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and an author, entering upon a new career of honourable enterprise, surrounded by many blessings, and who now, in the glory of an exulting manhood, with every prize in possession, which his ambition might have coveted, wins our esteem by the genial glow of his domestic affections, and by his wise appreciation of that richest and purest source of human happiness, the simple and natural pleasures of the family home.

MY BELOVED WIFE:

TO MRS. WIRT.

WASHINGTON, D. C., November 13, 1817.

The die is cast,-I have accepted the office. Mr. Monroe and such of the cabinet as he consulted were clearly of opinion that there was no kind of necessity to give up my connection with the foundry. They all assure me that there is nothing in the duties of the office to prevent the general practice of my profession in this place, and attending occasional calls to Baltimore, Philadelphia, or elsewhere. Nothing remains but the quantity of business, and of this I have not been able to get complete information, because of the absence both of the clerk and of Swann. I have been compelled, therefore, to act on such as I could get; and on this, under Heaven's guidance and support, I have no doubt of bettering the situation of our dear children by the move. I cannot yet say when I will return: -in a day or two I shall be able. I write this with flying fingers, having just returned from a consultation with the President, and finding the mail hour arriving. So, love and kisses to our blessed children; and may God of his infinite mercy follow with his blessing what I have done for them in this decision.

Your own,

WM. WIRT.

TO MRS. WIRT.

MY BEST BELOVED:

WASHINGTON, D. C., November 17, 1817.

I have just returned from paying and returning a round of official and ceremonious visits,-a business, you know, of all others, the most congenial with my temper and habits!-I set out at ten o'clock; it is now one. I have been to the President's, the Secretary of State's,

*This has reference to an interest which Mr. W. had in some iron-works in Virginia, which probably had some government contracts to fulfil.

the Secretary of the Treasury's, the acting Secretary of War's, the British Minister's, the British Consul's and Secretary of Legation's, Commodore Decatur's, &c., &c. How do you think you will stand all this?

And yet you will have to go through it all; ay, and more too. Why that sigh? It is nothing when you get used to it. Bagot is a prime fellow, and his wife is another. You will like them. Our dear children will like the old Abbé Correa; and our dear E- will like Com. Decatur. Robert will like the Indian chiefs; poor Lwill like nothing, and want to go back to Richmond; the others will like being in a new place where they will have elbow room enough to play at large; and I will love you all, and be as happy as the day is long, if my profession succeeds.

WM. WIRT.

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I have just received your favour of the 18th, and have told Mr. Baily that I am off. I shall either rent or purchase, as I find best, since you leave me at large. You know I came on with the expectation of staying two or three weeks, if I should accept, in order to throw off from the office the load of business which had accumulated since Mr. Rush's resignation. This I am doing as industriously as I can, and when done, I shall, as you suggest, come to Richmond and stay some weeks to arrange my business there. I am extremely anxious to get my family on before the steamboats are stopped by the ice, for the roads are horrible in the winter. As to my living separate from them, I would die first. I fear you are suffering yourself to be made melancholy by this change of residence; but if you are opposed to it, why did you not tell me so? I thought the proposal had your approbation, and that you even preferred my acceptance. If you have changed your mind, (as you did in the Kentucky case,) I live but for your happiness, and will lay down the office without hesitation. It would, indeed, be extremely fickle and undignified, and I should be lashed for it in those prints which are now ringing my praises here in full chorus; but I would rather be lashed to the very bone than to see you unhappy.

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The newspapers seem to be trying what ballast I have on board. I am quite ashamed of the magnificent eulogies which they are sounding here on my talents, accomplishments, and all that; and in Philadelphia, the rapturous encomiums which they are bestowing on my book. But they have not yet unsettled the trim of my wherry; nor will they, if I know myself. I keep as steady as possible, in the expectation of a counterblast; for the praise is too high to last, and,

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I know, much more than is deserved. All these things settle, at last, to their proper grade — too high to-day, too low to-morrow; but, like the vibration of a well-poised needle drawn aside from its polar direction and then let go, however it may swing backwards and forwards for a while, it points right at last.

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Give my love to L

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I enclose her a curiosity. Let her and the wall, and she will see on the wall Incledon, the celebrated singer from the now here. I have heard him sing. I would not -'s Savoyard for his whole collection. Yet he sings

hold it between a candle
the head of our Saviour.
London stage, is
give Maria M-
well, for a man.

CHAPTER II.

1818.

WM. WIRT.

