he bride
of his youth, the partaker of his splendid fame, and the delight of his
declining years, rises before me. I behold her as she moved in that
happy household, bestowing not a thought upon herself, but intent on
making others happy. I see her as she enters the room in which her
husband is discoursing on learned topics to those who are grouped around
him, and I see him pause as that "ocean-eye" rests benignantly and
affectionately upon her. I shall never forget the moment when
thirty-five years ago I saw her in her own house for the first time; how
cordially she pressed my hand; how kindly she talked to an orphan boy of
a father he had never known; and how soon she put an awkward youth of
seventeen at his ease. The characteristic grace of that admirable woman
was her love of domestic life. With her the throne of human felicity was
the family altar. Life with her, as it ever was with those elder
Virginia matrons whom she resembled, was too serious a business for pomp
and show. Had she been inspired with a passion for display, had she
coveted the fleeting honors of a residence at a foreign court, or in the
metropolis of our own country, a single word from her lips would have
obtained all she wished. But her heart, like a true Virginia mother as
she was, was in the midst of her family; and though she properly
appreciated the talents of her husband, and was willing that they should
be exerted in the public service, she knew him well, and believed that
he would be happier in his own home than when he was beset with public
cares, or galled by those tortures with which ambition wrings its
victims. And when her last day had come, and the union of more than half
a century had been dissolved, and her husband had seen her beloved
remains put away in that solitary tomb by the sea, the charm of life was
lost to him; and he calmly awaited the hour when he should be laid by
her side. Nor did the generous care of woman cease with her death. When
his hour was come, and he was placed beside her, his daughters, who had
tended him for years with unceasing devotion, were borne in almost a
dying state from his tomb.

He was keenly alive to the pleasures of friendship; and he maintained
his affection for his early schoolmates unbroken to the last. His
reverence for Mr. Wythe passed all words. Randolph loved him through
life; and Tazewell reciprocated his affection with equal warmth. The
tide of his affection for John Wickham from his chi