The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1878-11-30

and agreeable talker-and with manners formed
by association with the best people of his day-he
was very much more than the average country
gentleman Of the period. He was in no sense a
bon piUant but temperate in his meat and drink,
and though not thrifty could hardly be called ex-
travagant in his personal habits He man
of hobbies and in business of the class who hope to
capture fortune by coup rather than secure her
by the SLOW and sure approaches of a regular
seige. He tried many plans, well enough devised,
which lacked nothing of success except in being
well executed, and there he failed. He had no
capacity for details, and the little things of which
the great heaps mainly composed slipped
through his fingers. The result was total loss
of fortune and an old age of dependence but yet
dependence sweetened by parental affection and
ilial duty, UNNECESSARILY preferable to wealth ac-
cumulated in solitary seifshness and without
sympathy save that which is bought with price.
All his battles of life were over long before [
knew him, and he had become a tenant of the
armchair in the chimney corner where he was the
unfaing source of geniality and cheerfulness.-
His failure-if such life with such an end could
be called failure-left no touch of sourness or
misanthropy. He had, I think the slight and
unconscious trace Of fatalism, which makes some
men feel that their careers have been overrued by
an influence beyond their control, and which by
lessening their sense of personal responsibility ex-
empts them in a great degree from the sting of
self-reproach. They are conscious at least Of good
intentions-they were very far from desiring or
meaning to be what they have turned out-they
would have much preferred to be rich and great
had they only known how. They reason
to blame themselves for what seems to them quite
as much defect of organization as if they had
been born without the usual complement of
bodily members senses. That there are tenn
peraments of this kind there can be no doubt, and
the men who possess them not the worst prac-
teal philosophers of the Very few have per-
haps formulated such theory as here present
on their behalf, even in their secret minds, and
yet have no doubt that careful analysis would
show that it is the chief stone of that much
lauded and little understood quality called chap
piness in adversely"
Mr.. Fitzhugh would probably have disclaimed
any such feeling as 1 have here attributed to him.
He was sincere and jealous churchman and
would perhaps have found in his religious faith
the source of his cheerfulness and peace. It is,
however, unfortunately not to see strenuous
Christian belief accompanied by extremely I'M
pleasant traits of manner and conduct and natur-
ally morose temper is sometimes aggravated rather
than assuaged by theological dOgmas. Whatever
the cause, Mr.. Fitzhugh was most cheerful old
gentleman. Overlooking with recoectiOns and
anecdotes of the past he was neverthe ess keeny
alive to whatever was. passing about him. He
took especial interest in politics and strong
almost violent Jacksonian Woe to the votary
countered him. He would be overwhelmed with
food of fact and argument, showing the corrupt
bargain by which the former made President
and the latter ruined in his future political pros
poets. This seems rather curious ending for one
who in the Revolutionary days was suspected of
too strong an attachment for the mother country
Mr. Fitzhugh used to relate with great elee an en-
counter between himself and Gen. Ridgely of
Hampton, when the latter was a candidate for the
House of Delegates of Maryland. To address a
meeting as "fellow-citizens" days seems
perfectly natural, yet at first it had Il strange
sound and was looked upon by many as an I'm
worthy concession to the clover orders" So when
Rdgely coming it over his "felow- citizens"
pretty strong, Mr.. Fitzhughs disgust was so great
to lead him to exclaim, "Fellow-citixensl How
1 hate such demagogueryr' Quick as lightning
Ridgely retorted, ''Mr Fitzhugh would doubtless
rather hear me say fellowship ects." Of course
this was settler but no one seemed to enjoy the
Joke more than its victim.
That his early leanings were towards the British
flag is probable. His education in England and
inter marriage with the Dulany family might ac-
count for this feeling. But if it existed it
soon departed. He became an ardent admirer of
Gen. Washington, giving his name to his young
est son. A Federalist in politics he hated Tom
Jefferson with hatred to which anything of party
rancor in modern days is but milk and water, and
denounced him an atheist, villain of the deepest
dye The transition from the extreme of FEEDER
alism to the extreme Of Jacksonism (it was not at
first called Democracy was not an uncommon
thing in Maryland politics. fancy, Heath, R.
johnson and many other old Federals took the
same leap. It was accounted for, | believe, by
the fact that John Quincy Adams was regarded as
turn coat from the Federal party and Henry
Clay shared the odium in which he stood by help
ing him to the Presidency. So numbers of the
Federalists out of their grudgc against two lead
ing Democrats supported Andrew Jackson, more
u Democrat and less a statesman than either of
them.
But did not at that time relish Mr.. Fitzhugh's
diatrbes against Clay and Adams as I enjoyed
the "reminiscences of his school-days at Eaton
OF these he had proftted that to his dying day
he could construct Latin hexameters of the regu-
lation pattern with perfect ease. I much in
terested in his account of the "hogging" system
it existed in his day. Under this by immemoral
usage each boy on his entry at college became
sort Of mental to an elder one, bound to edo his
chores"-bring his beer from the ale house, make
his fire and black his boots on pain of becoming
mark for the boot jack. This sort of apprentice
ship, which in due time was exchanged for the
mastery of another boy. was considered wholly
Indispensable to the growth of nascent British
youth into perfect British manhood. 1t was quite
part of the British constitution which no radical
up TO that time had been rash enough to question
Another branch of sound English education at
that day required that carloads of brick rods
should from time to time be brought to head
quarters, where they were duly mounted on
handles nicely turned for that purpose. Students
in this department were prepared by being
"horsed"-that is mounted on the back of n stout
lad with their feet tucked under his arms-sO as
to present the utmost "cogRe Of vantage" to the
learned operating professor. was intensely
gratiied to hear that he had seen Charles James
Fox, the famous English orator, subjected to this
enlightening process after he was great lad of
sixteen. ENDURING ofthe blind old gentleman the
cause for this, he asked in whisper "are any
answered, ''for running after the girls"-another
marked instance where 'the boy was father to the
man."