ear of the dead, and the tomb shall unveil its bosom, and the old
and the young, the rich and the poor, the statesman who ruled the
destinies of empires, and the peasant whose thoughts never strayed
beyond his daily walk, shall rise together on the Morn of the
Resurrection.

But you rightly deemed that your duty to the memory of your illustrious
brother did not cease at his grave. You knew that, whatever may be the
estimate of the value of the life and services of LITTLETON WALLER
TAZEWELL, it was never denied by his contemporaries that he was endowed
with an extraordinary intellect, and that in popular assemblies, at the
Bar, in the House of Delegates, and in the Senate of the United States,
if he did not--as it was long the common faith in Virginia to believe
that he did--bear away the palm from every competitor, he had few
equals, and hardly in any department in which he chose to appear, a
superior. And you thought that such a life, so intimately connected with
your profession, deserved a special commemoration; that its leading
facts should be recalled to the public mind; and that you might thus not
only refresh your own recollections by the lessons presented by so
remarkable a career, but hand down, if possible, whatever of instruction
and encouragement and delight those lessons may contain, for the eye of
those who are to succeed you. Your only error--and I speak from the
heart--is in the hands to which you have confided the task.

The time for performing this duty has arrived; and I rejoice to see
associated with you the Mayor and the Recorder of the City, the
gentlemen of the Common and Select Councils, the officers of the army
and navy, the President, Professors, and Students of William and Mary
College, his venerable _alma mater_, and various public bodies
distinguished by their useful and benevolent purposes. It is meet that
it should be so. At the call of your fathers, gentlemen, he was ever
prompt to render any service in his power; and on two occasions
especially, when important interests affecting Norfolk were in jeopardy,
at great pecuniary sacrifices on his part, he was sent abroad to protect
them. On another occasion, when a foreign fleet was in our waters, he
undertook the errand of your fathers, and performed it with unequalled
success. It was in the service of your fathers that he won his great
reputation as a lawyer; and to them and to you, disregarding the obvious
dictates of personal interest an