The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1873-01-04

faiied to unrayel, was still the wearcr OF a
diamond ring, and lives in the verse OF
Byron as "the forest Demo>thenes." But,
then, how did Demosthenes live? Jefferson
remembered Patrick Henry as serving liquor
at the bar, coarse and fiddle. playing, and still
the greatest Of ali orators. He was named a
dcmagogue by thousands after he commended
against the adoption of the Constitution. and
| then supported the alien and scdtion laws.
THE SANE OLD coon.
Are we not dragging to light in our news
! papers what has always been. and which has
| not hitherto been llidcous, because there was
! no press TO show ity Patrick Henry's per-
| sonal biography hints of the modern politi-
c'an practising his clarion oratorv upon an
| unsuspecting time. Or may ones convic-
| tions and positions change, both from growth
OF experience and pecriniarv temptation.
about ut the same tortuitous moment?
THE rERlsHED TYPE OF PUBLIC MEN.
The growth of personal vanity and indi-
ridualism. which was due both TO irrespor-
sible mastership and to country life, may ac-
| count for the peculiar vice of Virginia public
| men, who live in our memory a> PATRIOTS,
| but iii our Judgment hardly hold their rank.
| Wonder is the lesson in those old log or clap
boarded houses, low and haif.walmcd, where
| the public man who had come back from tie
atlcctaton Of Scorning all Congress INDUCED
in the real Scorn Of his constituency, his
slaves, and his own mode of life. 1t was
reserved for Randolph only---and in that he
| is of use to poStcrty-tO be unable to keep
the dclusion to himself and his letters are
brimful Of the accusation that Virginia had
| already passed her prime. Much Land, much
negro, Slatternly management. and the vices
of the country gentry had ruined The State
well nigh before the Revolutionary War
| The change in 1872 is. if anything, for the
| better, as any ole can read from Randolp!iS
letters. As to State politics, he doe not
wish to speak Of them; the country Was
ruined, past redemption, as long ago as 1879.
| The same Year he wrote that the whole ia
preston south Of the PataDsco was the lin
gering agony Of al exhausted country.
Virginia was all iiobbcry. as he said and
with all his slaves, he wanted money oil
mortgage. What hotel in Virginia is now
any worse than this in the best country, where
he stopped forty-iwo ycarSago? "WalS black
and filthy, bed and furniture sordid. furniture
Scanty and mean, generally broken in short,
| dirt and discontinue universally prevail :
and in most private houses the matter is not
mended. No milk, biscuit half cooked,
everything animal and vegetable sIlcarci
| with melted butter or lard 70 read also
of all that Statc-coach riding from The great
estate to Congress over 'dclugcd roads that
ran like rivers and drowned the oycr-stiluu-
lation" of the servants. over jotin% fence
rails, "sponging" upon other gentry for CHI
tertanmcnt, and hardly distinguishing the
road from the countryside. Even rs long
| ago as 1914 Randolph wrote: "What spec
tacle does our lower country present? De-
serted and diSmanticd c0untry-holiScs, tenn
! pies OF the Most High runous and dcsolae.
The very mansions Of the dead violated, and
armorial bearings and cpitapll-stones shat
tered to fragments"
THE CURSE OF BROAD ACRES.
| II this was the condition of much of Viz
| gimiI nearly sixty years ago. we may well
conclude that the Yankees inroad as it was
called, took nothing else away except that
which made all so p0or--slavry. The coun-
| try, indeed, from Alexandria to Charlotte,
| \. Ca distance Of above 400 m!es-is.
if anything, improved; tobacco is raised in
smaller patches and with more thrift. What
is needed is for some potent spell, ikea cruel
| law, to tax the broad estates, and break
| them to fragments like the arnloriai tomb
stones, which were Useless to the dead and
made 4 leaner posterity presuming. Ran
dolph's mother gave the bad example all the
Scductivcness Of her young face ANA mater
| nal smile when she said to him az he
rode in boyhood over the acres of Roanoke,
when you get to be Il man, Johnny, you
must not sell your land: il is the first step to
ruin for boy to part with his fathers
home!"
| He did keepit, selling his negroes instead.
| It kept him, but without roads, towns, inns,
schools, nei9hborS. or improvements
lonely bachelor, seeking, in books, intro
specton, Loneliness. and the morbid vanity
OF life lived here, but acted before the pub
| lie to harmoniZc the condition Of Il high in.
tcllcct and mock aristocrat and mock Demo-
crat.
THE LONG FRAUD.
No life can reveal itself ut the highest
which is false in all its conditions, nor be ill.,
telieible which strives to keep several in-
| harmonious things equally developing.
| Here was a person in poor health from child
hood, trying 10 play The heir Of Po"ahnntas,
and he Il y orkshre baronet: fearless inves-
tigator and disclaimer of slams, and yet a de-
uOuncer of free instincts and srmpathies Il
race horse man and reclllSe; ill aristo-
crat and a democrat; Il lover Of his ma
tive soil. and yet the compliment toady of
foreign soveligns. Utterly provincial in his
bringing up, boundless in his sell-Ioye, with
faculties wide by nature and acute by dis
ease, John Randolphs biography hints of
good desires seldom or never carried out:
affections fierce and Unstable; prejudicrs
which gave way like a child'S with travel,
and were yet asserted with all the satisiac-
ton of science; and capacity for public
life which possessed none of the patience
of the builder nor the mode;ty of the citizen.
In many respects he deserved Whitticr's
stanZa:
| 80, never bore his ancient State
A truer son or drawer!
! None trampling with camer Sc0rn
On foreign hate or favor.
He knew her ftnltS, vet never stoo.cd
| His proud and manly feeling
| To poor excuses OF the wrong
Or Incanness Of conccalng.'
TIME MAKES ALL THINGS UNEVEN.
Much Of human differences is to be ba-
lanccd by chronology. Seven luSty genera
tons Of English planters in America were
behind Randolph, and he Yves the product
Of all that man-hold!Ag license, leisure, aud
refining. Behind his more stalwart prede-
ccssor, Patrick Henry, was one generation
of Scottish fatherhood, the beginning Of
line. From Randolph's time to ours is
short space, and living men remember him;
but behind him goes Genesis he was the
last of the line. The daily life of Virginia
in his day was wholly domestic, aud he had
not even the delights of that, for he wrote;
1.-THE necessity of loving and of being loved
was never felt by the imaginary beings Of
Rousseau and Byron's creation more impe-
sriouay than by myself. have he
come an object Of utter Indifference. My
apathy is not natural, but superinduced.
| There was volcano, but it is burnt out, and