be sometimes traced to the want of the means and opportunity, in early life, for elemental study. Some distinguished men of the American bar have won their way to fame against the impediments of a straitened fortune, and in the privation of all the customary aids of study. In respect to these, it may be said that their want of accomplishment bears honorable testimony to the labors of their progress, and rather signalizes what they have achieved, than subjects them to reproof for what they have left unattained. The great majority of the most prominent members of the profession, however, have not this excuse. They are men, for the most part, of liberal education, trained in the college, with all the means and appliances at hand for the highest and most various cultivation. That they have not availed themselves of these means, we may attribute, in a great degree, to the fact, that the community at large do not appreciate these acquirements sufficiently to allow them much weight in the formation of the popular opinion of professional excellence; that the student is not stimulated to these additional labors by any public judgment of their worth, and that he need not, therefore, burden himself, in his preparation for his arduous race, with any additional weight of study. His dream is of popularity, rather than of that fame which is to live beyond his own day. He covets the applause visibly bestowed in the listening forum, or more substantially manifested in the golden return, rather than that invisible, remote and impartial renown, which settles, late and long, upon the works and the memory of the ripe and polished scholar. Something is due also to other causes: amongst these, that rapid and precocious advance to large practice at the bar, of which we have so many examples. This early success, bringing with it profit and popular applause, is often the source of a double mischief; first, by satisfying the ambition of the aspirant; and, second, by persuading him that nothing is to be gained, in the