W WILLIAM WIRT (1772-1834) ILLIAM WIRT, lawyer, orator, and author, celebrated for his prosecution of Aaron Burr, for his 'Life of Patrick Henry,' and for his essays and addresses, was born at Bladensburg, Maryland, November 8th, 1772, and educated there in the local grammar school and by private tutors. After studying law he settled in Virginia in 1795, beginning his professional career in a village near Charlottesville. Removing to Richmond in 1799, he became clerk of the House of Delegates and Chancellor of the eastern district of Virginia. During this period of his career, he achieved his first literary celebrity as a contributor to the Richmond Enquirer, and as the author of the 'Letters of the British Spy' in the Virginia Argus. In 1807 he assisted at the prosecution of Aaron Burr for treason, and in the same year was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates. Between 1816 and 1829 he served as United States Attorney for Virginia, and for three successive terms as Attorney-General of the United States. During the Masonic agitation of 1832 he allowed the anti-Masonic party to use his name at the head of their Presidential ticket, and the electoral vote of Vermont was cast for him. He died February 18th, 1834. His essays are likely to keep their place as representative of the American literature of his time, but his work of most permanent importance is, no doubt, the Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry.' DEATH OF JEFFERSON AND ADAMS (Peroration of an Address Delivered at Washington, October 19th, 1826) HOSE who surrounded the death-bed of Mr. Jefferson report THOS that in the few short intervals of delirium that occurred, his mind manifestly relapsed to the age of the Revolution. He talked in broken sentences of the committees of safety, and the rest of that great machinery which he imagined to be still in action. One of his exclamations was: "Warn the committee to be on their guard"; and he instantly rose in his bed, with the help of his attendants, and went through the act of writing a hurried note But these intervals were few and short. His reason was almost constantly upon her throne, and the only aspiration he was heard to breathe was the prayer that he might live to see the Fourth of July. When that day came, all that he was heard to whisper was the repeated ejaculation- Nunc Domine dimittas-"Now, Lord, let thy servant depart in peace!" And the prayer of the patriot was heard and answered. The patriarch of Quincy, too, with the same certainty of death before him, prayed only for the protraction of his life to the same day. His prayer was also heard; and when a messenger from the neighboring festivities, unapprised of his danger, was deputed to ask him for the honor of a toast, he showed the object on which his dying eyes were fixed and exclaimed with energy: "Independence forever!» His country first, his country last, his country always! "O save my country-Heaven! he said—and died!" Hitherto, fellow-citizens, the Fourth of July had been celebrated among us, only as the anniversary of our independence, and its votaries had been merely human beings. But at its last recurrence, the great jubilee of the nation- the anniversary, it may well be termed, of the liberty of man,- heaven, itself, mingled visibly in the celebration, and hallowed the day anew by a double apotheosis. Is there one among us to whom this language seems too strong? Let him recall his own feelings, and the objection will vanish. When the report first reached us of the death of the great man whose residence was nearest, who among us was not struck with the circumstance that he should have been removed on the day of his own highest glory? And who, after the first shock of the intelligence had passed, did not feel a thrill of mournful delight at the characteristic beauty of the close of such a life. But while our bosoms were yet swelling with admiration at this singularly beautiful coincidence, when the second report immediately followed of the death of the great sage of Quincy on the same day, I appeal to yourselves,- is there a voice that was not hushed, is there a heart that did not quail, at this close manifestation of the hand of heaven in our affairs? Philosophy, recovered of her surprise, may affect to treat the coincidence as fortuitous. But philosophy herself was mute, at the moment, under the pressure of the feeling that these illustrious men had rather been translated than had died. It is in vain to tell us that men die by thousands every day in the year, all over the world. The wonder is not that two men have died on the same day, but that two such men, after having performed so many and such splendid services in the cause of liberty, after the multitude of other coincidences which seem to have linked their destinies together-after having lived so long together the objects of their country's joint veneration-after having been spared to witness the great triumph of their toils at home-and looked together from Pisgah's top on the sublime effect of that grand impulse which they had given to the same glorious cause throughout the world, should, on this fiftieth anniversary of the day on which they had ushered that cause into light, be both caught up to heaven together, in the midst of their raptures! Is there a being, of heart so obdurate and skeptical, as not to feel the hand and hear the voice of heaven in this wonderful dispensation! And may we not, with reverence, interpret its language? Is it not this? "These are my beloved servants in whom I am well pleased. They have finished the work for which I sent them into the world, and are now called to their reward. Go, ye, and do likewise!" -- One circumstance, alone, remains to be noticed. In a private memorandum found among some other obituary papers and relics of Mr. Jefferson is a suggestion, in case a memorial over him should ever be thought of, that a granite obelisk, of small dimen sions, should be erected, with the following inscription: HERE LIES BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON, Author of the Declaration of Independence, Of the Statutes of Virginia, for Religious Freedom, All the long catalogue of his great and splendid and glorious services reduced to this brief and modest summary! Thus lived and thus died our sainted patriots! May their spirits still continue to hover over their countrymen, inspire all their counsels, and guide them in the same virtuous and noble path! And may that God, in whose hands are the issues of all things, confirm and perpetuate to us the inestimable boon, which through their agency he has bestowed; and make our Columbia the bright exemplar for all the struggling sons of liberty around the globe! |