rceptibly,
it may be in the office of his grandfather, or of Mr. Wythe, or of Mr.
Wickham, or of the General Court, but some how, somewhere, perhaps drawn
on the instant from the philosophy of the law, he acquired a thorough
knowledge of all the mysteries and learning of a clerk of a court--a
mastery so thorough, that in after years he was consulted by the most
eminent clerks in difficult cases in their calling; and how he not only
mastered that department of knowledge, but studied its mere mechanical
details, and learned that beautiful hand which was conspicuous in all
his writings. Let us recall to them the industry with which he, the
heir-apparent of a fortune, which, however, he never received, pursued
the study of the law; how, by his moral purity, his intelligence, and
his becoming deportment, he won, a mere youth, the confidence and the
intimacy of some of the most distinguished men of that age; and how he
heeded the lessons which he heard from their lips, and imitated the
singular virtues which shone in their lives. Let us recall the fact, so
patent in his life, and so cheering to the young and virtuous of every
land, that moral worth and abilities will ever be promptly recognized by
those true patrons of the age--the People--who took the young Tazewell
in charge, who, at the age of one-and-twenty, sent him to the Assembly,
and who, as soon as he was eligible to a seat in the House of
Representatives, conferred upon him that most distinguished honor in
their gift and placed him in the chair of John Marshall. Let us call the
attention of our young men to the next great step in his life, when,
having obtained the highest political honors which could be conferred on
so young a man, realizing that a competent fortune was the solid basis
of independence moral and political, and that the family hearth was the
true home of human happiness; he let the cup of ambition pass from him,
and devoted himself to the practical business of life. And then let us
unfold before our youth his splendid career at the bar--a career radiant
with genius, marked by untiring industry and fidelity to the interests
confided to his care, brilliant with extraordinary displays of
intellect, upheld by dauntless courage, memorable as well by his
triumphant successes as by the moderation of his fees and by the moral
light which he diffused around him, regarding, as he ever did, rapacity,
extortion, and complicity in evil-doing as the worst of crimes,