Difference between revisions of "Eulogium on the Late Chancellor Wythe"

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Massachusetts Missionary Magazine, 5, no. 1 (June 1807), 10-15.^[1]

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EULOGYM ON THE LATE CHANCELLOR WYTHE, OF VIRGINIA; PRONOUNCED BY A GENTLEMAN OF THE BAR BEFORE A RESPECTABLE AUDIENCE IN THE WESTERN PART OF VIRGINIA—JULY, 1806.

(Extracted from the Informant.)

Fellow citizens,

I RISE on this solemn occasion with dissidence, when I reflect on the dignity of the character to be spoken of, and the feeble abilities of the speaker. I have, however, one consolation, when I reflect that this respectable audience is prepared to view the character about to be exhibited, with attention and a fond remembrance. Among the dead no rival is to be found, nor can posthumous celebrity in any degree oppose the professional advancement of the living. By thus paying a just tribute of respect to the memory of the illustrious dead, we hold up their conduct to the imitation of the living, and excite a generous wish to emulate their virtues.

Permit me then to hold up to your view the character of the late venerable Chancellor of Virginia. This illustrious man was born in the year 1726, fifty years anterior to the commencement of the American Independence. It is to be regretted, that this remote part of the State furnishes but few documents from which to collect information relating to the first 50 years of his life. But it may be presumed that the one half, perhaps more, of that peri-

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od was spent in the laborious avocation of a lawyer, whose eminence at the bar introduced him early into a weight and pressure of business under which alone a mind of ordinary capacity might have sunk. But such was his indefatigable industry, such the strength of his intellect, that we find him during this period acquiring a stock of ancient literature rarely to be met with. His knowledge of the ancient languages was critically correct. The poetical and philosophical productions of antiquity in their original dress, were to him familiar; whilst modern meritorious performances did not elude his researches. At the verge of old age, he for the first time turned his attention to the study of the Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, in which, notwithstanding the period of life and increasing weight of business, he progressed with his usual rapidity. And the science of demonstration became ever afterward the favourite amusement of the few leisure hours, which the official duties of the public station he filled, afforded him.

But while viewing his literary attainments, and before we enter on the more important occurrences of his life, it is not amiss to drop a few remarks on the private character, as a man and a citizen. And here give me leave to observe, that even in his juvenile years he seems to have had but little taste for what is termed amusements. These, generally speaking, were beneath the exalted sphere in which his thoughts were taught to range. He did, what every young attorney ought to do—he made the best authors his most intimate companions, his books his principal amusement.

With respect to morality, he did not think it enough to be negatively good, to do no harm—but he rightly conceived, that man was placed in a state of society for the purpose of being positively virtuous, of doing all possible good. Hence, every hour not beneficially employed was criminally lost. He saw no medium between omitting a good action, when opportunity offered, and the actual commission of evil. Hence his time was not spent in those pursuits which are supposed to be indifferent. He would not engage in what might merely not be condemned; but with an ambition truly laudable, he aimed always to engage in what is useful.

In his habits of life he was strictly temperate: yet he was always fond of the company of a few friends, whose minds were congenial with his own. In the domestic circle his manners were gentle and unassuming. The placid smile of good nature still sat on his countenance, and diffused to all about him the sweets of domestic felicity. He had a peculiar aptitude of giving to conversation not only a pleasing, but a useful and instructive turn; insomuch that few of his acquaintances visited him without going away better informed than when they came.

Mr. Wythe, though in low circumstances when he first approached the bar as a pleader, disdained the office of a barrater. He could not reconcile it to his moral sentiments nor to the honour

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of his profession, to excite litigation, that he might profit by the misfortunes or folly of mankind.

He has been known to return fees, when he found he could render no service, or his client had deceived him by a false statement of the cause. He would decline pleading for a hardened, atrocious criminal; but youth, and the unwary in their first aberrations from the line of rectitude, always attracted his commiseration.

He has been known to shed tears for the degraded state of his country, on account of so many of its inhabitants being held in bondage and thereby administering to the spread of licentiousness, rather than that of valour and patriotism; which caused him to look forward with a mournful presentiment for its future destiny, when an odious intermixture might take place; and then instead of being a peculiar people, be a mongrel, feeble race, the derision and scorn of all Europe.

The overreaching schemes of speculators he abhorred: witness his decided opinions given in his elegant and instructive reports. And so fixed was he in this principle, that the persuasive tongues of P. Henry and D. Ross, could not induce him to take a share in the Georgia Mississippi company, or any other of the enormous speculations secretly fabricated in those days. This shows beyond dispute, that he conscientiously observed the golden rule of doing to others as he would be done by; that he was what a celebrated author emphatically terms "the noblest work of God."

But I must hasten to another part of the patriot. The character and talents of Mr. Wythe being such, it is natural for us to suppose, that in a time of threatening danger, he would be called on by his country; and his patriotism being such, it is equally natural to expect that he would cheerfully step forward to defend her injured rights; and such was the fact. When the pride and ambition of England had driven her into a kind of political phrenzy; when she resolved to violate every sacred tie which bound her and her then colonies together; at that interesting period, it is known that Virginia was not among the last to assert her injured rights, and that George Wythe was among the first of her patriotic sons who afforded his services in the civil department, for which he was eminently qualified. Let us now view him as a member, an active, a useful, a leading member of the Congress of 1776; that Congress who had exhausted all schemes of a pacific nature to avert a civil war, and had remonstrated without effect; and who, finding the court of Britain disposed to treat every peaceable effort with contempt, and to add insult to injury, did at length declare the United States of America to be free, sovereign and independent ; a declaration which the parliament of Britain affected to treat with contempt, as an act of temerity ; but which they were well pleased to hear, as it afforded them a pretext to carry into effect those scenes of murder, rapine and desolation, which they had already

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See also

References

1. ↑ Massachusetts Missionary Magazine, 5, no. 1 (June 1807), 10-15.

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