mired Burke, though himself a jacobin! While he rejoiced in the overthrow of despotism by the French people, he could not fail to perceive that they were better fitted to destroy tyrants than obey the laws; and hastened to learn those lessons of wisdom that fell from the lips of the great master of political philosophy, who, from the few events already transpired, foretold with the clearness of a Hebrew prophet, the wretched end to which they were hastening. We regard this as a most remarkable fact in the history of that young man. The design of Burke was eminently conservative. He saw the consequences of a dissemination of French revolutionary doctrines among the English people; his purpose was to shut out from England what the kings of Europe called the French evil.

With this design, he gives a most beautiful and masterly exposition of the British Constitution, from Magna Charta to the declaration of rights. He calls it an entailed inheritance, derived to us (the people of England) from our forefathers, and to be transmitted to our posterity; as an estate specially belonging to the people of this kingdom--an inheritable crown—an inheritable peerage; and a House of Commons, and a people inheriting privileges, franchises, and liberties from a long line of ancestors.

With the same masterly hand he makes bare the composition of the French National Assembly-the characters that compose it—the few acts they had already performed during a single year; and then predicts, from these elements of calculation, that France will be wholly governed by the agitators in corporations, by societies in the towns formed of directors in assignats, and trustees for the sale of church lands, attorneys, agents, money-jobbers, speculators, and adventurers, composing an ignoble oligarchy, founded on the destruction of the crown, the church, the nobility, and the people. Here end all the deceitful dreams and visions of this equality, and the rights of man. In the Serbonian bog of this base oligarchy, they are all absorbed, sunk, and lost for ever. The present form of the French commonwealth, he says, cannot remain; but before its final settlement it may be obliged to pass, as one of our poets says, "through great varieties of untried being;" and in all its transmigrations to be purified by fire and blood!

It is not surprising that such a book as this should be seized upon by the partisans of England, and held up as a justification of

their doctrine that the British Constitution, with all its corruptions, was the best model of a government the world ever saw; and as a vindication of the abhorrence they had expressed for the doctrines of the French Revolution, and their tendency.

But it is a matter of no little surprise that a mere stripling, a youth of some eighteen or twenty years of age, himself a republican and a jacobin, with an ardent temperament and a lively imagination, should have the independence to ponder over the pages of a book condemned by his associates; the judgment to perceive its value, and the discrimination to leave out that which peculiarly belonged to England or to France, without being inflamed by its arguments, and to appropriate to himself those rich treasures of wisdom to be found in its pages the massive ingots of gold that constitute the greater part of that magnificent monument of human intellect. As we have said, the writings of Edmund Burke are the key to the political opinions of John Randolph.

In after life, as he grew in experience, those opinions became more and more assimilated to the doctrines of his great master.

His position in society, his large hereditary possessions, his pride of ancestry, his veneration for the commonwealth of Virginia, her ancient laws and institutions; his high estimation of the rights of property in the business of legislation,-all conspired to shape his thoughts, and mould them in matters pertaining to domestic polity after the fashion of those who have faith in the old, the longestablished, and the venerable. No one can trace his course in the Virginia Convention, or read his speeches, which had a remarkable influence on the deliberations of that body, without perceiving that his deep and practical wisdom is of the same stamp, and but little inferior to the great Gamaliel at whose feet he was taught.

CHAPTER XII.

YOUTHFUL COMPANIONS.

WE are not to suppose that a youth, in the joyous hours of his dawning faculties, devoted his time, or any great portion of it, to the society of sober statesmen, or to the grave study of political science. Far other were the associates and companions of John Randolph during his residence in the Quaker city, even at that day renowned for its intelligent, polished, gay, and fashionable society.

