ears, he knew
intimately and could recall at a moment's notice. In respect of the
political history of the United States from the adoption of the federal
constitution to the day of his death, his knowledge was accurate, ready,
and profound. Indeed, if we except the first five years of the federal
constitution, it may be said that his actions were a part of that
history. He had discussed, in the House of Delegates, the leading
measures of the Washington and Adams administrations, and sixty years
ago he sate at a stormy period in the House of Representatives of the
United States.

But the excellence of Mr. Tazewell consisted not so much in knowing the
acts and thoughts of other men, as in the philosophy which he drew from
the great facts in all history. He was not in the German, or even in the
English sense, a reader of many books; but there was hardly a topic of
literature or history which he had not studied, and respecting which he
had not elaborated a theory of his own. Even in law he was more apt to
work out a question which required a solution than to turn to the books
of reports. Neither at the bar nor in the senate was he fond of quoting
authorities; but such as he did quote were of the highest merit, and he
made them do him yeoman service. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and
Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses were favorite books with him. He
thought the report of John Quincy Adams on weights and measures one of
the ablest works in political literature.

The tendency of his mind and character was wholly practical. Common
sense was his polar star. He must be judged not as a scholar or a lawyer
or a statesman merely, but as a man of business who was required to
accomplish a given purpose. If that purpose was to be accomplished by
writing, he took up his pen; if by speech, he rose at the bar and
pleaded the case, or in the senate and made a speech. But when the end
was attained he thought no more about the means which he had used in
attaining it, whether by writing or speaking, than the carpenter who has
finished a house thinks of the scaffolding by which he was enabled to
complete it. Hence Mr. Tazewell never corrected a speech for the press,
if we except two instances; and his greatest speeches are either wholly
lost, or exist in the merest outline. But, looking to the result, he was
almost invariably successful, at least in the sphere in which he acted;
and on the attainment of his purpose forgot the means by whi