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PUBLICATION OF THE SKETCHES OF PATRICK HENRY. ITS RECEPTION. CHARACTER OF THE WORK. UNFRIENDLY COM< MENTS OF THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. NOTICE OF THIS CRITICISM. REPUBLICATION OF NOVANGLUS AND MASSACHU、 SETTENSIS BY MR. ADAMS, WITH SOME REFERENCE TO THE SKETCHES. CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN MR. ADAMS AND MR.

WIRT.

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THE Sketches of the Life of Patrick Henry were well received by the public. The newspaper criticism, which immediately followed their appearance, was lavish of encomiums upon the author. His promotion, at the same period, to a post in the Cabinet, we may suppose, did not diminish the zeal of commendation. Congratulations were poured in upon him for the eminent success of his labours, from many quarters; - from true friends who really took pleasure in his prosperity, from the selfish who had favours to ask, and wished to be kept in memory by a distinguished member of the Cabinet, and from those whose nature, without a more special motive, inclined them to pay homage to a rising man. In this multitude there were some judicious and able critics, whose praise came with most grateful savour to the author, and he received their expressions of approbation

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with the joy which belonged to his character. In some of the letters which will be presented in this chapter, we may note the radiant gaiety of heart which these tributes inspired.

First, amongst those who took an early opportunity to speak kindly to the biographer, were Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Adams. "I have to says Mr. Jefferson, in a letter of the 5th of January,

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"for a copy

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your late work, which you have been so kind as to send me, and then to render you double congratulations- first, on the general applause it has so justly received, and next, on the public testimony of esteem for its author, manifested by your late call to the Executive Councils of the Nation. All this I do most heartily.” With Mr. Adams it furnished occasion for a correspondence of some interest, to which we shall presently refer.

The more elaborate criticisms of the Reviews were not so indiscriminate in their praise, as the newspaper press. The notice of the Sketches by the North American Review, -the most prominent and authoritative, at that time, of the periodicals of the United Statescontained mingled commendation and censure, in which the asperity of the latter outweighed the good-will of the former. I will not say that a Boston Review might be expected to deal severely with a work whose aim was to give a conspicuous eminence to the claims of Virginia as the leader of the Revolution, but it is quite natural to suppose that the strenuous assertion of such claims would not be permitted to pass unquestioned in such a quarter, nor be viewed without such a degree of sensitiveness as would be likely to provoke a jealous scrutiny into the merit of the work, and some asperity in pronouncing judgment upon it. That this was exhibited in the Review in question, I think no reader of it, at the present day, would fail to perceive.

The Life of Henry was written under such disadvantages as to give many plausible grounds for this assault. We have seen, in the course of this narrative, how much the author was embarrassed by the nature of his task. Patrick Henry, in the public mind of Virginia, was a beau ideal of all that was marvellous and grand in an orator and a patriot. His fame rested upon a tradition which represented only a great outline of an intellectual giant, touched with but a few misty shadowings of its proportions. There was really nothing tangible to the historian, by which he might draw an accurate picture of the man,

and bring his greatness to the test of that measurement with which curious and reluctant disputants of his renown would be alone content. There is a remarkable paucity of material extant for his biography. Separating him from the history of the State in which he lived, and of the time, -the public affairs in which he was called to act, — all that is positively and distinctively known of him may be told in a few pages. He was an orator, and yet no perfect speech of his survives. He was a statesman, with but a limited record of his public acts. He was a lawyer, but far from being skilled in the lore of his profession. He was a wise and acute observer of mankind, a philosopher, a deep and original thinker, yet not a paper has he left behind him to preserve the treasures of a mind which teemed with instruction and beauty. The rich fruit, as it ripened, fell to earth ungarnered, and gave back its subtle essence to the atmosphere in which it had been engendered-posterity nothing the gainer from its prodigal affluence. An undefined remembrance of great power, only, survived.

When Wirt essayed the task to gather up the remnants of Henry's history, he had no conception how small the stores would prove to be to which he might resort; how difficult of access, even, that scant fund of information which was extant. For twelve years, employing in his pursuit such intervals of leisure as his profession afforded, he devoted himself with more or less diligence to the collection of his materials. We have seen, in his letters during this period, what were his labours, his resources and his disappointments. The actual literary workmanship upon the book might have been easily accomplished in ninety days. This repetition of ineffectual search, this long dwelling upon small incidents, this appeal to the memory of survivors, to the aid of friends, and to floating traditions, gave an inexpressible weariness to his task, and he was left, at last, for the delineation of the highest and most attractive points in the picture of his hero, to the vague resources of a popular memory, conversant only in the exaggerations which the marvel-loving minds of the people had created to invest their idol with incredible perfections. The author of the biography had no easy duty to perform, in reducing the tone of these pictures so as to bring them within the bounds of probability. He is censured that he has not always been successful in doing this. We may concede something to the truth of this charge.

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