The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1911-10-17

SoStC SdN SAultinSIN say with
schiller, Il am a poet and more by the
grace Of God, than kings or princes
are. IL earth belongs to them, heaven
Is mine While they are RECALLED at
golden tables. I am Toasted at the table
OF the gods with ambrosia and nee
tar. What matter if poets are beggars
on earth, if they are not possessed of
rlcheS. They should not complain.
Have they not the God-given capital
Of mind and poetry intrusted to them
mat 1t may bear interest to their
works? And though the man must
sometimes hunger, a bountiful repast
awaits the poe on the heights OF
Olympus" The humblest beggar, if
ne VIII but look up can enjoy equally
with the prince, the r~ose-colored tints
of glowing sunsets which our Father
mas emblazoned across the sky.
Randolph was a genius, was elo-
Quent was brilliant, was witty and
could say brighter and more sarcastic
things than any other man. The great
ancestor of the subject of this sketch
was William Randolph. who was born
IN England in 1850. The records Of
Henrico county, Virginia, in which
richmond is situated, show tina he
was clerk of the court in 1878, in 1856
was captain and justice of the peace.
He had nine children. His fifth son,
Richard, married Jane Boiling. a
Observation-Disclosures Of John Rolfe,
an Englishman and the Indian prin-
cess P~ocahontas. John, the youngest
son of Richard, born in 1742. mar
ried in 1859, Frances Bland. On June
z, 1913, their youngest child, John
Randolph, was born. Richard, the
grandfather Of John, in 1742, devised
by will forty thousand acres of the
choicest lands on the James, Appomat-
tox and Roanoke rivers. so our hero
was born an aristocrat. His father
died in 1875, when JOIN was only two
years old. His mother married in
ITS Mr.. ST. George Tucker, Of Ber-
muda, and from this union have
sprung the illustrious Tucker family Of
Virginia, distinguished as eminent jur-
lists, eloquent orators and unsullied
statesmen. So young John was bred
n lived among gentle folk. He had
a hot, fiery temper and at the age Of
five he was known to swoon in a mere
fit of anger and could with difficulty
be restored. A few years after he had
a quarrel with his step-father, who
was a very kind and amiable man.
| When Randolph reached a of ma
turity, he was talking violently
against the justice and policy of the
law which passed estates in failure OF
direct heirs to brothers Of the half
blood, ~whereupon Judge Tucker, his
step-father, remarked, why, Jack.
you ought not to be against that law:
for you know if you were to die with
out issue you would wish your half
brothers to have your estate. Ill
be damned if I do know it, said
Randolph, and from that day he broke
off his relations with the step-father.
This was in 1910, When he was thirty
seven years old and at that ate day
he even threatened to bring sun
against his s~tep-father, who was his
guardian during his minority, charg-
- ~ r~r&h f.o =, - ~ 1 ~ n UtrO
his estate, but his council, who knew
the charge was false, ~dissuaded him
from bringing the suit.
He was an o~nnivorous reader in his
youth, mastering such books as Ara
bian Nights, Shakespeare, Homer, Don
Quixote, PIutarch's Lives, Robinson
Crusoe and others before he was elev-
en- years old He read afterwards
Voltaire. Rosseau, Hume and Gibbon
and imbibed their infidel doctrines.
The more his mother taught him to be
religious, the more p~erverse he was,
and it seems to have been reason
enough for his becoming a vehement
deist. Very early in life he wrote
in his nature manhood. Il imbibed an
absurd prejudice in favor of Mahome-
tanism and it's votaries. The Crescent
had a talismanic effect upon my mag
ination, and I rejOiced in all its trl-
umphs over the cross (Which de'
spised) as I mourned over its defeats
and Mahomet the Second himself dlc
mot more exult than / did when the
Crescent was planted on the dome OF
St. Sophia and the Cathedral OF CON
stantine was converted into a IurklSI
mosque He was as pure a Virginiar
Ouixote as was ever pictured by the
Spanish Cervantes. A man who coulc
use such language and who was the
master Of such ~exuberant rhetorl<
ought to have been a Christian. III:
friendship was strong, at tunes M
emper was a~ffectionate, and theI
harsh and irritable. He was prouc
and intelligent and despised everything
that was mean and contemptlnle
When a student he fought a duel WITT
a fellow student over the p~ronuncia
ton of a word. When about ten YEAR
; old he went to school at Wllilan1souis
Va. At fourteen he went to Prince