ery, and more vivacity in the play
of his reasoning; while he has a stricter line of demonstration than
Wickham without his very decided elegance. In some physical as well as
intellectual aspects he resembled Chief Justice Parsons of
Massachusetts. Not, indeed, in dress; for Parsons was a sloven, and
Tazewell was neat in his dress, which was in winter, during the last
twenty years, a full suit of black cloth, and in summer he was usually
attired in white drilling with a light linen coat and fancy vest. He
always wore a white cravat, and his linen was spotless. But both Parsons
and Tazewell were men of large stature, at least to the eye, in a
sitting posture; both delighted to drink at the deep fountains of the
law, and were skilled in the lore of their profession in which they held
an easy supremacy; both liked novels as a relief from grave cares, and
were indifferent as to the volume of the novel that first came to hand;
both were so strongly enamored of the exact sciences that it is probable
they would have cultivated them with extraordinary success. But
Tazewell, though a fair scholar in the old way, never attained to that
excellence in classical literature which made the name of Parsons an
authority for a disputed reading in the colleges of Germany. I have
always regretted that Tazewell did not bring his mind to bear upon the
science of language, and especially of comparative philology. Had he
been able to read Bonn, or had mastered the New Cratylus or the
Varronianus of Donaldson, his versatile and sharp intellect might have
sent forth a work of "winged words" of equal interest and infinitely
more profound than the Diversions of Purley.

Tazewell had evidently modelled his mind before the death of president
Pendleton in 1802; and nearly up to that period Marshall and Wickham
were the leaders of the Virginia bar. His reverence for Pendleton was
something more than a shadow. It was, as also in the case of Wythe, a
deep-seated, ever-living and glowing principle. He loved those two
illustrious judges with a warmth of veneration blended with affection
which he never felt for any human being after they were laid in their
graves; and he delighted to speak of them. He held Pendleton's judicial
talents in the highest respect; and I have heard him say that no man
living but Pendleton could have reconciled the clashing laws passed
during the first twelve years of the commonwealth, and made such just
and satisfactory decisions