LIFE OF WILLIAM WIRT.

CHAPTER I.

1817.

ARGUES HIS SECOND CAUSE IN THE SUPREME COURT.-LETTER OF ADVICE TO GILMER. HIS ANXIETY IN THE COMPOSITION OF THE BIOGRAPHY.LETTERS TO CARR.-THE BIOGRAPHY GOES TO PRESS.-IS PUBLISHED.. LETTER FROM MR. MONROE OFFERING HIM THE POST OF ATTORNEY GENERAL.-ACCEPTS, AND REPAIRS TO WASHINGTON.-LETTERS TO MRS. W.

MR. WIRT had, as yet, argued but one cause in the Supreme Court. Early in this year his professional engagements called him to a second trial in that forum. We shall see in the following letters, upon what occasion and how this effort succeeded. The first of these was written at intervals, before and after his visit to Washington. It is addressed to his young friend Gilmer, and contains, what we have always found in the letters written to him, a kind and instructive lesson composed in the spirit of an affectionate preceptor who took the liveliest concern in the advancement and success of his pupil. Like the others to the same correspondent, it pours forth that wholesome counsel which may be read with profit by every professional student. What is given below are but some extracts from this letter. It refers, in part, to the expected publication of the biography, which was now ready for the press, and the opinion of "The honorable Thomas" (a jocular allusion to Mr. Jefferson,) upon the subject; and, in part, to the personal concerns of him to whom it was writThere is, besides, a short reference to the trial in the VOL. 2-2

ten.

Supreme Court, which had taken place before the writer had found sufficient leisure to conclude his epistle. Notwithstanding the brevity of this reference, the reader will not fail to perceive, after the perusal of the two letters which succeed this, that the speech in the great national tribunal was not so cursorily dismissed, from any insensibility to the impression it may have made. There is apparent in all Wirt's professional and literary exhibitions at this period of his life,—and indeed, it may be said to have been characteristic of his temperament throughout his whole career, a nervous impressibility to the opinions of the public in regard to his own merits and the success of his endeavors; which, as it sprang from the eagerness of his desire to satisfy his own high estimate of what he deemed the excellences of his art, manifests not only the strength of his ambition, but, even more conspicuously, the simplicity of his character. He indulges, with the exultation of a boy, in the accomplishment of a feat of intellect; speaks of his triumphs with that glad temper of youth which fears nothing from the censoriousness of the world, which conceals no natural emotion of the heart, and which disarms envy and even challenges admiration by the frank and joyous tone with which it seeks applause for the fortunate issue of an honorable endeavor. There are few men of real merit who do not often feel such impulses; but the instances are rare in which such men have not found, even in a short experience of the rivalries of manhood, motive to school their behaviour to a more discreet and guarded subjection, and to restrain themselves from giving way to the expression of those sentiments most natural to their good fortune, lest the world should misconstrue it as weak self-complacency, or an unbecoming vain-glory. The circumspection, in such cases, which is adopted as a guard against the world at large, often begets an habitual reserve even in the intercourse of intimate friendship, and thus the most private correspondence seldom exhibits the exact portraiture and image of the heart. In the letters between Wirt and his friend Carr, we may find an exception to this remark, and we shall read in them the unguarded utterances of a generous and confiding nature, which, as, on the part of the writer, they were above all dissimulation, so, on our part, they should be considered as beyond the pale of critical

censure.

MY DEAR FRANCIS:

TO FRANCIS W. GILMER.

RICHMOND, January 26, 1817.

On my return from Washington about the 10th, after an absence of three weeks, I found, among others, your letter of the 20th ult.; but I found, also, the Court of Appeals and Chancery, both in session, and an accumulation of professional duties which have disabled me from sitting down to answer you until now. I was in the less hurry about it; for, just about the time of my leaving the city, it was rumored that you would be there on a visit, in a few days-and but for those duties which were pressing my return to Richmond, I would have waited your arrival.

As I was saying, however, the impression that you were absent from Winchester on this visit, and were kicking up your heels in Washington, put me at ease about answering your letter until your frolic should be over, and you should so far have forgotten the gaiety of the city, the eloquence of Congress, and the wisdom of the Abbé,* as to be able to relish such plain fare as I could spread before you.

