, 1872-12-29

sfcdt sf his log hut ,onnd5 d5nkinf out ,;eat. Of
fame n medley Of havoc, which Writ utterly
failed to unrayel, was still the wearer of dia-
mond ring, and lives in the verse of Byron as
% the forest Demosthenes. But then, how did
Demosthenes live? Jefferson remembered Pat
rick Henry as serving liquor at bar, coarse and
fddle-playing, and still the greatest OF all ora
tors. He WIS named denaasogue by thousands
after he contended against the adoption Of the
Constitution, and then supported tire Alien and
and Sedition laws.
TIE SAME OLD COON.
Arc We not dragging to Light in our news
papers what has always been, and which has
not hitherto been hideous, because there was no
biography hints of the modern politician prac-
tising his clarion oratory upon an unsuspecting
time. Or may ones convictions and positions
change, both from growth OF experience and
pecuniary temptation, about at the same fortui-
tous moment?
THE PERsHED TTpE OF PUBLIC NAN.
Tho growth Of personal vanity and inGividu-
aliam, which Was due both to Irresponsible mas
tership and to country life, may account for the
peculiar vice Of Virginia public men, who live
in our memory as patriots, but in our Judgment
hardly hold their rank. Yonder is the lesson, in
those old log or clapboarded. houses, low and
half-warmed, whore the public man who had
come back from the affectation of scorning all
Congress indulged in the real scorn OF his con-
stituency, his elaves, and his own mode OF life.
It was reserved for Randolph only-and in that
he 1s Of use to posterity-to be unable to keep
the deluslon to himself, and his letters are
brimful of the accusation that Virginia had al
ready passed her prime. Much land, much negro,
slatternly management, and the vices Of tbs coun-
try-gontry, had ruined the State, we'll nigh, be-
fore the Revolutionary War. The change in the
can read from Randolph's letters: As to State
politics, he does not wish to speak Of them; the
| country was ruined, past redemption, in the
| spirit and character Of the people, rs long ago
| as 1929. Tho Same year, he wrote that the whole
impression south Of the Patapsco was the lin
] gering agony of an exhausted country. Virginia
| was all jobbery, es he said; aud, with all his
| slaves, he wanted money on mortgage. What
| hotel in Virginia is now any worse than this in
the best country, where lie stopped II years ago !?
"Walls black and filthy, bed and furniture Bor-
did, furniture acanty and mean, generally bro
| in short, dirt and discomfort universally
prevail; and, in most private houses, the matter
not mendea No pscas
with melted butter or lard" To
read, also Of all that State-coach riding
from the great estate to Congress, over sdel-
| uged roads that ran like rivers and drowned the
fence-rails, "spongng" upon other gentry for
! entertainment, and hardly distinguishing the
| road from the countryside. Even IS long ago
us 1914, Randolph wrote: ''What spectacle
does our lower country present? Deserted and
dsmantlcd conntry-houses, temples Of the Most
High ruinous and uesolate, the very mansions OF
the dead violated, anil armorial bearings end
epitap shattered to fragments"
THE CURSE OF BROAD ACRES.
II this was the condition Of much Of Virgins
| nearly sixty years ago, We may well conclude
that the Yankees inroad as it was called, took
nothing else away except that which had made
all 30 poor: Slavery. The country, indeed
from Alexandria to Charlotte, North Cs1oina
anything, improved; tobacco is raised
in smaller patches. and with moIt
thrift, What is needed is for some potent spell
like cruel law. to tax the broad estates, anc
break thom them to fragments, like the armoria
tombstones, which were useless to the dead ant
made leaner posterity presuming. Randolph't
mother gave the bad example all the seductive
ness Of her young face and maternal sra,ls wher
she said to him az he rode in boyhood over The
acres of Roanoke ''When you get to be man
johnny, you must not sell your land it is the
first step to ruin for boy TO part with hit
fathers home. Keep your land, and it will keeI
youw
Ho did keep it, selling his negroes instead. i
| kept him, but without roads, towns. inns
schools, neighbors, or improyements,--s lonely
bachelor, seeking, in books, introspection, lone
iness, and the morbid vanity Of a life lived here
but acted before the public, to harmonize tht
condition Of high intellect and mock arlsto
crat and MOCK Democrat.
| TIE LONG FRAUD.
No life can reveal itself at tho highe-t which
is false in all its conditions, nor be intoligibl
things equally developing. Here was pe1so1
in poor health from childhood trying to play tht
l,"ir OF Pocahontas, and be Yorkshire Baronet
a fearless Investigator and disclaimer OF shamB
aud yot u denouncar of froa instincts and gym
pathies; race-horse man and q recluso; al
aristocrat and Democrat; o lover Of his nativ'
soil, and yet the comp1acent toady OF for6ig1
sovereigns. Utterly provincial in his bringing
up, boundless in his self-love, with faculties
wido by noture and acute by disease, John Ran
never carried out; affections fierce aud Unstable
prejudcos which gave way like child's with
travel, and were yet asserted with all the salts
faction OF science; and capacity for public 1tt
| which possessed none Of the patience OF thu
builder, nor the modesty Of the citizen.
In many respects, he deserved Whittier
stanza:
0, never bore his ancient State
truer or brayer!
None trampling with i calr1er scorn
On foreign hate or favor
He knew her faults, yet never stopped
| His proud and manly feeling
| To poor excuses Of the wrong,
! Or moanness Of concealing.
THE HERO IS WORST.
Still, We would not apologize for public mai
nowadays who rose in his stirrups, in the heigh
OF his famo, on q Long Island Iace-course afte
having botted ali his money, to shout thus vrl
carly: I'll bet crop OF niggers on Sir Henry!
We should not associate Southern hospitalit;
with public man who replied to constituent
pleasant address: 'A1r Randolph, passed you
house to-day" "Please continue to do SO, sir !!
We should still consider him very mean Con
grossman who accused door-keeper falsely Q
listening at koy-hole to secret session, il
order to hnvo him turned off, and then breutfet
the man without explanation, as John Randolph
did Vanzandt, merely becauso he WAS al enemy
protege. And we read Of his causeless chastise
ment OF his negroes and wounding their feeling
with no more repugnance than of his sending
his books to England to be bound because hi
Northern countrymen might otherwise get th
job. He showed, in this last respect, equal want Q
nationality and sagacity, because to spite th
Yankee by mourning greater cost was only t
increase the relative poverty Of the South IN tn