With occasional visits to Virginia, and a short residence of a few weeks in Williamsburg during the autumn of 1793, Philadelphia, till the spring of 1794, continued to be his place of abode. His companions were Batte, Carter, Epps, Marshall, and Rose of Virginia; Bryan of Georgia, and Rutledge of South Carolina. Most of these were young men of wealth, education, refined manners, high sense of honor, and of noble bearing. John W. Epps afterwards became a leading member of Congress, married the daughter of Mr. Jefferson, and in 1813 was the successful rival of Randolph on the hustings before the people. Joseph Bryan likewise in a short time became a leading character in Georgia, was a member of Congress from that State, and to the day of his untimely death continued to be the bosom friend of the associate of his youth. Most of the others, though unknown to fame, adorned the social sphere in which they moved, and were noble specimens of the unambitious scholar and the gentleman. Thomas Marshall, the brother of the Chief Justice, and father of Thomas Marshall, the late member of Congress, is still living. He is a man of extraordinary powers, and great learning: his wit and genial humor are not to be surpassed. Those who knew them well agree that his natural talents surpass those of his late illustrious brother, the Chief Justice. Robert Rose was a man of genius; he married the sister of Mr. Madison, and might have risen to any station in his profession (which he merely studied as an ornament), in letters, or in politics, that he aspired to; but, like too many in his sphere and station in

society, he lived a life of inglorious ease, and wasted his gifts, like the rose its sweets, on the desert air. With such companions, we may readily suppose there was fun and frolic enough; but nothing low or mean, or vulgar or sordid, in all their intercourse. The correspondence of some of those young men at that period is now before the writer. It is very clear that Randolph was the centre of attraction in that joyous circle of boon companions. And while there can be no doubt that they indulged in all the license allowed at that time to young men of their rank and fortune, yet he passed through that critical period of life without the contamination of a single vice. Though many years afterwards, he said, "I know by fatal experience the fascinations of a town life, how they estrange the mind from its old habits and attachments." Bryan, in February, 1794, wishes him all the happiness that is attendant on virtue and regularity. Again, in speaking of one of their companions, to whom Randolph had become strongly attached, he expresses a hope that he may prove worthy of the friendship,-" possessing as you do," says he, "a considerable knowledge of mankind, your soul would not have knit so firmly to an unworthy object."

Most of those young men were students of medicine. Randolph also attended with them several courses of lectures in anatomy and physiology-sciences that are indispensable not only to a professional, but to a liberal and gentlemanly education. We do not learn, as many have supposed, that he studied law at that time in the office of his relation, Edmund Randolph, the Attorney General. Two years after leaving Philadelphia, Bryan writes that he is rejoiced to hear his friend has serious thoughts of attacking the law. He tells us himself that he never, after Theodorick broke up his regular habits at New-York, devoted himself to any systematic study, except for the few weeks he was in Williamsburg, in the autumn of 1793. So we conclude that he never made the law a matter of serious study, certainly never with the view of making it a profession. In April, 1794, he returned to Virginia. In June he was twentyone years of age, and then took upon himself the management of his patrimonial estates, which were heavily encumbered with a British debt. Matoax was still in the family, but was sold about this time for three thousand pounds sterling, to pay off a part of the above debt. The mansion house has since been burnt, but the same

estate now would not bring three hundred dollars, although it is within three miles of Petersburg.

Richard Randolph, the elder brother, lived at Bizarre, an estate on the Appomatox, about ninety miles above Petersburg. It is near Farmville, but on the opposite side of the river, in Cumberland county. John made his brother's house his home, while his own estate, called Roanoke, lay about thirty miles south on the Roanoke river, in the county of Charlotte.

CHAPTER XIII

RICHARD RANDOLPH.

WITH Richard the reader has already formed some slight acquaintance. In 1789 he married Judith Randolph, the daughter of Thomas Mann Randolph, of Tuckahoe. Judith was a relation in both the direct and collateral lines. Her father, Thomas Mann, was the son of William, who was the son of Thomas of Tuckahoe, the son of William, the first founder of the family in Virginia. Her mother was Anne Cary, the daughter of Mary Cary, who was the daughter of the first Richard of Curles, and the sister of the second Richard

remarkable for her great strength of mind, for her many virtues, and was his of Curles, the grandfather of Richard her husband. This lady was 12+ Richard high accomplishments. Richard was regarded as the most promis grandic tron ing young man in Virginia. His talents were only surpassed by his extraordinary goodness of character.

Let his own grateful acknowledgments to his father-in-law, Judge Tucker, speak for him. "Accept," says he, "once more, my beloved father, the warmest effusions of a heart that knows but one tie superior to that which binds him to the best of parental friends. When I look back to those times wherein I was occupied in forming my mind for the reception of professional knowledge, and indeed to whatever period of my life I cast my eyes, something presents itself to remind me of the source whence sprung all my present advantages and happiness. Something continually shows my father to me