By this time, I presume you have got back, cloyed with these delicacies, and with your natural palate so far restored as to enjoy a dish of bacon and greens, or hog and hominy-saving your highness. So here's at you !-As for Patrick, "By my sowl, says Pat, but you may say that, to the end of the world and after, O!" The public are to be the judges. But I am so far from confident of a favorable sentence, that I am in no hurry for my trial. "On the contrary," (as our President apparent says)I am pretty much of the humor of the Irish culprit-who being asked by the clerk of arraigns, how he would be tried, answered "not at all, at all." As the trial, however, I suppose, must come, I will take a continuance 'till after next summer. The honorable Thomas has given me some flattering encouragement. I can see, however, that he regards my book, rather as panegyric than history, and has put his veto on almost all my favorite passages, as being too poetical for sober narrative-as calculated, indeed, to gratify the young, but to shake the confidence of the aged in the

*The Abbé Correa.

truth of my story. Whether I shall appeal to the people on this head, I shall be better able to judge after the summer vacation of

our courts.

*

Great power of talents, ought always to be allayed by invincible patience, the most indulgent charity, the most boundless benevolence. Omnipotence itself, would be an object only of terror and hatred, but for the divine attributes of mercy and love, with which it is associated among men equal by nature. Superior power of any sort, or from any cause, is borne with impatience; and it requires infinite forbearance and address, on the part of its possessor, to make it tolerable, and much more to make it agreeable to the world.

Hence, the impolicy of brandishing the whip of ridicule and scourge of invective on every occasion, and, indeed, on any occasion. For I cannot conceive the occasion on which a man truly great, would not gain more than he could lose, by the forbearance. Do you smell a rat? or do you perceive that I am aiming one of these strokes at what I have feared may grow into a blemish of your fame? Have you never had occasion to say, with Horace, "sunt quibus nimis videor acer?" Have you learned the god-like wisdom of treating the ignorance, the mistakes, the absurdities of others, with tender respect-or do you put aside a silly opinion, of which the speaker is nevertheless vain, with a contemptuous back of your hand, (as the Scotch Irish say,) or, what is worse, with an exposing and poignant sarcasm? I have heard nothing of this kind, and only speak of what I feared would be the case, when you came to be at ease, and felt your power at the bar. Bacon has an essay on the subject of abating the odium of superior talents, which every man who is on the public stage, and who has any pretension to talents, ought to lay to his heart and make the rule of his conduct. There is a trait, too, in the character of the celebrated Hampden, congenial with this purpose, and of such exquisite delicacy, that I have thought of and admired it a thousand times. He was a great parliamentarian, an out-of-door partizan, and an intriguer. rendon says that he managed his operations with so much address, that, instead of betraying his drift to the person with whom he spoke, he seemed to have come merely for the purpose of delib

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eration, and of giving instruction how he was himself to vote and act; but, in the course of these deliberations, he would throw in, as if casually, the thoughts which seemed for the first time to be occurring to him, with so much skill of position, and at the same time, with such an apparent destitution of art, as to leave the person with whom he spoke, to suggest the very measure he himself wished, and imagine too, that he was suggesting a new thought to Hampden. This savors, indeed, a good deal of Italian finesse. But it shews the necessity of resorting to address, to abate the odium of high talents, and to manage the vain and weak world which surrounds us, even to their own benefit.

It shews decisively the habitual respect which we should observe even to the silly and impotent, to make them of any use to us, or to themselves. Cultivate universal love, by universal kindness and respect, and reserve your wit for the friends who know your worth-contrary to the common maxim. Break your wit only on your best friends, and that only, in a small company of friends. Above all, never make a man feel ridiculous. It is an injury which it is not in human nature to forget, much less to forgive.

I find, on looking at your letter, that I must preach a little more. Don't think of Congress for ten years to come :-make your fortune first. I am not indeed of the opinion of Crassus or Lucullus, (or whoever it is mentioned in the beginning of Cicero's Offices), that the man who aspires to be the leader of a republic should be able to supply an army by the current revenues of his estate. But he ought to have enough to liberate his mind from all anxiety on that score, and enable him to devote himself, soul and body, to his country. And I take it for granted, of course, that you will not be in such a hurry to make your fortune, as to leave any doubt on your liberality as you go along. If you awaken a prejudice of that sort, you are gone for life. Hence, since you are not to screw for a fortune, you will find ten years short enough to accomplish the object. By that time, too, your mind will have become chastened, (or if you please, chastised,) by experience, and you will see the fallacy of many a fair and beautiful theory that now amuses your fancy. By that time you will have discovered that we are not an agricultural people merely, for we shall have a fleet VOL. 2-2*