's time and of the Georges, many in the
original quarto, and few or none later than the beginning of the
century. Some of the books had a history of their own. There was a copy
of the Lectures on History, which Dr. Priestley had presented to Judge
Tazewell, the father of our subject, in memory of the kindness of the
judge to the author when he was flying from the flames of Birmingham.
The beautiful copy of Wilson's Ornithology with Bonaparte's
continuation, which at the date of its publication was one of the most
elegant issues of the American press, had a singular value in the eyes
of Mr. Tazewell as the bequest of his friend John Wickham, an extract
from the will having been pasted on the fly-leaf of the first volume.

As soon as the visitor fixed his eyes on Mr. Tazewell all else was
forgotten. He was without exception in middle life the most imposing,
and in old age the most venerable person I ever beheld. His height
exceeded six feet; and until recently, whether sitting or standing, he
was commonly erect, and always when in full flow. His head and chest
were on a large scale, and his vast blue eye, which always seemed to
gaze afar, was aptly termed by Wirt an "eye of ocean." In early youth he
was uncommonly handsome. In middle life he was very thin though lithe
and strong, with a face the outline of which is very like that of Lord
Mansfield. But for the last thirty-five years, the period during which I
have been familiar with his person, all those traces of early beauty
which had marked his youthful face, and which in middle life may be seen
in the portrait of Thompson, had disappeared, and he was altogether on
a more developed scale. His stature had become large, his features were
massive, his silver hair fell in ringlets about his neck, and his
bearing was grave, and with strangers, until the ice was broken, almost
stern; and he appeared with a majesty which filled the most careless
spectator with veneration and awe. And when we add to these the
overshadowing reputation universally accorded him, we can readily
imagine the solicitude with which the most eminent of his contemporaries
approached him for the first time. But beneath the cold surface flowed a
warm and cordial current of generous feeling, or, as John Randolph said
to Mercer, "his ice rested on a volcano;" and the firm grasp of the
hand, the ready talk on any topic of the time, the quick illustration
which was so frequently borrowed from some characterist