The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1858-10-10

ferring to celebrated personages OF Queen Annes reign
The great disappointment OF bis life 10 have soured
otherwise anabc disposition and driven him tho
great valley but he still retained many Of the most at
tacye traits Of the scholar the gentleman of society,
the courteous gentleman He died in 1882, soon
after the surrender Of CORVALLIS at Yorktown When
he heard of that event he in Winchester II seemed
TO strike him as blow strikes. He laid down the paper
containing the intelligence, beckoned to his old body
servant and leaning his arm, muttercd. 'sTake me
to bed, Joe ii is time for TO die e! He did not long
survive the shock,
ut was indeed time for the old nobleman to retire from
upon which he longer anything but dis
grace defeat modification. The harsh storm of the
oluton beat too violently for his enfeebled the
rude blast made him tremble like yellow leaf the
bough, and when the climax of that hurricane mt York
town came to him, he borne away and disappeared
What days must those have been for hm-the days
ceeding Yorktown What wondrous world of thought
must he have lived inwhat tumut Of memories agi-
tations and regrets He had been born a nobeman,
and had shone at court he dying amid the wds OF
the New World In another age, which had completely
forgotten the days of his youth He had trained young
surveyor, boy OF sixteen, whose curling head his
hand had often been aectionatey laid and now that
boy general-in-chief Of the American armythe
conqueror Of the stout and hardy Cornwallishe prime
agent In humbling the power Of England in America
the Father of his Country That was the boy whom he
had once known7-a splendid figure covered with the
dazzling light Of gloythe object of all cyeshe pride
and joy of great nation and he Thomas Lord Fairfax
Baron of Cameron a noble of the land thus humbed
dying in obscurty and loneliness Truly, it was
time for him to die
But Lord Fairfax cannot be forgotten His influence
the life Of George Washington immense and thus
his is rveed In the Pantheon of history by chains
Of adamant. AS a mere English nobleman he would
long since have passed into oblivion; ordpropretor
Of the Northern Neck and the great tracts beyond the
mountain, his might have fingered for tme--to
10 forgotten, however, in few generations but he was
than English nobleman than lord prorre-
tor of this magnificent principally He the friend of
n xvar at,ad
George Washington. From him Lord Fairfax derives his
importance. The star of his life revoved for time be-
side that august planet and the light thence borrowed
shines in eyes to-day The representative of proud
English is only remembered for his connection with
a Virginia boy.
These two figures moved together side by side here at
'Greenway Court the old and the youth the no.
BILE and the gentlemanthe monarchist and the re-
publican The future to hold strange secrets but
the veil not yet drawn from the face of the great
drama-that drama which, commencing the height Of
Boston, to end amid the of on the banks
of the Chesapeake Let lose sight however of all this
long procession of mighty events of disastrous
and Respondent tiumphs Let see here at Greenway
Court the gray haired noble only and the smiling boy
The old walls to speak Of them. The great ocss
which droop above the roof and fill the airs of spring
with agance sheltered, it may be, from the summer
the bare brow of the young surveyor The old house
slowly crumbes all the sylvan pageant of the past the
baying hounds the rugged borderers the lurking Indian
have,disappeared- the old mansion too will 60 Let
revive the figures of the past while that is possible
The cracked bells in the bellics sound more but
you leave the spot they to ring again merry peal
stern alarm from the haunted land of the far border
past Lord Fairfax strides the green surrounded
by his rude companions in the chasehs deer hounds
to lick his hands and struggle for his rough caresses
and yonder rapidly approaching from beneath the heavy
foliage of the forest weary with long day work. and
glad to get back to the hospble roof you may see the
graceful figure and honest face of young George Wash
mston. ESSEX.