JOHN RANDOLPH. JOHN RANDOLPH, of Roanoke, one of the most eminent of those scholars, statesmen, and orators, who belong to Virginia, was the third and youngest son of John Randolph and Frances, a daughter of Colonel Theodoric Bland,* of the family bearing that name in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He was born at Cawson's, the seat of his grandfather, near the junction of the Appomatox and James rivers, in Virginia, on the second day of June, 1773. When scarcely three years old his father died, leaving him to the sole care of his excellent mother. By her he was taught to read, and his mind was early imbued with the lessons of religion and duty. "When I could first remember," says he to a friend, "I slept in the same bed with my widowed mother-each night, before putting me to bed, I repeated on my knees before her the Lord's Prayer and the Apostle's Creed-each morning kneeling in the bed I put up my little hands in prayer in the same form. Years have since passed away; I have been a skeptic, a professed scoffer, glorying in my infidelity, and vain of the ingenuity with which I could defend it. Prayer never crossed my mind, but in scorn. I am now conscious that the lessons above mentioned, taught me by my dear and revered mother, are of more value to me than all that I have learned from my preceptors and compeers. On Sunday, I said my catechism, a great part of which at the distance of thirty-five years, I can yet repeat." In September, 1778, Mrs. Randolph married Mr. St. George Tucker, a native of Bermuda, and retired to the family estate of the Randolphs, at Matoax, two miles above Petersburg, where she continued to reside until the time of her death. "A more amiable and exemplary stepfather than Mr. Tucker, could not be found." The instruction of the children, which, since the death of their father, had been acquired at the hands of their mother, was now undertaken by Mr. Tucker. To that object he devoted all the leisure he could command in the midst of his professional duties, and always manifested the deepest interest in the welfare and improvement of his pupils. The extreme youth and delicate constitution of little John at this time rendered his confinement to study impracticable, and he was allowed to follow his own inclinations. But he was not idle. Before he was ten he read Voltaire's History of Charles XII., and the Spectator. "I read Humphrey Clinker, also," he says, in the Letters to Dudley, "that is, Win's and Tabby's Letters with great delight, for I could spell at that age pretty correctly. Reynard, the Fox, came next, I think; then Tales of the Genii and Arabian Nights. This last, and Shakspeare, were my idols. I had read them, with Don Quixote, Gil Blas, Quintus Curtius, Plutarch, Pope's Homer, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver, Tom Jones, Orlando Furioso, and Thomson's Seasons, before I was eleven years of age; also, Goldsmith's Roman History, and an old history *Colonel Bland was an active promoter of the Revolution. When Lord Dunmore, in the spring of 1775, under instructions from England, undertook to disarm the people, by secretly withdrawing the muskets and powder from the magazine in Williamsburg, Colonel Bland was among the first to rouse the country to resistance. As munitions of war were scarce, he, his son Theodoric Bland, junior, and his son-in-law John Randolph, father of the late John of Roanoke, sold forty negroes, and with the money purchased powder for the use of the colony. Endowed with an ample fortune and a manly character, having been for a series of years in succession, lieutenant of the county of Prince George, clerk of the court, and representative in the House of Burgesses, he possessed a commanding influence among the people. His house was the centre of a wide circle of friends and relations, who had pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor, to the cause of independence.-Garland's Life of Randolph. |