Page:Republican Court by Rufus Griswold.djvu/88

onward in a career of folly and dissipation. The force of his character, however, may be appreciated from the fact that he did, at last, what very few under similar circumstances would or could have done. After nine years of dissipation, he reformed, and became a man of exemplary sobriety and steadiness. Lamenting most deeply the time irrecoverably lost by his folly and sin, and deploring, at that late period, the want of that learning which he might have acquired during those misspent years, he resolved to redeem the future, and from that hour devoted himself with untiring industry to study. He taught himself Greek, and choosing the profession of jurisprudence, became profoundly versed in both the common and civil law, and thoroughly learned in the statute law of both Great Britain and Virginia. No longer a thoughtless, dissipated youth, he was respected, as a wise, sedate, and upright man, of marked ability, and eminently worthy of the confidence of his countrymen; nor was it long before he stood at the very head of the Virginia bar. When the troubles with the mother country first began, he stood forth boldly, and encouraged, if indeed he did not originate, the first movements of opposition in Virginia. He was the fearless champion of liberty, and was among the earliest to enrol himself in the ranks of her volunteers. His influence and example undoubtedly did very much to inspire the people. Before the war actually commenced he was a member of the Virginia legislature, and speaker of that body. He was sent in 1775 to the Congress at Philadelphia, and was one of those who, in 1776, put their names to the Declaration of Independence. He is now Chancellor of Virginia, and it may be doubted whether, in this house, there is a purer or a wiser man. His now long continued habits of strict temperance and regularity of life have given him, as you see, a healthy old age, and one cannot look without lingering on his manly and expressive features.