corded on the pages of these
volumes. In making up the group, we shall borrow freely from the
limners, beginning with the graphic outline of one of his most devoted
and well-appreciated personal friends, and his first biographer,
Chief-Justice Marshall.

"His manners were rather reserved than free, though they partook nothing
of that dryness and sternness which accompany reserve when carried to
an extreme; and on all proper occasions he could relax sufficiently to
show how highly he was gratified by the charms of conversation and the
pleasures of society. His person and whole deportment exhibited an
unaffected and indescribable dignity, unmingled with haughtiness, of
which all who approached him were sensible; and the attachment of those
who possessed his friendship and enjoyed his intimacy was ardent, but
always respectful. His temper was humane, benevolent, and conciliatory;
but there was a quickness in his sensibility to anything apparently
offensive, which experience had taught him to watch and to correct.

"In the management of his private affairs he exhibited an exact yet
liberal economy. His funds were not prodigally wasted on capricious and
ill-examined schemes, nor refused to beneficial though costly
improvements. They remained, therefore, competent to that expensive
establishment which his reputation, added to a hospitable temper, had in
some measure imposed upon him, and to those donations which real
distress has a right to claim from opulence. He made no pretensions to
that vivacity which fascinates, or to that wit which dazzles, and
frequently imposes on the understanding. More solid than brilliant,
judgment rather than genius constituted the most prominent feature of
his character. Without making ostentatious professions of religion, he
was a sincere believer in the Christian faith, and a truly devout man.

"As a military man, he was brave, enterprising, and cautious. That
malignity which has sought to strip him of all the higher qualities of a
general, has conceded to him personal courage, and a firmness of
resolution which neither dangers nor difficulty could shake. But candor
will allow him other great and valuable endowments. If his military
course does not abound with splendid achievements, it exhibits a series
of judicious measures adapted to circumstances, which probably saved his
country.

"Placed, without having studied the theory or been taught in the school
of experience the practice of war,