Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1865-11-23

thirteen, he was found competent to take
charge Of mercantile establishment. At
fifteen, his writings win for him public ap-
plause and the aid OF friends. At seven
teen, he addresses with success great pub
lie meeting At eighteen, his anonymous
productions are attributed to some of the
leading men of America. At nineteen, he
has thought out that principle Of govern
ment which.is indellibly associated with bis
name. At twenty. he has not only approx
ed himself a skiliul and courageous soldier,
but he has won the esteem Of the grave and
reserved Washington, and is placed by that
great N an in post Of the closest confidence,
and which really makes him the second
man in the American service. At twenty
three, he has shown that he is master Of
the intricate subject Of finance. At twenty
FIVE, after an active military life that had
allowed no time for study, he is known as q
lawyer Of the first order. at twenty six,
he is distinguished as a member of Con-
gress. At thirty. he takes a leading part
in framing the Constitution Of the United
States. And in his thirty-third year, he
becomes the most extraordinary finance
minister the world has ever seen. He was
statesman, soldier, writer, and orator, and
first in each department and he was as
ready for oil the parts which he filled as if
he had been long and studiously trained for
each Of them by the best of instructors.
When Mr. Webster SO happily compared
the instantaseousness and perfection of bis
financial system to ''the tabled birth Of
Minerva" he did but alude to what is to
be remarked of all Hamilton's works. All
that he did was perfect, aud no one seems
to have been aware of his power until be
kaI III IL al C. r a.
Such mbination of precocity and YER
satility stands quite unparalleled, Octaviua,
William the Third, Henry St. John,
Charles James Fox, and William Pitt the
younger, all showed various powers at early
periods of their lives; but not one of them
was the equal of Hamilton 10 respect to
early maturity Of intellect, or in ability to
command success in every department to
which he turned his attention. The his.
torica character of whom he most reminds
US is the elder Africanus. In the early de-
velopment of his faculties, in his self reliant
spirit, ia his patriotism, in his kingliness of
mind, in his personal purity, in his gencr-
osity of thought and Of action, and in the
fear and envy that he excited in inferior
minds, he was repetition of the most ma
jestic of all the Romans. But unlike the
Roman soldier-statesman, be did net de-
sert the land he had saved, but which had
proved ungrateful /; and the grave only was
to be his Li.ernum. He died at not far
from the same age as that to which Afri-
canus reached. In comparing him with
certain other men who achieved fame early,
it should be remembered that they all we're
regularly prepared for public life, and were
born to it as to an inheritance whereas he,
though Of pstrician blood, was possessed of
no advantages of fortune, and had to fight
the battle of life while fighting the battles
of the nation.
Mr.. Hazewell says Hamilton wrote the
celebrated Farewell Address of President
Washington.