was, by ephemeral causes, and that the present wealth of our
people immeasurably surpasses the wealth of the past.

Whatever may have been the rate of legal compensation in 1802, some
description of the leading members of the bar of that day is
indispensable to the canvas, of which Mr. Tazewell is the principal
figure. Besides Hyott, who lived in the retired mansion in which our
venerable fellow-citizen, John Southgate, now resides, and whose name
has long been extinct, and Marsh, who studied in the famous law school
of Judge Reeves, at Lichfield, where Calhoun was initiated in the
mysteries of the law, who built that handsome wooden house in the
fields, long since burned down, in which the youth of my day were
flogged through the rudiments of Ruddiman, and whose sons are among the
enterprising merchants and sea-captains of our modern city, was, first
and foremost, General THOMAS MATHEWS. There he stands, with the figure
of Apollo and with the spirit of Mars, clad in the blue and buff of the
revolution, wearing that sword which he had worn through the struggle
with the mother country, his well-powdered head surmounted by the old
cocked hat which he had worn when driven from Fort Nelson by the
myrmidons of his British namesake, and at the siege of York, and with
that long queue, the dressing of which was the no mean labor of the
toilet of that era. To his dying day, which happened on the eve of the
late war with Great Britain, though a general of brigade, on all stated
musters he appeared in the field in full uniform, and was greeted by old
and young with applause. He was a native of St. Kitts, left the island
before the revolution, performed his part gallantly through the entire
contest for independence, and had long been a member of the House of
Delegates, of which he was again and again elected speaker, performing
the duties of the chair with a dignity, firmness, and grace still
freshly remembered, and bequeathing his name to a beautiful county
overlooking the waters of the Chesapeake, which it still bears. He
served in the assembly at a memorable period. The questions of the age
were to be settled. He recorded his name in favor of the bill
establishing religious freedom, where it will shine for ever. He voted
for the resolution convoking the meeting at Annapolis, which was the
seminal germ of the present federal constitution. He voted to send
delegates to the Federal Convention, which formed the present federal
const